When he accidentally blinds nightclub singer Sally Yeh on a Triad assignment, hit man Chow Yun-fat takes one last job to make amends and pay for her cornea surgery. Double-crossed and tailed by unshakable cop Danny Lee, Fat sets off on a virtuoso revenge mission. Channeling Alain Delon's elegant mercenary in Melville's Le Samourai, Fat's tormented assassin is always dapper, even sporting black gloves and a flowing white scarf as he pumps lead. A frenzied thriller of outsized emotions and slow-motion massacres, Woo's film famously climaxes in an epic, guns-blazing showdown in a chapel. After apprenticing in low-budget kung-fu films and giving stuntman Jackie Chan his big break as an actor, Woo became a Hong Kong sensation through his comedy work. But it was his first feature with Fat—1986's blockbuster shoot 'em up A Better Tomorrow, produced by Tsui Hark—which made mega-stars of both the director and his leading man. The Killer, boosted by Scorsese and Tarantino, introduced Western audiences to Hong Kong's recharged action cinema and launched the Cantonese "heroic bloodshed" cycle. "One of the most passionate and exhilarating gangster movies ever made."—David Chute.
1989/color/110 min. | Scr/dir: John Woo; w/ Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sally Yeh.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors (62+), students with valid ID.
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