The Killer (Simplified Chinese: 喋血双雄; Traditional Chinese: 喋血雙雄; pinyin: Díe xùe shūang xíong; literally: Bloodshed of Two Heroes) is a 1989 Hong Kong thriller starring Chow Yun-Fat as the hitman Jeffrey, Danny Lee as the cop "Little Eagle" and Sally Yeh as the singer Jennie. John Woo directed the film which brought him wide-spread recognition in the West. The film was produced by Tsui Hark. It is considered to be one of the mainstays of the Asian heroic bloodshed genre of action cinema. Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiÇŽntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiÇŽnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Pinyin (拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Chow Yun-Fat Chow Yun-Fat (Chinese: 周潤發; pinyin: ) (born May 18, 1955 on Lamma Island, Hong Kong) is among a handful of internationally recognized screen actors that Hong Kong has ever produced, along with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. ... Sally Yeh (葉蒨文, pinyin: Yè Qiànwén) a. ... John Woo (Chinese: 吳宇森; pinyin: ) (born May 1, 1946 in Guangzhou, China) is a Chinese film director known especially for the ballet-like violence in his movies. ... Tsui Hark (Chinese: 徐克; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsü Ko) (born Tsui Man-kong on January 2, 1951) is a New Wave film director in Hong Kong who is also a highly influential producer, often likened to Steven Spielberg for a similar galvanizing effect on his countrys cinematic scene. ... Heroic Bloodshed, or Hong Kong blood opera, refers to a genre of action film generally originating from Hong Kong revolving around stylised action sequences and common themes such as brotherhood, honor and violence. ... Action movies usually involve a fairly straightforward story of good guys versus bad guys, where most disputes are resolved by using physical force. ...

The Killer is a very popular and well regarded film, not only for its violence, but for its themes of honor, love and friendship, coupled with the religious motifs of salvation, (not uncommon in the heroic bloodshed genre), evoking powerful emotion. The film also asserts a higher morality above the law of man, which makes the cop question his motivations.

A Hollywood remake has been long since in development but various factors have kept it in development hell. ... Development hell is media-industry jargon for a movie or television screenplay (or sometimes just a concept or idea) getting stuck in development and never going into production. ...

The plot is similar to the 1954 Hollywood movie Magnificent Obsession starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. In that movie, Rock plays a playboy who accidentally blinds a young woman, and through newly found Christian ideals and pity – and eventually love – for the blinded woman, he befriends the woman and tries to raise money for an eye operation, all the time not revealing his identify. Magnificent Obsession is a 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. ... Rock Hudson (November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985) was an American actor, famous for his rugged good looks. ... Jane Wyman (born January 4, 1914 - although some reliable sources also give her DOB as January 5, 1917) is an American actress. ...

However, in The Killer, the film revolves around the character of Jeffrey (Chow Yun-Fat), a professional killer whose employers want rid of him for being seen "on the job". Jeffrey himself is based on Alain Delon's character Jef Costello in Le Samouraï, a French film about a stylish, white-gloved assassin who lives by a code of honor. During a hit in the opening act, Jeffrey accidentally blinds a young nightclub singer (Sally Yeh) with the muzzle flash from his pistol. Driven to help the now near-blinded woman by securing money for a sight-saving corneal transplant, he attracts the attention of a cop (Danny Lee) who is investigating his crimes and eventually catches up. After witnessing Jeffrey save a dying girl and learning about Jennie's operation, he realizes arresting this hitman would not set things right. Together they fight the Triads through amazing action sequences which ultimately climax in an explosive shootout at an abandoned church. There, Jeffrey has Eagle swear to donate the hitman's eyes to Jennie if something were to happen to him. Alain Delon Alain Delon (born November 8, 1935) is a French actor, one of the best known outside his native country. ... Le Samourai (meaning The Samurai) is a French crime/drama/thriller directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville in 1967. ... Sally Yeh (葉蒨文, pinyin: Yè Qiànwén) a. ... The cornea is the curved, transparent layer that covers the front part of the eye and protects its inner structures. ... Triad is a collective term that describes many branches of an underground society and organizations based in Hong Kong (and also operating in Mainland China, Macao, and Chinatowns in Europe and North America). ...

The ending is tragic, in that Jeffrey dies, eyes shot out by the Triad boss. Jennie is left crawling for him in the dark, her operation unfulfilled. The boss flees to police custody, but Eagle chases after him, shooting him in cold blood. He realized the law could never give someone like Jeffrey justice, so he acted under his own sense of right and wrong. Tragedy is one of the oldest forms of drama. ...

See also

• Cinema of Hong Kong
• Hong Kong action cinema

The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China and Cinema of Taiwan. ... The traditions of Hong Kong action cinema developed starting in the 1970s are the principal source of the Hong Kong film industrys global fame. ...

External link

• The Killer at the Internet Movie Database