The Killer is a classic action film by John Woo (In the Body of the Enemy, Mission: Impossible II), which premiered in 1989 and starred Chow Yun-fat (Hard boiled, Tiger and Dragon, Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End). Woo returns to direct the remake, now available on Peacock, which stars Nathalie Emmanuel (HBO’s game of ThronesThe Fast Saga) as Zee and Omar Sy (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Jurassic World) as Sey.
Nathalie plays the killer, a skilled assassin who gets into trouble for sparing the life of a young woman.
“That’s how I choose my projects,” Emmanuel tells Nerd Reactor during the film’s red carpet premiere. “I think to myself, ‘This should feel like a challenge.’ I feel like I’m climbing a mountain, and I’m like on a train and I’m working really hard to get to the top, and that’s how I felt with this project. I knew I had to dedicate myself to training. Practice, practice, practice. Yeah, it was an incredible experience. I’m so proud of it.”
Omar Sy plays a police officer in France who is on the hunt for the murderer.
“Nathalie is the killer,” Sy said of his co-star. “She rocked it. She’s incredible. Seeing her with the two guns, all the typical John Woo shots with her, it’s just so special that the movie is bigger than anything else.”
About 15 years ago, John Woo and the creative team began developing the remake. At the time, Woo was reluctant to direct because he had already directed the original film. A writer spoke with producer Lori Tilkin deFelice, and together they pitched the idea of a remake with a female lead. Woo was then attached to direct.
“When we proposed this to John, he thought, ‘I’ve never done this film before. This is the one I want to do,'” recalls deFelice. “And we couldn’t have picked a better project. Because the original film is based on the French film Cruel Intentions, and this is really his love letter to French cinema. So it couldn’t be a more elegant return of this film than to come full circle and shoot it in Paris with a female lead.”
About The Killer (2024)
Summary: In this exciting action thriller, Nathalie plays Emmanuel Zee, a mysterious and notorious assassin known and feared in the Parisian underworld as the “Queen of the Dead.”
But when she is on an assignment from her mysterious mentor and supervisor (Avatar(Sam Worthington) refuses to marry Zee, a blinded young woman (Diana Silvers; Woman, Booksmart) in a Paris nightclub, this decision will tear apart Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator (Omar Sy), and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that puts her on a collision course with her own past.
The cast of the film includes French actors Eric Cantona (The fragile colossus, Elizabeth), Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman, The Kite Runner), Cheky Karyo (Nikita, A very long engagement) and Gregory Montel (Call my agent!, Thirst for life), as well as Angeles Woo (Silent Night, Manhunt) and Aurélia Agel (halo, Black widow).
Based on the 1989 film written and directed by John Woo, The Killer Directed by John Woo from a screenplay by Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential, Mystical River) and the screenwriting team Josh Campbell & Matt Stuecken (10 Cloverfield Street, Knight of the Zodiac) and is produced by Charles Roven pga (Oppenheimer, American hustle and bustle), Alex Gartner pga (Uncharted, Warcraft), John Woo pga and Lori Tilkin deFelice (silent Night). The film’s executive producers are Terence Chang, Mark Gordon, Matt Jackson and Robin Mulcahy Fisichella.
The Killer is now available on Peacock.
