John Woo and Omar Sy film a classic for Peacock

When John Woo’s killer film was first released in the USA in 1990, The Killer felt like a shot (or rather, several thousand shots) at the system. With action scenes choreographed like pyrotechnic ballets and an exuberantly romantic take on love and violence that utilizes slow motion, dissolves, and a seemingly endless supply of flying pigeons, Woo’s take on the genre would help transform it over the next decade – whether in blockbusters or in the work of a huge fan like Quentin Tarantino.

The director’s subsequent career, both in Hollywood and in his native Hong Kong, had its highs (Hard boiled, In the face/out) and depths (Paycheck). But everyone who made action films after him still owes him a debt. His best films were poetic fits of style over substance, transforming what was mostly considered a grimy, forgettable B-level genre into a plea for high cinematography, guns and blood included.

The original The Killerin which Chow Yun-Fat plays a hitman who gets dangerously cold feet, was completely over the top, but also perfect in its own way. So why did Woo decide to remake the film in English (and a little French) more than three decades later?

One reason, judging by this well-executed but rather boring Peacock original, may have been the desire to set the story in Paris – and Woo definitely exploits the City of Lights to the fullest here. Not since Tom Cruise visited the French capital in Mission: Impossible: Fallout we’ve seen so many chases, fights and shootouts against so many stunning Parisian backdrops, from the banks of the Seine to all the rooftops that provide perfect vantage points for scenes full of gunfights and mayhem.

As film buffs and Woo fans may know, the city was also the setting for Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 masterpiece Hitman. The Samouraiin which the late Alain Delon played the leading role and which was the main inspiration for the first The Killer. Both Delon and Chow-Yun Fat played impeccably dressed assassins named Jeff (spelled with an “f” in the French film), who is far better at expressing himself with bullets than words and who is on the run from both the local authorities and the villains who hired him.

Woo, this time in collaboration with experienced author Brian Helgeland and 10 Cloverfield Street Writers Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken keep the original template more or less the same, albeit with a few interesting changes. Jeff is now Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), a katana-wielding gunslinger who was plucked from the gutter and turned into a professional assassin at the hands of her overseer, Finn (Sam Worthington, doing his best Irish accent). And the cop pursuing her, Sey (Omar Sy), is a charming tough guy who may have a crush on her, whereas the original was more or less a bromance between two badass guys.

The chemistry between Emmanuel and Sy adds a lot of narrative weight here, while the other plot elements, including a drug heist gone wrong, a corrupt police department and an evil Saudi prince (Saïd Taghmaoui) in charge, feel as trite as they come. (In Woo’s defense, he makes entertaining use of Manchester United striker-turned-actor Eric Cantona, playing a mafia boss with terrible taste in contemporary art.)

Many of these new elements muddy the mechanics of a film that worked best in the first installment, when the plot was kept simple and straightforward. That gave Woo the opportunity to focus almost exclusively on the action, while this version is more talky overall and features many scenes in which Zee grows closer to damsel-in-distress Jenn (Diana Silvers), who spares her during an early bloodbath and then decides to protect her against all odds.

Still, the maestro gets to show off his skills in some memorable action sequences – particularly a hospital scene where the tension is kept very high and the fight choreography (credited to Jérôme Gaspard) is impeccable. There’s also a very over-the-top shootout/chase scene at the beginning along the Seine that grabs our attention from the start.

And yet, compared to the new wave of ultra-stylized action films that John Wick began about a decade ago, this second version of The Killer that feels old. (We should probably also check out David Fincher’s The murderer, another assassination story set in Paris where craftsmanship is more important than the plot.)

Woo got the ball rolling in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but that ball has gotten bigger and faster, more brutal and more technically adept – to the point that it seems to have passed him by now. Even though his new film comes 25 years too late, it’s also a reminder of what made the original so special in its time. Those who manage to discover The Killer This useful remake would make it better to rethink the film that started it all.