The Killer Film Analysis

Do all people have to understand the negative consequences of violence at the expense of people’s lives? This is probably how the director of the film “The Killer”, John Woo, wanted to express his personal view on this issue supporting it with stylistic techniques of slow motion, gun battles, music, and multiple transitions like cut action and cutaway. With all these, the morality of the film lies on the importance of brotherhood and loyalty, while blaming the brutal human-led actions. Specifically, the film “the Killer”1 criticizes excessive violence in order to show how two members of opposite social institutions struggle to achieve their own place in the world, which is evident from the homoerotic bonding, rejection of femininity, and allusion

Firstly, the director shows how similar they are. When Jong does his killing job in the restaurant, Jennie becomes an indirect victim. Similarly, when inspector Li shot the gangster in the train, one woman dies from the heart stroke from shock. When Li comes to the restaurant to meet Jennie, initially it seems as if he is imagining Jong to be there because of his desire to meet him. However, there is a shadow of someone’s (presumably Jong’s) walking away. It is used to confuse the audience by providing multiple perceptions. When Li sits in Jong’s house, there is a cutaway technique of exactly similar scenes with music and holding of the cigarette, just changing character of Jong to Li. It suggests that they even think and act in a similar way. In Jennie’s house, they created nicknames to each other as “Shrimp Head”1 and “Ah B”1, which can be generally translated as being small or little. This is symbolic too, because both of them are still small to change the larger social institutions’ rules and traditions. When they shoot together the gangsters, throwing guns and bullets to each other, they become close allies, friends. Thus, in the final scene, when Jong dies, Li hopelessly kills the Wong Hoi. Then he cries because Jong alone was so spiritually close to him, though eventually he dies as well. Simultaneously, the policemen point guns to Li, which is paradoxical because he definitely does not deserve it. Unfortunately, it was a dramatic ending, and the one (Jong) who could help him to stop this excessive violence