Episode 56: THE KILLER (1989)

Despite its signature bombast, THE KILLER doesn’t actually reinvent many of the tropes of action cinema. There’s plenty of gunpowder, gore, and squibs to be found in its 110-minute runtime. What makes it different – and what keeps it feeling fresh more than 30 years later – is how it uses those tropes to service a subversive story. Pitting hitman Ah Jong against Detective Li Ying and tossing an innocent blind woman into the mix, THE KILLER builds tension not through highlighting the differences between the cop and the criminal, but by reveling in their compatibility. Once both characters realize the senselessness of their cat-and-mouse relationship (foist on them by the bureaucracies that would betray them), each finds himself in the other’s stories and motivations. If it sounds a little gay, that’s because it’s pretty gay. Recommended media: - BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) - POINT BREAK (1991) - WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967) - HANNIBAL (2013 - 2015) - TOKYO DRIFTER (1966) - YAKUZA 0 (2015) - LE SAMOURAI (1967) - LE CIRQUE ROUGE (1970) - ONLY BUILT 4 CUBAN LINX… (1995) Follow us at @trylovepodcast on Twitter and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters.