The Replacement Killers

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The Replacement Killers
Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino.
Directed by	Antoine Fuqua
Produced by	Bernie Brillstein Brad Grey
Written by	Ken Sanzel
Starring	Chow Yun Fat Mira Sorvino Michael Rooker Jürgen Prochnow Til Schweiger
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]
IMDb profile

The Replacement Killers is a 1998 film, directed by Antoine Fuqua in his feature film 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.

[edit] 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.

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]

[edit] Trivia

Chow was described as "basically happy with how he comes across" in the film, though his limited English meant he had to concentrate on the mechanics of the English language, a distraction that "occasionally deflected him in his search for his character's 'anguish' over his plight in the film."^[1]
Sorvino provided a lot of behind-the-scenes help to Chow because of her ability to speak Mandarin.^[1]
John Woo served as one of the film's executive producers.
An actor panel at the 2006 San Diego Asian Film Festival discussed how the film's script originally had Chow Yun Fat's character going against American villians, but studio executives would not approve the film unless the villians were made into Asians, citing "discomfort" at the idea of an Asian hero fighting Caucasian villains.