Hitman

Title in Chinese – 凶手的国王
Title in Pinyin – Xiong Shou Guo Wang
Also called – Contract Killer
Genre – Action
Subject/theme – A kind hearted killer takes on a contract to find the king of killers
Language – Cantonese
Region – Kong Kong, China
Release date
Hong Kong – 3 April 1998
South Korea – 10 April 1999
Japan – 1 May 1999
USA – 30 July 2002
Movie Runtime – 103 minutes
Director – Tung Wai
Cast & Role Played
Jet Li – Fu, wannabe hitman
Eric Tsang – Ngok Lo, conman
Simon Yam – Officer Chan Kwan
Gigi Leung – Kiki, Lo's daughter
Plot
Fu is a young mainland Chinese who has gone to Hong Kong to join a gang of Chinese to work as a hitman and make enough money to build his mother a house. While Fu is living a modest life as a wannabe hitman, a Japanese Yakuza boss was killed in Hong Kong by a righteous assassin called the King of Killers. The Yakuza put a bounty of $ 100 million on the King of Killers and every professional killer in south east Asia comes to Hong Kong to take the job.
Fu bumps into a conman Lo while trying to get the job and is recruited by Lo who pretends to be an experienced killer. Lo buys Fu a new wardrobe so he can look the part of a professional killer and starts to ineptly train him. While trying to kill a target on a minor job, Fu proves that he is too kind hearted to kill innocent people and both Fu and Lo start to despair on their chances of finding and killing the King of Killers.
Editor's Review of Hitman – 8/10
With a well balanced cast, a good story and excellent fight scenes, Hitman is one of Jet Li's best movies and very enjoyable to watch. Hong Kong people tend to look down on mainland Chinese as country bumpkins and this is shown in the movie with dry and well done humour. Eric Tsang is normally annoying as an actor but he is well suited for his role in Hitman. The other point that makes Hitman good to watch is an excellent balance of seriousness and comedy not found in many Hong Kong movies that often focus too much on slapstick comedy.
Hitman Links
IMDb Movie Database for Hitman