With a fresh reinterpretation of The Killer, John Woo brings in a new action movie star

It’s not unheard of for a director to remake one of his most significant works. But it’s rare that it turns out as well as John Woo’s remake of his classic hitman action film. The murderer.

Michael Haneke took a stab at it with his shot-for-shot English-language remake of his disturbing 1997 metaslasher Funny games. Olivier Assayas recently recreated his 1996 masterpiece Irma Vep in an intriguing but largely less successful HBO show. But with Woo’s new version of The murdererwhich came out on Peacock in late August, the founder of the genre of heroic bloodshed shows that he still has a lot of chops, both as a technical master of the genre and as a creator of new action movie stars.

Woo returns to Hollywood for the first time in 20 years with his 2023 revenge thriller Silent Nightin which a mute protagonist takes on a violent gang. While the film’s silent gimmick and relentless bleakness prevented it from becoming a major success, Woo’s control over action scenes — how they look, sound, and feel — remains unmatched. Even as a die-hard fan of the original The murdererI was excited at the prospect of returning to a more familiar Woo setting with promising new actors in the iconic roles.

As reviewers have been quick to point out, The murderer (2024) does not match the heights of Everest The murderer (1989) — The original is one of the slickest, most atmospheric films of all time, and was one of a group of excellent collaborations between Woo and action star Chow Yun-fat that helped both achieve worldwide fame. Trying to live up to the original Murderer stroke by stroke as Haneke did with Funny games would be a mistake, even for a master like Woo. Instead, Woo uses the bare bones of story and characters to create a new experience, one that feels like a throwback to his double-waving, pigeon-flapping days of yore – but with a fresh new spin on the action.

It is also almost impossible to watch the original film. 1989’s The murderer is not available to rent or stream digitally anywhere; the Criterion Collection version is out of print; the last physical copy released in the U.S. was a 2010 DVD on The Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty label. Woo has sought to release 4K restorations of some of his Hong Kong classics, including The murdererBut says he can’t because he does not own the licensing rights.

Like the original film, this version of The murderer follows a hitman dissatisfied with life. When they accidentally blind a young nightclub singer in a shootout, the chance encounter forges a protective relationship between the killer and the singer, leading to an unlikely alliance between the killer and a police detective. All of the notes are the same, but with a new setting in Paris and new faces — Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones‘ Missandei) is the assassin, now called Zee. Omar Sy (She-wolf) is the detective, Sey. And Diana Silvers (Space Force) is the young singer Jenn.

As you’d expect from a John Woo film, the action scenes are excellent: car chases, hospital shootouts, sword fights, hard stunt falls, the whole Woo experience. They feel suitably dangerous, grand in scale for a streaming film, and a breath of fresh air after the green-screen-heavy action sequences of many modern blockbusters. In one scene, a car flips over after making contact with another car, then runs into a motorcyclist who’s thrown off his bike in anticipation of the impact. The impact between the rolling car and the stuntman is realistic enough that I wondered whether it was a planned part of the shot or an accidental role of the car. But ultimately it doesn’t matter – the effect is heartbreaking and visceral, and I immediately rewound to watch the stunt again.

The shootouts are tense and balletic, with great sound design and gunfire, something that was also a strength in Silent NightThe loud bangs play well with composer Marco Beltrami’s dramatic, atmospheric score, which, like the film, balances romance and excitement with shades of classical orchestration and jazz. And the film is just looks like Great, even though it’s a straight-to-stream production: the colors pop, the city of Paris is bustling with life, and the way Woo moves his camera to follow and emphasize the action is unparalleled.

But perhaps the greatest gift of the new Murderer is the coinage of an action star. Emmanuel has previously excelled in supporting roles in action-oriented universes: Game of Thronesthe Fast and Furious movies, Army of Thieves — but with The murderershe finally gets the chance to be a real action hero. And she makes the most of it.

The fight choreography makes great use of Emmanuel’s dance background — Woo has aptly described her movements as “elegant.” She does a lot of her own stunts in the film. As she told EW, “The way John Woo likes to shoot lends itself to us doing as much of it as possible because of the way his camera moves. He’s often picking up a lot of things and switching between a lot of things, so it has to be pretty hands-on. … I love using my body in that way to tell stories.” Seeing Emmanuel perform intense jumps and somersaults during a fight, only to have the camera linger on her face, so you know she really did that is the kind of exciting stuff that makes great action movies.

The film’s first extended action sequence features both shootouts and hand-to-hand combat, as Zee uses swords and pistols to take out a group of thugs in a nightclub. She arrives at the club in a chic black outfit — scarf, fedora, and a long black coat — and it feels more than a little like a modernized version of the original The murderer Alain Delon’s influence on Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic The Samurai. Zee is immediately drawn to Jenn’s mournful ballad about “living for today,” which Emmanuel subtly communicates with the slightest movement of her eyes. It’s a brief respite for a character who is otherwise constantly scanning rooms, planning for intense violence.

A striking moment in a later sequence finds Emmanuel gliding gracefully through the air, taking out enemies with two pistols in a desecrated church as pigeons fly around her. If that ain’t John Woo, I don’t know what is. But Woo isn’t content with just his old basics — The murderer incorporates judo into the shootouts in a way akin to the John Wick franchise, and the action doesn’t feel like a rehash of Woo’s greatest hits.

Emmanuel excels as Zee outside of the action. The role tasks her with playing many different versions of Zee in her relationships with other characters, and she delivers with layers of expression and emotional subtlety. With her manipulative handler Finn (Sam Worthington), she is completely closed off and robotic—a tool for violence. With singer Jenn, she is tender and protective, like a gentle lover or a big sister. With Sy’s charming detective, she is a playful flirt and rival. It’s not an imitation of Chow’s ultra-cool performance in the 1989 film, but her own spin on the conflicted killer archetype, and the result is a delight. There can never be another Chow Yun-Fat, or another The murderer (1989). But The murderer (2024) has made it clear: There will never be another Nathalie Emmanuel.

Oddly enough, The murderer (2024) is now one of my favorite films of the year for the third year in a row, after David Fincher’s unconventional thriller from 2023 and Choi Jae-hoon’s action film from 2022. While neither of them can match John Woo’s original The murderersome of the best and coolest movies of all time, they’re all still worthy additions to the genre and the title.

John Woo’s 2024 The murderer is now streaming on Peacock.