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| The Replacement Killers | |
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 Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino. |
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| Directed by | Antoine Fuqua |
| Produced by | Bernie Brillstein Brad Grey |
| Written by | Ken Sanzel & Amy Tan |
| Starring | Chow Yun Fat Mira Sorvino Michael Rooker Jürgen Prochnow Til Schweiger |
| Music by | Harry Gregson-Williams |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 6 February 1998 (USA) |
| Running time | 87 min. 98 min. (extended version) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $28 million[1] |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Replacement Killers is a 1998 American action film, directed by Antoine Fuqua in his directorial debut. It stars Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino. The film was Chow's American debut, but not his first shot on American soil; he previously appeared in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow 2, which was filmed partially in New York.
The film earned $8 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. and a total of $19.2 million in U.S. box office[2]
An "Extended Edition" DVD of the film with approximately 11 minutes of additional footage was released on April 25, 2006.
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Plot Summary
John Lee (Chow Yun Fat) is a hitman hired by a Chinese Triad boss named Wei (Kenneth Tsang) to kill the 7-year old son of an L.A. cop (Michael Rooker) who killed Wei's son during a shootout. He finds his conscience won't allow him to do it, and the Triad boss Wei responds by threatening Lee's family back in China as well as hiring other hitmen to finish the job of killing the child. Desperate to return and protect his family, Lee turns to forger Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) to provide him with a new passport, but Wei's men track them down and shoot up her office before she can complete the papers. Now Coburn and Lee must outrun both the new hitmen and the police while finding a way to save Lee's family as well as the officer's.
Critical response
Among Rotten Tomatoes critics, only 10 of 28 (36%) rated it "Fresh", though, the website's "Cream of the Crop" reviews were 60% favorable. Roger Ebert, included in the latter group, liked the film's "simplicity of form and its richness of visuals."[3] He continued:
| “ | There's a certain impersonality about the story; Chow and Sorvino don't have long chats between the gunfire. They're in a ballet of Hong Kong action imagery: bodies rolling out of gunshot range, faces frozen in fear, guys toppling off fire escapes, grim lips, the fetishism of firearms, cars shot to pieces, cops that make Dragnet sound talky. The first-time director, Antoine Fuqua, is a veteran of commercials and music videos; with cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister, he gets a sensuous texture onto the screen that makes you feel the roughness of walls, the clamminess of skin, the coldness of guns.
The Replacement Killers is as abstract as a jazz instrumental, and as cool and self-assured. |
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Stephen Holden, in a review for The New York Times, was less impressed, calling it a "seamless fusion of Hong Kong action-adventure style and cool, Los Angeles street chic...that is otherwise devoid of content".[4]
References
- ^ Interview with Chow Yun-Fat from the December 1997 issue of Box Office
- ^ The Replacement Killers from Box Office Mojo
- ^ Chicago Sun-Times Review of The Replacement Killers by Roger Ebert
- ^ Ethical Killer Teams Up With a Gun-Toting Forger, a February 1998 review from The New York Times
External links
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