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THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (1998) |
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MORGAN'S RATING |
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| Hitman John Lee owes a debt to Mr. Wei, Los Angele's Chinatown drug-lord. When a cop kills Wei's adult son during a drug bust, Wei instructs Lee to kill the cop's seven-year old son while father and son are at play. Lee can't pull the trigger, and he knows Wei will punish him by going after Lee's mother and sister in Shanghai. To reach them first, Lee needs a forged passport. He seeks out Meg Coburn, a forger. But Wei's men are already on Lee's trail, disrupting his visit to her. Lee and Coburn must fight them off, evade the cops, face replacement killers imported to shoot the cop's son, confront Wei, and get Lee onto a plane to China, passport in hand. Explosive action-packed stunts and sequences ensue. |
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| Chow Yun-Fat (John Lee), Mira Sorvino (Meg Coburn), Michael Rooker (Stan 'Zeedo' Zedkov), Kenneth Tsang (Terence Wei), Jurgen Prochnow (Michael Kogan), Til Schweiger (Ryker), Danny Trejo (Collins), Clifton Collins Jr. (Loco), Carlos Gomez (Hunt), Frank Medrano (Rawlins), Leo Lee (Lam), Patrick Kilpatrick (Pryce), Randall Duk Kim (Alan Chan), Andrew J. Marton (Stevie), Sydney Coberly (Sara), Yau-Gene Chan (Peter Wei), Carlos Leon (Romero), Nicki Micheaux (Technician), Max Daniels (Smuggler), James Wing Woo (Priest), Albert Wong (Old Man), Al Leong (Gunman, uncredited). |
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KILL OR BE REPLACED. |
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PRODUCTION INFORMATION |
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DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua (Bait).
WRITER: Ken Sanzel.
PRODUCERS: Bernie Brillstein and Brad Grey.
CO-PRODUCER: Michael McDonnell.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: John Woo, Terence Chang, Matthew Baer and Christopher Godsick.
ORIGINAL MUSIC: Harry Gregson-Williams.
DISTRIBUTOR: Columbia Pictures. |
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QUOTES |
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Meg: So you didn't want to kill a kid. Welcome to the human race. |
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John Lee: I'll need guns. |
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Meg: Smile, and say "Flight from prosecution." |
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FACTS |
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Mr. Wei: The boy will die.
John Lee: Not in your lifetime.
[shoots Mr. Wei] |
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RELEASE DATE: February 6th, 1998 (USA)
BOX OFFICE OPENING: $8.0 million (USA)
BOX OFFICE RESULT: $18.9 million (USA)
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: $35.1 million
BUDGET: $30 million (USA)
- The Chinese character engraved on Lee's bullets means "death." |
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Meg: Hostage ettiquette: kidnapper pays the incidentals. |
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Wei: Don not confuse luck with skill. |
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Stan: You're not under arrest, Meg, which means you have no right to an attorney.
Meg: It also means I can walk out the fucking door. |
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CRITICAL COMMENTS |
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"The plot is so thin that it's not really worth thinking about, but director Antoine Fuqua and cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister have put so much effort into the feel and appearance of the movie that it held my attention." -- James Berardinelli, Reel Views |
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| "Chow's American debut is a disappointingly routine action yarn...not bad, but nothing special; hardly a star-making vehicle for this established Hong Kong favorite." -- Leonard Maltin |
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| "As pointless as blast-athons go, The Replacement Killers isn't bad. It's beautifully shot by first-time feature director Antoine Fuqua, whose eye for sensual surfaces, deft camera moves and elegant framing was refined with commercials and music videos." -- Ed Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle |
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"The Replacement Killers is all style. It's a high-gloss version of a Hong Kong action picture, made in America but observing the exuberance of a genre where surfaces are everything." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times |
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