{"id":57848,"date":"2020-09-01T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary\/"},"modified":"2020-09-01T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T06:17:00","slug":"26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary\/","title":{"rendered":"#26 Things We Learned from \u2018The Killer\u2019 Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23e5645111a\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23e5645111a\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary\/#The_Killer_1989\" >The Killer (1989)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary\/#Best_in_Context-Free_Commentary\" >Best in Context-Free Commentary<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary\/#Final_Thoughts\" >Final Thoughts<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#26 Things We Learned from \u2018The Killer\u2019 Commentary<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Welcome to\u00a0<\/i><b data-stringify-type=\"bold\"><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Commentary Commentary,<\/i><\/b><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter listens to a film writer turned filmmaker talk about someone else\u2019s work which in this case is John Woo\u2019s The Killer.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr>\n<\/hr>\n<p>John Woo has faded from Western eyes in recent years, but for a while there he was delivering some big action hits both at home and in the U.S. 2017\u2019s Manhunt features some crazy action sequences, but the filmmaker\u2019s high point was with <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a> like <strong><em>The Killer<\/em><\/strong> (1989), <em>Hard Boiled<\/em> (1992), <em>Hard Target<\/em> (1993), and <em>Face\/Off<\/em> (1997). It\u2019s that first one that we\u2019re focused on today with a commentary from occasional filmmaker and full-time Hong Kong cinema fan Bey Logan. Keep reading to see what we heard on the commentary track for <em>The Killer<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Killer_1989\"><\/span>The Killer (1989)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Commentator: Bey Logan (Hong Kong cinema expert)<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.<\/strong> The film\u2019s Cantonese title translates out to \u201cbattle blood two heroes,\u201d with the more poetic translation being \u201cTwo heroes battling with the gangsters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.<\/strong> The film was shot in ninety-two days for less than $2 million US.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.<\/strong> Woo has previously acknowledged that the film was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville\u2019s <em>Le Samurai<\/em> (1967) which was in turn inspired by a novel titled <em>The Ronin<\/em> by Joan McLeod. Other inspirations mentioned include Martin Scorsese\u2019s <em>Mean Streets<\/em> (1973), Francois Truffaut\u2019s <em>Jules and Jim<\/em> (1962), and the films of Sam Peckinpah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4.<\/strong> Woo was raised Lutheran Christian and found churches to be a peaceful, comfortable setting while living in Hong Kong. They welcome everyone from saints to sinners, so he felt it reflected the dueling natures of Ah Jong (Chow Yun Fat). Logan once asked him how he reconciled those beliefs with setting the film\u2019s big, bloody finale in a church, and Woo suggested that showing the statues and holy items be shot up by bad guys confirms that good can be confronted by evil. That said, \u201cgood will overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>5.<\/strong> Sally Yeh was a popular singing artist at the time, and along with Anita Mui was considered a pop diva. \u201cThey were like the Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey of Hong Kong of this era.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>6.<\/strong> The church scene where Ah goes to heal from the bullet wound features the first use of Woo\u2019s now signature doves.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7.<\/strong> Jennie\u2019s (Yeh) hospital visit shows a vision of Ah firing his gun while blood fills the screen. It was reportedly inspired by the bloody elevator scene in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s <em>The Shining<\/em> (1980).<\/p>\n<p><strong>8.<\/strong> The film\u2019s score by Lowell Lo uses some incidental music from Walter Hill\u2019s <em>Red Heat<\/em> (1988).<\/p>\n<p><strong>9.<\/strong> While Fat is primarily known to Western audiences as an action star, his career in Hong Kong consisted mostly of romance and comedy films.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10.<\/strong> It was difficult to acquire prop guns in Hong Kong at the time, so all of the weaponry in the film was actually imported from England. Bringing them through customs was <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>arently its own headache.<\/p>\n<p><strong>11.<\/strong> Danny Lee actually trained to be a real police officer, but he found his way into acting \u2014 and his success at playing cops \u2014 instead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>12.<\/strong> Hong Kong\u2019s Dragon Boat festival occurred five months before <em>The Killer<\/em> started filming, so Woo acquired the footage from a documentary and then intercut his own speedboat scenes in alongside. The addition of a couple Dragon Boats hired for the shoot made the illusion complete. Woo wanted some of them to flip over, but the riders were superstitious and refused.<\/p>\n<p><strong>13.<\/strong> The body count in <em>The Killer<\/em> caps out at one hundred and twenty people killed. That number seems low, but I\u2019m taking Logan\u2019s word for it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>14.<\/strong> Logan refers to the signage error \u2014 \u201cScared Heart Hospital\u201d instead of Sacred Heart Hospital \u2014 as being the most famous misprint in action film history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>15.<\/strong> Woo was apparently offered the opportunity to direct a film version of <em>Chicago<\/em> but had to turn it down due to other commitments. His love of musicals is well-documented, so this is a shame.<\/p>\n<p><strong>16.<\/strong> The shootout erupting from Ah\u2019s confrontation with and betrayal by his friend was partly inspired by the end of <em>Taxi Driver<\/em> (1976).<\/p>\n<p><strong>17.<\/strong> Neighbors in the building where this shootout was filmed called the police for the noise disturbance. The cops did nothing once they arrived, so residents threw glasses down on top of them from their windows and balconies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>18.<\/strong> The \u201cface off\u201d shot with Ah and Insp, Li Ying (Lee) pointing their gun at each other\u2019s face was inspired by Mad Magazine\u2019s Spy vs Spy comic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>19.<\/strong> The commentary was recorded in 2002, and even back then there\u2019s mention of rumored US remakes of the film. He mentions supposed remakes with Denzel Washington &#038; Richard Gere and Michelle Yeoh &#038; Sharon Stone. A Hollywood redo is still currently listed on IMDB.<\/p>\n<p><strong>20.<\/strong> Ah shoots a bad guy\u2019s arm off \u2014 it literally separates from his shoulder and falls to the floor \u2014 but it was a mistake with the explosive squib. He\u2019s in the next scene with both arms intact.<\/p>\n<p><strong>21.<\/strong> Fat turned down offers to star in <em>Alien: Resurrection<\/em> (1997) and as Morpheus in <em>The Matrix<\/em> (1999). He chose <em>The Replacement Killers<\/em> (1998) and <em>The Corruptor<\/em> (1999) instead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>22.<\/strong> The scene and subsequent car action where Ah\u2019s partner is killed was partly inspired by <em>The Driver<\/em> (1978).<\/p>\n<p><strong>23.<\/strong> The film passed British censors unscathed except for a single scene \u2014 a brief shot amid a bloody gun fight where Ah stabs a bad guy in the back with a knife \u2014 because unlike guns, \u201cpeople actually have knives in their kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>24.<\/strong> The Hays Code, the precursor to the MPAA which governed movies in the US up until 1968, initially prohibited the appearance of both shooter and victim in the same frame. Logan credits Hong Kong cinema in part with helping shake up American filmmakers into moving beyond that self-restriction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>25.<\/strong> The bloody injury below Fat\u2019s left eye is real and was caused by a squib during the climactic shootout. Rather than go to the hospital, he suggested they keep filming and use it as part of the illusion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>26.<\/strong> Woo initially wanted the ending to show Jennie heading in for surgery to restore her sight only to have Ying appear beside her, but Yeh couldn\u2019t clear her schedule to make time for filming. Woo instead recycled the shot of Ah looking out his window at his beloved church.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Best_in_Context-Free_Commentary\"><\/span>Best in Context-Free Commentary<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cHere\u2019s a <em>Dirty Harry<\/em> moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t sit down and having their cheeseburgers say \u2018Oh I loved the fierce humanity.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlways very hard to find cars and the space to race them in Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe police certainly would have been on the scene by now.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Final_Thoughts\"><\/span>Final Thoughts<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><em>The Killer<\/em> remains a stone-cold masterpiece even with some British guy talking all through it. The visuals, imagery, and kinetic nature of the action scenes are all signature Woo and can\u2019t help but delight the senses. Logan\u2019s commentary shows a man well-prepared as he recounts the histories and filmographies of various actors and crew members while also stopping to comment on several on-screen beats. The information and anecdotes aren\u2019t his, but he shares plenty of them all the same making for an entertaining commentary. The biggest lesson from it all is in regard to the idea and act of inspiration \u2014 multiple movies have copied Woo and <em>The Killer<\/em> over the years, but as the commentary suggests, Woo himself was inspired by movies and filmmakers as well.<\/p>\n<p>Read more Commentary Commentary from the archives.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/dizi.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/the-killer-commentary\/#utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-killer-commentary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#26 Things We Learned from \u2018The Killer\u2019 Commentary&#8221; Welcome to\u00a0Commentary Commentary, where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter listens to a film writer turned filmmaker talk about someone else\u2019s work which in this case is John Woo\u2019s The Killer. John&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[62643,1354,22447,1361,62644],"class_list":["post-57848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-26-things-we-learned-from-the-killer-commentary","tag-columns","tag-commentary-commentary","tag-movies","tag-the-killer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}