Heart of Killer

HEART OF KILLER (1995)

Until I saw Ashes of Time and the Blade, this was the first HK movie that had caught my fancy in a long, long time. The director, Andrew Kan Yeung-Wah has crafted a particularly beautiful looking action film with Yu Rong-Guang as the charismatic hitman. The whole flick is basically a recrafting of the Killer, with the hitman falling for the woman of a man he murdered years ago. (To make matters worse, he has a happy go-lucky sidekick who falls for the woman who is to be his next hit.) What I found particularly intriguing is that this is one of the few Killer inspired flicks, that takes its inspiration not from the gun fights, but from the atmospheric lighting, and the moody ethical dilemma. Yu Rong-Guang's character has the nifty quirk of killing tons of people with a water bottle in one hand. He takes a big drink of water and then, after killing his target, sprays the water out of his mouth (It actually is as ludicrous as it sounds). After associating water with his protagonist, Yeung-Wah goes on to put water prominently in every shot with him. Sometimes he'll be sitting in front of a fish tank, or looking out at the water or, my favorite, when he goes out walking with his girlfriend at night, a bar worker is hosing down the street in front of them, making it seem as if they're going to walk off into a smeared water color. This ambivalent use of water imagery (it represents both death and innocence in different contexts) helps give the otherwise chilly movie some heat (Yeung-Wah is a more reserved filmmaker than the passionate Woo and Yu Rong-Gong, although charismatic as hell, is no Chow Yun-Fat). Those who feel like they're slipping into the "seen it all" school of Hong Kong film knowledge will actually feel a bit refreshed by this flick, that unfortunately doesn't quite live up to the promise of its literally translated title; Burning Love Male Sniper.

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