19 Ultimate Final Shoot-Outs Of Cinema History
2. The Killer (1989)
When it comes to final shoot-outs throughout cinema history, you have John Woo’s output - and then basically everyone else.
No one puts a set-piece together like the soft-spoken Chinese director; high emotion, beautiful balletic choreography and a seemingly low awareness of his stuntmen’s well-being. His firefights are an intense, one-of-a-kind experience.
Most of his Hong Kong output could fill up an entire list on this subject itself, but the one that truly stands out as the most memorable is this production from 1990. Starring Chow Yun Fat as (another) hitman-with-a-heart-of-gold and Danny Lee as a cop who forms a close kinship with him. The plot has them take on a determined gang of nasty Triad gangsters.
The movie hits cumulative heights as the gangsters come after them in a small rural church and it’s game-time, in one of the most insane action spectacles of action cinema.
The Killer represents the pinnacle of Woo's talent at not only orchestrating his trademark anarchy but also as a storyteller. The results are exciting but incrediably heart-breaking as well.