1 of 6 | Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy make “The Killer” weapons. Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 (UPI) — Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy said director John Woo made them look cool in his remake of “The Last Man.” The Killerwhich will air on Peacock on Friday.
The actors recreate Woo’s signature moves, such as extending a gun, firing two weapons simultaneously, and sliding across the floor.
“It’s hard not to look cool when you have two guns and you’re sliding or jumping,” Emmanuel said in a recent Zoom interview with UPI. “It took a lot of practice to get that right.”
Emmanuel said she also learned the “movie magic tricks” to perform these moves. For example, the floor she slid across was slippery so she could slide into the frame.
“For that to happen, the ground has to be slippery,” Emmanuel said.
One action scene used digital effects that Woo didn’t have available in his 1989 Hong Kong original. Emmanuel runs across a row of pews, which are actually a green platform between the pews that can be removed in post-production.
“You still have to run and put your foot on the bench even if you’re standing on a platform,” Emmanuel said. “It might not be a natural way to run.”
The church was an iconic setting in the original film; one that Woo reused in his American film. In the face/outSy said filming a shooting in a church with pigeons flying by made him feel like he was part of history.
“It’s really hard to imagine until you get there,” Sy said. “Then when you get to the church set and see the birds, you think, ‘OK, we’re really here.'”
In the new film, Emmanuel plays Zee, a contract killer who accidentally blinds singer Jenn (Diana Silvers) on her last job. Zee also forms a friendship with French police officer Sey (Sy), who is investigating Zee’s last job.
The actors reinterpret the roles originally played by Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee in Woo’s original. The 1989 film defined the Hong Kong style and caught the attention of Hollywood producers, who eventually hired him for American films starting in 1993. Hard target.
Emmanuel said it was a natural progression to make Chow’s killer a woman.
“There are many very dangerous people in the world,” Emmanuel said. “Of course, some of them are women.”
The difference, Emmanuel said, is that a female killer is less able to overpower men through physical force. Zee can still use firearms, but when none are available, she uses swords and preys on her victim’s sexist assumptions.
In her first murder in the film, Zee hides swords in her evening wear at a club where security is searching her for weapons. She literally dances around her target before revealing her weapons, a dance suggested by Woo, according to Emmanuel.
“It is in a way like a predator circling its prey – and through the dance it disguises the fact that it has very dangerous weapons that are themselves a weapon,” Emmanuel said.
When Sey and Zee first meet, he tries to arrest her, allowing the actors to recreate the famous “The Killer” poster where they point their guns at each other with their arms outstretched.
With this image, Emmanuel showed that it takes some cinematic magic to do this. From certain camera angles, they actually point the guns in different directions to capture the image.
“You have to hold them in a very specific way and they are quite heavy,” Emmanuel said.
Zee and Sey look the same. For most of the film, Zee wears black leather pants. Sey wears wool suits, and both actors agreed that the only downside is wearing these clothes in the Paris summer.
Sey was willing to go through with it because Woo was referring to French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, the star of influential police films such as The red circle, a film that Woo often cites as his favorite and whose re-release Woo introduced in 2003.
“I was so happy to have this outfit and to be a reference to this great actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo,” said Sy. “I loved wearing it.”
Zee and Sey become allies when Zee decides to protect Jenn from more assassins who want to eliminate all witnesses to Zee’s mission. Emmanuel said Zee’s relationship with Jenn is different from Chow’s character.
Chow’s character tries to earn enough money through jobs to pay for a corneal transplant for his Jennie (Sally Yeh). Emmanuel sees Zee more as a sister of Jenn.
Although Zee feels guilty about blinding Jenn, she also wants to help Jenn stay away from the criminal elements that put her in Zee’s path.
“I think she has a future that needs to be saved,” Emmanuel said. “I think the real message is, ‘You don’t have to end up like me.'”
Although Emmanuel said she felt very cool on screen, she admitted that on set she indulged her admiration for John Woo. Emmanuel said that behind the scenes, her demeanor was not as stoic as Zee’s.
“I felt like a nerd,” Emmanuel said. “I was totally excited.”
