Columbia Pictures, Rated R
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Written by Ken Sanzel

Chow Yun-Fat, star of such Hong Kong action flicks as "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled", most of which are directed by the already-legendary John Woo, has been a relative unknown in the U.S. (except to John Woo fanatics), despite being a big star in many other countries. Sound familiar? Here we see Hollywood doing the same thing they did to make Jackie Chan a star in the U.S., but instead of releasing one of Yun-Fat's Hong Kong action thrillers, they brought him to us, putting him in a Hollywood film. Director Antoine Fuqua has only directed a few commercials and music videos such as Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", and I'm not really sure if he was a great choice as director. The story (which barely matters) concerns Yun-Fat as John Lee, a hired assassin who can't carry out his final mission because his target is a cop with a loving family. When news of this gets back to his "boss", a contract is (of course) put out on his head as "replacement killers" are brought in to do the job for Lee. Lee seeks out Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino), a professional at creating fake passports, so he can escape the U.S. and the assassins after him. When Meg's office is attacked by killers looking for Lee, she is forced to help him stop the replacement killers who are after Lee and the cop. Woo serves only as a producer here, but Fuqua directs "The Replacement Killers" as though he were Woo. Except that almost no scenes are played straight, like some of the scenes in Woo's films. Everything is stylized, and the MTV editing can become tiring. Yun-Fat barely seems to say two words through the whole film, but that is seemingly how he likes it. However, he remains mysterious the whole way through, and we never get to see many of his motivations, even though he is the main character. Still, many of the action sequences are great, and Sorvino delivers an amazing performance and can definitely hold her own as an action star (How many other Hollywood actresses could have pulled this off?), while she delivers most of the funniest lines in the film perfectly (as in "Do you realize how many 'John Lee's there are in Hong Kong?"). There's quite a bit wrong with this movie, yet there was also a lot I liked as well, which is indeed rare. ** 1/2