Movie review: John Woo's new 'Killer' still slays

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- John Woo joins the ranks of Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Haneke as among the few directors who have remade their own films. The Killer , on Peacock on Friday, can't equal his groundbreaking Hong Kong classic, but it's still a great John Woo movie.

Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel) is a hitwoman. On her latest job in Paris, she accidentally blinds a singer, Jenn (Diana Silvers).

Sey (Omar Sy), the French cop investigating the murder, ultimately teams up with Zee to stop another group of hitmen from killing Jenn, who could be a witness.

This is the basic plot of the 1989 film. Details are changed and updated.

There's no potential for a cornea transplant for Jenn, as this Killer takes place within a week, so Zee isn't taking more jobs to pay for Jenn's procedure. Zee's protection of Jenn is more out of principle that she shouldn't die just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Chow Yun-fat played the killer in the original, and making Zee a woman just feels inclusive. There are no specific points made about her being a woman. It's just awesome to see Emmanuel do The Killer moves.

Other changes to the plot should not be spoiled, but clearly Woo approved them as the director. If he's going to do the same material in English and French, it need not be the exact same script.

What has not changed is Woo's ability to film actors. It is not only his action scenes, but the way Zee wakes up slowly in a Paris apartment is elegant.

Zee meets her handler (Sam Worthington) in a church with doves flying around. The camera follows his entrance, tracking him across the pews.

Woo's technique inspired Hollywood to copy him when producers couldn't hire him in the '90s. It especially stands out in 2024 when so few mainstream films pay such close attention to staging.

The action is just Woo having fun. Staging sequences in the streets of Paris increases the violent glee when a criminal falls into the Seine after being shot.

Woo includes his trademarks, with Zee and Sey pointing guns at each other in a "Mexican standoff." Zee shoots two guns at once, slides across the floor and jumps through the air while firing.

Zee doesn't only use guns like her Chow Yun-fat counterpart. Her swordplay is just as elegant, and Woo has her bounce over the scenery almost Jackie Chan-style, but murdering people from her vantage point.

There are some slow-motion explosions of human viscera in bullet hits, though in other scenes it looks like Woo adopted the modern convenience of digital bullet hits. Perhaps he found the best of both worlds.

Of course, those church doves fly through the violence, and Woo employs a fast and furious twist on his style in vehicular chases through Paris.

It would be impossible for The Killer to reinvent action in 2024 like 1989, but it is not meant to. Woo was developing a Hollywood remake for years. So it finally comes to fruition in a satisfying way simply for being a new Woo movie.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.