Rama’s SCREEN

When I was growing up in Asia, there were two main things they often showed on TV: Bollywood movies and Hong-Kong action movies. So I’m basically used to the singing-dancing-cop-romance-drama combo that India has to offer and I’ve been familiar with names like Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Jet Li and friends before some U.S. audiences even got to know them. So apparently, or should I say recently Hollywood Reporter said that they’re going to remake what I think is… one of the best Hong Kong action/thriller movies ever made: THE KILLER. It was a big hit back in 1989, starring the man now known as that Asian Pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

In THE KILLER, Chow Yun Fat was an assassin with a killer instinct like no other. I mean, you just gotta see this movie to actually be impressed by what I just told you.
It’s a bloody tale of loyalty and betrayal. It’s very violent and yet you wouldn’t be able to keep your eyes off of it.
The action sequences are hardcore and the number of dead bad guys are about 120 or so.
It’s like the Asian Scarface.

So the remake plan is to have John H. Lee take on the directing duty. The idea is not to make it better but to make it his own. Now that’s going to be a challenge because the original film is already awesome as it is.
The setting and situation will now be in L.A. but here’s the weird part:… they’re not going to cast any current Hollywood’s leading action man, in fact, they’re thinking of casting a Korean star to play Chow Yun Fat’s role.
Well, I don’t have any objection to this project, I just hope they won’t try too hard to make a copy of the first one because then they might make a bad job at it and screw up the whole thing.
‘The Departed‘ did an excellent job, being a remake of another Hong Kong hit: The Infernal Affairs.
So I guess I’ll give THE KILLER Remake a chance.

Talk about remakes, Hollywood’s thinking about remaking THE KARATE KID and also The Police Academy.
Is that necessary?
What movies would you remake?

Here are some powerhouse scenes from the original THE KILLER

RELATED ARTICLES:

* THE DEPARTED Review
* PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END Review