10 Most Badass Movie Hitmen

Chow Yun Fat plays an all-action hitman with a conscience in John Woo’s bullet-ridden crime classic The Killer. After a hit goes wrong and a nightclub singer’s eyesight is badly damaged, Jeffrey starts taking jobs purely in order to pay for an operation that will stop her going blind.

His is a story of redemption as he tries to atone for a life of misdeeds by aiding this one innocent bystander. While this conscientious streak does to a degree suggest he is not the most terrifying of hitmen, his incredible prowess with a gun is reason enough to fear him.

This being a John Woo movie of course, the action comes thick, fast and predominantly in slow-motion. The director has always had a knack for delivering memorable shoot-outs and the gunplay here is as over the top as ever with Jeffrey himself possessing almost superhuman abilities with a pistol.

He may be coming towards the end of his career and developing a major sentimental streak, but when he’s truly on a mission he believes in, there’s absolutely no stopping him.