In John Woo’s original classic film, The Killer, hitman Ah Jong accidentally hurts a bystander during a shootout: a night club singer named Jennie, whose corneas are severely damaged as a result. Hoping to get out of the hitman business, Ah Jong takes one last job in order to secure the money to pay for an expensive surgery to restore Jennie’s eyesight, but along the way, his guilt leads him to return to the club where Jennie sings, saves her from a mugger, and introducing himself as a stranger. They fall in love, of course. Much violence follows.

This 2024 remake genderswaps the “hitman” for a lovely female assassin named Zee, played by the talented Nathalie Emmanuel. Much of the original plot of The Killer has been discarded.

This version of The Killer  has Zee unintentionally wounding a woman–a young night club singer named Jenn (Diana Silvers)–while killing five thieves. But then Z’s next job becomes killing Jenn, who witnessed a theft of 350 million Euros worth of heroin. Rival bands of gangsters are fighting over the stolen heroin, and Jenn is caught up in the action because she’s dating one of thieves. Zee can’t bring herself to kill Jenn because she’s basically innocent. Zee decides to team up unexpectedly with Paris Detective Sey (Omar Sy), who is trying to bring down the politically connected bad guys but keeps getting blocked by police corruption and bureaucracy.

While this remake of The Killer is nowhere near as good as the original, I’m a fan of female assassins (like Zee and The Black Widow). Mildly entertaining if you can accept a large body count. GRADE: B