Movies

John Woo Remade His Classic The Killer, Coming to Peacock This Summer

Omar Sy and Nathalie Emmanuel star in Woo’s remake of his 1989 action classic.
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Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy in <em>The Killer</em>

Peacock has released the first official promotional photos for The Killer, John Woo’s upcoming remake of his 1989 action classic. Nathalie Emmanuel and X-Men franchise veteran Omar Sy lead the cast in the film, which centers on Emmanuel’s character of Zee, an assassin who is infamous in the Parisian underworld as “the Queen of the Dead.” The movie is set to stream exclusively on Peacock beginning on August 23. This marks the acclaimed action filmmaker’s first big U.S. release since Silent Night, his Christmas-themed action movie starring The Suicide Squad‘s Joel Kinnaman and Bill and Ted Face the Music‘s Kid Cudi.

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IGN had the first look at three new promotional images, and shared the first reveal of the movie’s release date.

The original movie, which starred Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee, helped establish Woo and some of its talented casts as members of the biggest names in Asian action cinema, and helped them make the leap to Hollywood notoriety. The movie earned millions at the box office against an indie budget. Woo would go on to become one of the most acclaimed action directors of his generation and has made dozens of movies in Hong Kong and Hollywood since.

You can see a still image from the new film below.

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Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy in The Killer

Here’s the movie’s synopsis, via the IGN article: “The Killer stars The Fast Saga’s Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead. But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler Finn (Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman, Jenn (Diana Silvers), in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator Sy (Omar Sy), and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her own past.

The cast also includes celebrated French actors Eric Cantona (The Fragile Colossus, Elizabeth) as Gobert, Tchéky Karyo (Le Femme Nikita, GoldenEye) as Tessier, and Grégory Montel (Call My Agent!, Transatlantic) as Jax.

The screenplay for The Killer hails from Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), and is produced by Oscar winner Charles Roven (Oppenheimer, American Hustle) and Alex Gartner (Uncharted, Warcraft) for Atlas Entertainment, and by John Woo and Lori Tilkin deFelice (Silent Night) for Better Tomorrow Films. The film’s executive producers are Terence Chang and Robin Fisichella.