The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie Review

Replacing "The Replacement Killers"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 13, 2013

Contrary to the package labeling, Mill Creek's double feature Blu-ray features the 88-minute theatrical release of The Replacement Killers, not the 96-minute "extended cut" first seen on video in 2006. This marks the first appearance on Blu-ray of the version seen in theaters in 1998—and that's a good thing. Although the extended cut added no new sequences or entire scenes, it prolonged or altered numerous moments and substituted alternate takes. The original cut was spare, swift and brutally efficient. Fans who have only seen the film in its longer version may miss the occasional line or gesture, but they owe it to themselves to see how director Antoine Fuqua's feature debut was originally assembled, reportedly amid much tension and debate between Fuqua and the studio.

If for nothing else, The Replacement Killers would be notable as the Hollywood debut of Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat, whose iconic status will always be inseparable from the films he made with John Woo. Screenwriter Ken Sanzel, best known as a writer and producer of the TV series Numb3rs, had written the script for Chazz Palminteri (with whom Sanzel proceeded to make a similarly themed film called Scar City), but the story was retooled once Chow was cast. The mafia became the Chinese mob, and the assassin hero became one of Chow's classic, conflicted bad-guys-with-a-conscience, as in Woo's The Killer, which Fuqua had been looking to remake. Because Chow was still learning English, his lines were kept to a minimum. This ended up working to his advantage, because stillness and physical grace have always been among Chow's most effective traits as a screen actor.

The editing process and audience testing streamlined the film even further, eliminating significant backstory and all of the romantic relationship between Chow's heroic hitman and the document forger played by Mira Sorvino, who took the part for the express purpose of joining the vanguard of women in action roles that included Jennifer Garner (Alias) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The result played like an abbreviated version of one of Woo's ballets of violence, with all of the emotions telegraphed in short bursts between elaborately choreographed scenes of mayhem. Fans of Chow's previous work grasped the film's relationships and motivations immediately, but the broader audience was unmoved, and the film performed poorly at the box office. It found its fan base on home video.

John Lee (Chow) is a professional assassin of exceptional stealth and skill. In the film's opening sequence, he performs a public execution of an unnamed drug lord in a crowded club, killing numerous gang members and henchmen in the process but harming no members of the public. Then he vanishes into thin air. This is the second of three "jobs" that John owes to crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang), for reasons relating to John's family in China, a mother and sister. It is when John receives the third "job" from Wei and his chief advisor, Kogan (Jürgen Prochnow), that trouble begins.

Wei has recently lost his eldest son, Peter (Yau-Gene Chan), during a law enforcement raid on a major drug transaction. The cop who pulled the trigger, Stan "Zeedo" Zedkov (Michael Rooker), did so only when he had no choice, after giving Peter multiple chances to surrender, but Wei does not care. He wants revenge, and he instructs John Lee to exact it, in a manner that involves Zeedo's family. At the crucial moment, John cannot bring himself to complete the "job".

Knowing that he has now made an enemy of Wei, John urgently needs to return to China to protect his mother and sister, but he has no passport. He asks a contact, Eddie (Frank Medrano), for the name of a forger who is not part of Wei's organization, which is how he ends up in the shop of Meg Coburn (Sorvino), who is husky-voiced, suspicious and less than thrilled at a rush order for a Chinese passport by a man who is leaving directly for the airport. Meg's concerns are amply justified when a heavily armed team of Wei's men arrive shortly after John and blaze away at both of them.

From this point forward, The Replacement Killers barely stops to catch a breath, as the attacks against Meg and John follow in waves, either from Wei and Kogan, from the police (led by Zeedo, who goes for a long time before learning that he is the reason for all this violence), or by each other, as John initially takes Meg hostage when she tries to run and she eventually gets the drop on him. Pauses in the action—e.g., for Wei and Kogan to consult or for John to seek aid from a friend, a Buddhist monk (Randall Duk Kim), or for Meg to shake down a gangbanger named Loco for his arsenal (Clifton Collins, Jr., who was then known as "Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez")—are pared to the utter minimum necessary for essential exposition. It is to Chow's and Sorvino's credit that, when the plot requires Meg's sympathy to turn in John's direction so that she begins helping him voluntarily, they manage to make it believable, even though they've had so little screen time in which to build a relationship between the characters.

The "replacement killers" of the title are outside contractors brought in by Wei and Kogan when their own men are insufficient. Consistent with the film's minimalist approach, they are silent juggernauts played by German actor Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds), making his American film debut, and Danny Trejo (Machete and many more), who has a single word of dialogue. Indiscriminate killing machines who lack John's precision or elegance, they leave substantial collateral damage in their wake and are ultimately no match for their target. But the damage they inflict on a video arcade is particularly entertaining.

Fuqua directs the action sequences with wit and flair, and he makes good use of his two attractive stars. What he isn't able to do, because the script and/or the studio wouldn't let him, is establish a memorable lead character who will live on in the audience's mind after the credits roll. Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo did that with great success in their first hit together, A Better Tomorrow, which fed audience demand for a sequel and inaugurated the entire gallery of characters that made Chow an international star. John Lee never attains that level of solidity. When he vanishes into the airport crowd at the end of the film, it's as if he was never there.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The transfer that Sony has supplied to Mill Creek for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray presentation of The Replacement Killers is on a par with Sony's own Blu-ray of the film's extended cut, which is to say that the image is clean, detailed, fine-grained and noiseless. Black levels are excellent, colors are vibrant, and no traces of grain reduction or artificial sharpening were anywhere to be seen. For all the quick action and fast cutting, the average bitrate of 25.19 Mbps provides ample bandwidth to handle the image without motion artifacts. Nor are compression artifacts an issue. This presentation of the film's theatrical cut stands up favorably against Sony's own release of the extended cut. For once, Sony has provided Mill Creek with something as good as they would release themselves.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

From the opening moments of the club shootout, it is clear that The Replacement Killers' DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack will be the opposite of restrained. The bass notes of the club music in that scene will make your room vibrate (or your sub overload, whichever comes first). Bullets whiz by in all directions, glass shatters, empty cartridges and magazines hit the floor, as Fuqua and his sound team do their very best to out-Woo Woo. Then, of course, they keep trying to top themselves in subsequent sequences at Meg's apartment, Eddie's car wash, a video arcade, a movie theater and, finally, Wei's headquarters. By comparison to all the big-budget shootouts we've seen and heard since (starting with, e.g., The Matrix two years later), these sequences are less striking than when they were new, but they're still effective.

Henry Gregson-Wagner's score is, for my money, one of his best, because it's almost like another layer of sound effects and blends seamlessly into the action sequences. In the relatively brief interludes between the shooting, it helps provide some of the emotion that was excised in the editing process. The dialogue is as clear as the various accents will allow.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included on this disc. The 2007 Sony Blu-ray of the extended cut had the two featurettes from the longer cut's DVD release, but that was nothing compared to Sony's 2002 "special edition" DVD of the theatrical cut, which, in addition to the featurettes, had a director's commentary, deleted/extended scenes, an alternate ending and trailers.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Though The Replacement Killers was not a box office success, it did have a few advocates among the critical establishment, notably the late Roger Ebert. The film has also been a perennial for Sony on home video. The 1998 DVD was among the company's earliest releases on that format, followed by the "special edition" in 2002 fully loaded with new extras. The extended cut first appeared on DVD four years later, and it was an easy choice for early release on Blu-ray in 2007. Why Sony didn't retain the film for itself, releasing both cuts with all the previous extras in a single blockbuster hi-def package, remains a mystery. Diehard fans will have to collect their own definitive set piece by piece. This Blu-ray version of the theatrical cut from Mill Creek is a good starting point and is highly recommended.