Good story, Not enough for a whole film

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Blistering performances.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Antoine Fuqua's The Replacement Killers is one of the most stylish and visually synergistic action flicks ever made. It's like John Woo meets John Wick, and seriously has some cool to it. Chow Yun Fat, that effortless, laid back badass, plays lethal hit-man John Lee, who suffers a crisis of conscience at the worst professional crossroads. When Detective Stan Zedkov (Michael Rooker adds to the noirish feel) kills the son of powerful Chinese crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang), he and his family are marked for death by the syndicate. Lee is employed to take out his young son, but holds back in the last moment, making a split second decision to defy Wei, take a rogue's path and create a huge problem for everyone involved. Now, Wei has replacement killer after not only Lee, but Zedkov again and anyone unlucky enough to get in the way. Lee teams up with sexy identity forger Meg Coburn (love me some Mira Sorvino) and the two evade bullets, bombs and multiple murderous assassins all in the highest of style. Chow is the perfect action hero, with a mournful like ability and stoic streak that's never too serious and always punctuated by his baleful sense of humour. Plus the guy can make bloody magic with two handguns in a career of epic stunt work that is almost as big a feat as that of the characters he plays. Sorvino also has a downbeat energy, adorable self deprecation and tough chick sarcasm that she masquerades with to hide the bruised girl beneath. They are a wonderful team, and I like that the film never outright forced any romance, but rather let the performances subtly suggest it via the absence in the script. Rooker holds up his end with endearing toughness, especially when forced to work alongside Lee and Meg to save their asses, a perfect character arc that he really sells.Jurgen Prochnow is deadly and devilish as Michael Kogan, the only German mercenary I know of that works for a Chinese crime syndicate lol. Danny Trejo and Til Schweiger are hilariously over the top as two silent monster assassins, leather clad death angels hired by Wei to hunt our heroes. The action really steps it up into comic book mode when they show up. Keep any eye out for Frank Medrano, Patrick Kilpatrick and a young Clifton Collins Jr as a street vato named 'Loco'. Epic cast, unmatched visual style, an action gold mine.

John Lee (Yun-Fat Chow) is a skilled killer. Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang) is his boss. He's given a final assignment after which his obligation ends. Corrupt cop Michael Kogan (Jürgen Prochnow) wants fellow cop Zedkov (Michael Rooker) dead, but John can't pull the trigger as he plays with his kid. John needs to get a fake passport to go back to China before Mr Wei takes him out. He uses forger Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino), but Wei's men tracks him down. John is in the wind and Wei brings in other professionals, the Replacement Killers.It's a very superficial action movie in the HongKong style. It's a lot of flash but very little depth. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the style is copied with mixed results. It feels very much like a transplanted movie especially with Chow Yun-Fat's Chinese accent. He's playing an unemotional killer, and quite frankly Mira Sorvino is almost as cold. Antoine isn't experienced enough yet but the style already shows promising signs. This is an exercise in style rather than a compelling story.

I went into this movie expecting heaps of action and I was a little disappointed but if there was any more then there would not have been a reasonable plot. The Replacement Killers is a mix between Hong Kong Cinema and Hollywood. The ending is good but still very Hollywood though the action and the story in a sense is very Hong Kong. The main character, John Lee, is a hired killer that has a special weapon, and that is the hand gun. He doesn't run round with machine guns blowing away villains, nor does he jump into a martial arts extravaganza, but just relies upon his pistols. Thus there are a lot of gunfights in this movie as the police and a criminal organisation try to put down this rogue killer.John Lee is a professional assassin who has been blackmailed by a criminal organisation to kill people for them. The son of the boss, Mr Weing, is killed in a drug bust and Mr Weing decides that he wants the son of the cop who killed his son dead. This is an eye for an eye mentality. The problem arises when John Lee discovers that the person he has to kill is a seven year old boy. Thus he refuses to do the job, angers Mr Weing and is hunted down to be punished.This movie is about style and pride in one's job. John Lee is a killer but there is a line he does not cross. He only kills those that he has been paid to kill and those who are trying to kill him. He is not ruthless, which Mr Weing considers to be a flaw, and will not kill innocent bystanders nor will he kill children. One gets the impression that John Lee did not want to start killing anyway.There are a number of similarities between the Replacement Killers and the Killer. The Killer is far better than the Replacement Killers could ever think of being because Replacement Killers has been dragged down by the Hollywood dream world where as the Killer has no such restriction. One big difference we can see between the two movies is that John Lee is much more in control of his situation. Jeff was continuously on the run and in the end the fight came to him. John Lee began on the run but then took the fight to his enemies and defeated them. Victory was fleeting in the Killer, but victory was absolute in the Replacement Killers.

First time Director Fuqua will go on to make better Movies, much better. Chow-Yun Fat has made Movies, with John Woo, that are Classics. But here is a frustrating attempt to bring Chow to American Audiences and it fails on almost every level.There are more bullets than words in this shallow and derivative Script. The Actors are solely determined and the Movie looks great. The problem is that there are a numbing number of Gunfights that consist of not much more that the firing of Guns with little or no Style.Two fine and engaging Stars and a Director with a future are the only reasons to give this a view, or maybe if you like the sound of steel on steel and the firing of automatic weapons. But be warned, this may put you off the better Movies of the Genre and that includes just about all of them.