International superstar Chow Yun-Fat makes his Hollywood debut with Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in The Replacement Killers, a fierce and explosive action thriller from director Antoine Fuqua. After he betrays Mr. Wei, the ruthless crime boss who hired him to avenge his son's death, professional killer John Lee goes on the run. Enlisting the aid of beautiful document forger Meg Coburn, Lee attempts to return to his family in China before they are victimized by his betrayal. But Wei's army of "replacement killers" is hot on his trail, and now both he and Meg are targets of their impressive firepower. With both sides fully armed and determined to fight to the death, an ultra-violent shoot-out breaks out when they finally face off against each other.
The Replacement Killers marked two debuts. It was the first feature film helmed by director Antoine
Fuqua (Training Day) who came from the world of television advertising, and it also marked the
Hollywood debut of actor Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), who had previously
made his name internationally as a star of Hong Kong action films. To many film buffs, and to a lot
of those "in the know", he was already well known, but to the average U.S. audience, he was an
unknown entity.
In this film, Chow Yun-Fat plays John Lee, an assassin sent by his patron, Mr. Wei, to kill a 7-year-
old boy as retribution for the killing of Wei's own son. John Lee's conscience will not allow him to kill
the boy when he sees the boy at play with his father, the police officer that killed Wei's son, so
instead John leaves and eventually makes his way to the office of Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino)
seeking forged documents to flee the country and get back to China in order to save the lives of his
family from Mr. Wei. It is here where the action finally picks up as John Lee and Meg Coburn are set
upon by Wei's men out to kill John, and after the fray, John kidnaps Meg as he still needs her
assistance to flee.
Meg Coburn and John Lee outside a photo booth before Mr. Wei's men attack.
Chow's acting throughout is quite good. Not your typical overacting action hero, he maintains a
quiet, stoic, and charismatic presence when delivering his lines. For some reason, even though
you know he's an assassin, you tend to like the guy, which makes it believable that he would
choose to not kill a child. Mira Sorvino more than holds her own, which is to be expected from an
Academy Award® winner. Her character helps to counteract the cold masculinity of Chow's John
Lee, which sets up a rather tender moment where John must choose between saving his own
family and letting a child die, or saving the child.
Antoine Fuqua's directional style shows his roots, which is a good thing in this case. The highly
stylized lighting and camera effects add to the tension and drama, and highlight the action
sequences wonderfully. He pays homage to Chow Yun-Fat's Hong Kong cinema background while
adding a bit of MTV flare. One such scene that highlights this is the scene in a movie theatre
where Mr. Wei's "replacement killers" go after the young boy, and silhouettes are set against the
backdrop of a movie screen playing cartoons.
The Replacement Killers is not without its faults. The dialogue between the characters can tend
to fall into some painfully overused clichés, and sometimes you get the feeling there is dialogue
lacking where there should be some. I also sensed that they were working too hard to make
John Lee a likeable character and give him a past, but in the end his back-story was only given in
passing. Still, it was an action-packed movie that was an easy watch, what more can one ask
for?
Presented in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, The Replacement Killers (Extended Cut) is not the absolute
best looking high definition transfer I have ever seen, but it is still quite good. The AVC MPEG4
encoding faithfully captures the film grain, of which there is a lot present in this film.
For the most part, this is a very darkly lit film, and this is where the grain is most apparent, but
shadow detail is maintained throughout and black crush is never an issue. There are some dark
scenes where blacks appear to be slightly washed out, and more grayish than absolutely black.
Not having access to the original masters, it is hard to pin down what this might be, but it could
be due to overexposure during filming that should have been darkened, but this is a small
matter.
There is no visible edge enhancement, or compression artifacts of any kind and flesh tones are
natural, even, and not over saturated.
There were two scenes that particularly stood out to me that showcased the brilliance of this
transfer. The first being a very short scene near the beginning of the film, at around the 16 min.
32 sec. mark where there was a woman and a young boy outdoors near a pool. The perfect
balance of light and dark, sunlight and blacks, was absolutely stunning.
The second was the scene near the end in the alleyway that leads to the film's ultimate climax,
where John Lee and Meg Coburn are heading to confront Mr. Wei. The black levels and shadow
details, the play of reds against the sparks of gunfire and the neon lights and the night sky is
simply brilliant; quite awesome to behold, really. Here, director Antoine Fuqua's roots in the
world of television advertising really come into play, and it works wonderfully. The sharp camera
angles, quick edits, and flashy special effects all add up to something extraordinary.
Overall, this is another stellar AVC encoding on Blu-ray from Sony.
Once again, Sony provides a wonderful uncompressed PCM soundtrack on this Blu-ray disc. I
listened to the English 5.1 uncompressed PCM 48/16 soundtrack on this disc and it was
impressive. Dialogue was always clear, natural, and intelligible, only getting slightly lost during
the loudest, most aggressive special effects laden passages, which I suppose is to be expected.
Dynamics were wide, and the LFE channel was put to somewhat good use, though not overly
thunderous. Both rear channels were used aggressively, with everything from crowd noises, to
airplanes, to fireworks, to bullets whizzing by placed in the rears. The sounds and special effects
mostly sounded realistic and the soundstage was totally encompassing – you were inside the
action while it was occurring.
One of the best-mixed scenes was again the scene in the alleyway with John and Meg going after
Mr. Wei – it makes you want to duck lest you get hit by one of the myriad bullets flying
by.
My one minor complaint would be that sometimes I thought the gunshots might have sounded a
bit too sharp and cutting, and somewhat artificial. Perhaps this is where a little more use of the
LFE channel might have helped out? Other than that, this was a nearly perfect
soundtrack.
It is worth noting, that Sony have utilized the superior capacity and bandwidth present on Blu-
ray to also include an Italian language uncompressed PCM 5.1 48/16 soundtrack, in addition to
English, French, Italian, and Hungarian 640Kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks.
Once again, Sony has outdone themselves in the audio department for this Blu-ray disc release.
Subtitles
The chances are, if you can read, there is a subtitle track on here for you:
English, English SDH, Arabic, French, Korean, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew,
Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian, Icelandic, Bulgarian, Slovene,
Croatian, Romanian, Thai, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese.
Extras
The extras included on this disc are few, and barely worthy of mention.
There is a 20-minute featurette entitled "Chow Yun-Fat Goes Hollywood"
(standard definition,
4:3) which is supposed to be about Chow's transition from international film star to Hollywood
star, but is really 20 minutes of people lavishing praise on Chow Yun-Fat. Then there is
The
Making of The Replacement Killers "Where the Action Is" (standard definition, 4:3), in
which
they actually use some of the same footage from the "Chow Yun-Fat Goes Hollywood"
featurette.
The making of is the typical fare where they speak to the director and some of the actors, and
you get a behind the scenes look at some things, but ultimately learn nothing enlightening
about what really went into making the film; in other words, it's a typical DVD extra fluff piece.
Watch once. Forget.
Trailers
Finally, there are trailers included as well, all in High Definition:
There's the usual "Coming to Blu-ray" and
Hostel
Paprika
Vacancy
It may not be the greatest action movie ever made, but The Replacement Killers (Extended Cut)
offers enough high energy action to keep you on the edge of your seat and get the adrenalin
pumping for a couple of hours. Its stylized look and solid acting from Chow Yun-Fat and Mira
Sorvino alone are enough to at least make it worthy of a purchase, but the excellent AVC encoding
and uncompressed PCM soundtracks from Sony put it over the top.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that they will bring the unrated version of The Replacement Killers to Blu-ray on September 11th. This version will feature 11 minutes of film unseen in the original cut. Video will be presented in 1080p and accompanied ...
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