The Replacement Killers Review
by Tim Voon (stirling AT netlink DOT com DOT au)March 7th, 1998
THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS 1998
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
1 :-( for imitation Woo at its best
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker, Kenneth Tsang, Jurgen Prochnow
Director: AntoineFuqua
Screenplay: Ken Sanzel
This movie is not directed by John Woo, but has Woo written all over it. There are lots of Woo imitators floating about in celluloid land and Antoine Fuqua is one of them. Fortunately, he is one of the better ones. What we have is a mesh of slowed action sequences entangled with rapid gunfire, the poetic stances of action puppets used to riddle each other with passing bullets, whilst dressed in dark traditional overcoats now the trade mark of Hong Kong action movies come to Hollywood. Not to mention the poor lighting, dark sets, gloomy overcast skies and rainy nights with a huge numbers of smoke, steam and wind generators and the resident demolition expert to blow up every available automobile, building and/or anything which stands or which closely resembles such………and all in a single breath!
Excuse the static, but the plot goes - Chow/Sorvino (passports) – Chinese Triad Clash (bullets fly) – Police (too late) – Chow/Sorvino (family talk) – Triad Clash (lots of explosions) – Police (too late again) – Chow/Sorvino (Buddha, family, save boy) – Triad Clash (more bullets and explosions) – Police (Where are they?). Is there a recurring theme somewhere in here?
The first time I saw Chow Yun Fat was 15 years ago – staring in a Cantonese soap opera ‘To Catch Good People in a Net’. This soapie had most people in Hong Kong, Canton and Shang-Hai including all my Aunts tuned to their TV sets every night. If you’ve ever seen a Chinese soapie, you will understand that it is synonymous with the word tragedy. The point of the entire exercise is to bring grief beyond belief and a rainstorm of tears to your eyes. I haven’t seen any of Chow’s movies between now and then, but I can say he hasn’t changed much. Chow’s English isn’t very good and fortunately he is given little to say except for a few monosyllable sentences to express grief, pain or anger. The lack of dialogue from Chow is otherwise adequately compensated by Sorvino, gunfire and loud explosions. Mira Sorvino shows us once again that she is not a babe or actress to be messed with, reprising the tough girl image first seen in MIMIC.
Overall, this movie has some brilliant action sequences, but is otherwise too repetitious for my liking.
Timothy Voon
e-mail: [email protected]
http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon
http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~bouclier/week/movies.html
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