Review of The Replacement Killers (1998) by Tom R — 20 Jun 2010

The Replacement Killers is a derivative action film devoid of any originality or plot but chock full of stylish action. The Hollywood debut of action legend Chow Yun Fat, it seems as if the film was written specifically for him to play his usual assassin with a conscience character.

Whatever little plot there is revolves around Chow Yun Fat's assassin who is hired by the triads to kills the son of a policeman. Chow can't do it and ends up going on the run with a document forger played by Mira Sorvino. The triads bring in some replacement killers to kill Chow and the policeman?s son. That's all there is to it and you can't help but feel that there needed to be a few twists and turns in the plot to make it interesting. The action is great, there are plenty of stylish shootouts and a few fights but there quickly become tiresome when the same things happen again and again. We quickly jump from action scene to action scene with very little in between meaning we don't care for any of the characters which makes most of the action meaningless.

It does entertain and Chow Yun fat is excellent as usual but the total lack of plot and originality really drags the whole production down. Average entertainment.