The Replacement Killers

By Zentilack

Summary

John Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) is an assassin being compelled to perform three jobs for a Chinese mob boss.  Unable to go through with the final task, he goes on the run.  Seeking a passport to China, John goes to forger Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino).  His betrayal quickly catches up to him, however, and Meg is caught up in his struggle against his former boss.



Expectations Going In

I saw this movie back in 1999 and loved every moment of it.  It was really the first Hong Kong style action shoot 'em up I'd seen, so this became my baseline for subsequent movies in the genre (until I saw Hard Boiled).  So even though I haven't seen it in years, I still have fond memories of it.  I know it won't be as good as I remember it, but I'm hoping that it'll still hold up and provide some good fun.  (Note that I'm watching an old DVD of the original release, not the special edition or director's cut)

The Bad

Let me get a pet-peeve of mine out of the way first.  I'm not against a female character is dressed in something sexy, assuming there's a believable reason for it in the story.  What I hate is when sex is something thrown in just to score some extra points with the audience or to be a selling point.  Unfortunately, this movie is an example of the latter.

Mira Sorvino is a beautiful woman, and when I first saw this movie my teenage mind was pleased with her attire.  There's a scene where we briefly see her in her underwear and I was thoroughly titillated.  As I recall, I even developed a bit of a thing for her that had me looking for other Sorvino movies.

Watching it again now, though, I'm just rolling my eyes.  Underwear scene aside, she spends most of her screen time with her bra clearly visible. She's wearing some sort of cardigan held "closed" only by a single large safety pin.  It's ridiculous.  Also, her character has some of the worst dialogue in the movie.  Most of the time she's okay, but sometimes it's painful.

Michael Rooker, as Detective Zedkov, is a mixed bag.  It's hard to tell if the character was supposed to be an abrasive weirdo who is basically good, or if Rooker's acting just turned him into that.  I remember hating him when I saw this originally, but I find him much easier to accept now in spite of his odd manner.  There was a scene in the police station where he is talking to Meg that I was chuckling all the way through (though I suspect it was meant to be serious).  In later scene outside a movie theater, though, he sold it really well.  Maybe my old prejudice is affecting me, but I think Rooker did more bad than good in this role.

While the action scenes in the movie are sort of the focus, there are a couple of poor choices made that make me scratch my head.  For example, there's a part where Chow Yun-Fat does a pretty simple dodge roll to avoid a hail of gunfire.  While that's fine, normally, he both starts and ends the roll in the open.  Is this a video game?  Does a forward roll make you temporarily invulnerable?  Weird moments like that tend to knock the viewer out of an otherwise great action sequence.

(Nitpick) While I'm thinking about it, what kind of rifle was John using when he was about to do his final assassination?  It was like some weird custom weapon that used a  AR-15 receiver with a stick magazine for small caliber rounds (9mm or .45, maybe?).  It was just so weird looking, and it looks even worse now. (/Nitpick)

From what I understand, part of the story was altered/cut out of the original release, eliminating some character development.  Some bits of John's back-story are apparently removed, as well as the planned ending scene (which wound up altered).  Frankly, I never cared for the way it ended in this version.  It's not bad, really, it just felt like it was missing something (if you see it you'll know what I'm talking about).  I think the special edition gives you the "good end" as a bonus feature, but I'm not sure.

The last thing I want to cover here is the special effects.  Well, one part of them, anyway.  The movie doesn't rely on post-production effects hardly at all, but when it does it looks awful.  The worst offender was at the end when a grenade is fired at a vehicle.  The grenade in flight is obviously fake, but it's only there for a moment, so I'm willing to give it a pass.  The problem is the explosion.  The fire coming off the vehicle looks bad.  Making it worse is the fact that someone is thrown to the ground nearby and the flames are added in right over their head in a close-up shot.  It really looks terrible.

Oh, also there is a part at the very beginning where the police are looking through night vision binoculars.  The green filter on the shot is fine, as it looks like actual night vision.  But then they added this stupid looking reticule in the middle with all these nonsense numbers all around the corners of the screen. What is all that garbage and why is it there?  Are these FUTURE GOGGLES?  It's just unnecessary and kinda dumb.

The Good

The sets are gorgeous.  The characters are moving in real places, and it doesn't feel like a cheap mockup on a sound stage.  Almost every scene takes place somewhere interesting and the cinematography captures it brilliantly. 

Speaking of cinematography, everything is wonderfully shot.  The camera pans smoothly (mostly) and the angles are engaging.  Action shots are solid, with the camera set close enough to feel like you're in the action but far enough away that you can see what the heck is happening.  You always know what is going on, who is fighting who, and where the characters are in relation to each other.  The movie was, thankfully, filmed in the pre-shaky-cam era, so we don't have to worry about that garbage.

The fight choreography is pure Hong Kong action, taking a page directly out of John Woo's playbook (John Woo was a producer on this film, incidentally).  The massive shootouts, combatants who don't stop to have a conversation in the middle of a firefight, and Chow Yun-Fat dual-wielding 9mm handguns are all here.  And they're well done, to boot.  Not the pinnacle of the genre, but still pretty good.

Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directed this movie and did a fine job with it.  Not his best work, but a solid outing for his first big-screen movie.  There was a bit of awkward editing and the occasional, overly cheesy action movie cliché in there, but this was one of Hollywood's early attempts at making this style of film, so I'm pretty forgiving here.

The story is a good one.  Though not particularly complicated, and a bit cheesy at times, it's still pretty compelling.  You want to see John succeed over the bad guys, you want to see the villains get it in the end, you want to see the innocent saved.  John starts out as a man who is willing to sacrifice others to protect his family, but develops into a hero who wants to fight the bigger fight for the sake of others.  It's neat to see him develop through various events in the movie.

The story is tight, with (almost) every moment of every scene there for a purpose.  The story is coherent and flowing, with each scene leading to the next and every scene necessary to the plot.  Is it done perfectly?  No, but it's done well.

One thing that always makes me scratch my head are some of the reviews I see out there.  People constantly state in their analysis that John Lee is some sort of assassin for hire.  Where do they keep coming up with this?  It is explicitly stated in the movie that he is being coerced to do these jobs.  If they can't pick up on this major element of his character, then they're going to misread the whole storyline!

While I harped on Mira Sorvino's character before, she's really not a big hit on the movie's quality.  In fact, she brings surprising depth to a relatively generic character at times.  She's a street-wise woman with her own little niche in the criminal underground.  While this could be played to annoyance, Sorvino makes her seem like she knows that she's a little fish in a big pond, but that she might need to defend herself at any moment.  She's cautious when she meets John Lee, and later she freaks out when she realizes that a big name crime boss wants her dead.  Some of her lines are badly written, and I still think her outfit is stupid, but for the most part she's a good supporting character.  She even gets to kill one of the big bad guys at the end!

Also, this movie has some well known actors for several of the villain roles.  While none of them are really giving their best performances here, it's still great to see Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot) being the evil second-in-command.  Danny Trejo (Heat, Machete, and a couple hundred other things) makes an appearance as one of the assassins hired to kill John.  That guy from every 80's action movie is in it, too!  You know who I'm talking about, you just need a reminder:

See, you know that guy!  (Seriously, his name is Al Leong)

Last thing is actually about the DVD box itself.  The last line of the description on the back cover says:

It's "a seamless fusion of Hong Kong action-adventure style and cool" (The New York Times) that will blow everyone away -- including you!

It seems innocuous enough until you actually read the review that quote is taken from.   The guy hated this movie and the quote is totally out of context!  I just found this out today while doing research for my review and I actually laughed out loud when I realized what they'd done.  I don't know if anyone got sued for this, but it's pretty funny either way.

Final Thoughts

While it's certainly not the best example of the genre, I think The Replacement Killers is a bit underrated by critics.  Not as good as I remember it, but I'd still recommend it.  It's a fun action movie that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence and has some great shootouts.  Mira Sorvino is hot, Chow Yun-Fat is awesome; if that sounds good to you, go check this movie out.  Fans of the genre will find much to like, though it won't win over anyone who already hates action shoot 'em ups.

The Replacement Killers is not available on Instant Netflix, unfortunately.  However, you can find it on Blu-Ray (and DVD) for less than $15 on Amazon.