John Woo helps remake his own action classic The Killer

Thanks to its slow-motion bloodbaths, Mexican standoffs, flapping doves, and themes of atonement, loyalty and friendship, John Woo’s bullet ballet THE KILLER became one of the most influential action movies of the late 20th century.

Apparently Woo inevitably grew tired of seeing everyone imitate his pioneering “heroic bloodshed” and high-impact hyperviolence (and the two-pistol posture that the ultracool Chow Yun-Fat helped popularize), and has decided to give it another shot himself.

Woo is producing a new 3D remake of THE KILLER, directed by John H. Lee (A MOMENT TO REMEMBER) and starring South Korean actor Jung Woo-Sung (THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD) as the charming hitman.

Woo said: “While all my films are special to me, THE KILLER is truly one of my favorites. We are thrilled to reinvent it as an English-language film and know it’s in capable hands by the incredible visual style and tender emotion John H. Lee brings to all his films.”

This particular incarnation of the remake (likely set in LA) has actually been in the works for several years, although Sylvester Stallone and filmmaker Walter Hill (THE WARRIORS, 48 HRS.) planned their own version back in the 1990s.