Jeff (Chow Yun Fat), a professional killer planning to go straight, accidentally blinds beautiful nightclub singer Jenny (Sally Yeh) during a gangland hit. Guilt-stricken, he resolves to finance an operation to restore her sight by taking one last job, the elimination of Triad boss Tony Weng, a contract put out by Weng's power-hungry nephew, Johny. The killing takes place during flamboyant Dragon Boat Festivies; two cops, Lee (Danny Lee) and his partner Randy (Kenneth Tsang) carry out the investigation. Lee gradually uncovers the tender relationship between Jeff and Jenny, becoming strangely attracted to the exceptional assassin. Both are men out of time, opposite faces of a moral code with little little  place in Hong Kong's venal criminal underworld. The ruthless Johny decides to have Jeff rubbed out rather than pay him, and cop and killer are drawn together for a final confrontation with an army of kill-grazy Triad gunmen. In an abandoned church, amidst flames, bullets and weeping Christian icons, divided by law, united by a bond neither fully understands, they face their fate.

The Killer is the greatest action-packed cop thriller ever to smash its way on to the screen. The ultimate hit man versus the ultimate cop. There hasn't been such an exciting pairing since Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 hours.The Killer surpasses the brutal impact of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, Brian De Palma's  Scarface and Lethal Weapon 2. Nothing exceeds like excess in this fast-paced and intense gangster thriller. The film climaxes in a spectacular, cataclysmic gunfight, the results of which mist be seen to be believed.

Haunted by guilt, driven by the need of vengeance, united by a bond neither understands, charismatic hit-man Chow Yun Fat and maverick cop Danny Lee find their destinies inextricably linked in John Woo's classic action thriller.  Opposite faces of a moral code with no place in Hong Kong's corupt underworld, they are drawn inexorably together in this deliriously-shot fable, where's Woo's abiding themes of honour, betrayal and redemption through violence find their ultimate explosive expression. A matchless masterpiece.

John Woo wasn't competely able to decide about The Killer. 

Woo: "The original opening was in a jazz bar, the killer and the singer are there, she's blind and they're in love already. The singer was performing a jazz song, and the killer was playing the saxophone. There were a lot of flashbacks to show how he wounded the girl and fell in love with her. But Tsui Hark objected. He said the Hong Kong audience doesn't know about jazz. So in the  second draft of the script I had to change it to a Chinese song the kind that's always used in Hong Kong movies. But it is still a good song and a good lyric, about how we are all wandering and chasing after love and hope. And a few years later I used the jazz opening in Hard-Boiled

Helped by a well-received festival screeningg, The Killer was the first of John Woo's films to catch the attention of American critics and audiences - thereby launching him on the international stage. John Woo was asked to direct remake in Hollywood with American actors but Woo did not want to repeat himself.