The Replacement Killers (Extended Cut) (Blu-ray) NEW

Amazon.com The director of Chow Yun-fat's first Hollywood outing, music-video veteran Antoine Fuqua, seems to be trying to squeeze the charismatic Asian superstar into a conventional American action-hero mold, and the results are dispiriting. Fuqua never lets this high-spirited actor smile, fetishizing him as a gunslinging clotheshorse in a series of garish, scenery-smashing battle scenes. As a paid assassin whose former employers turn against him, Chow enlists the help of an illegal documents specialist played, with surprising grit, by Mira Sorvino, and then spends most of the time fending off squads of killers in mirror shades. The movie is art-directed and photographed fit to kill (even the most routine incidents are eye-gougingly colorful) and edited to a hip-hop beat. It's garishly superficial. The frequent gunplay duels may keep action fans riveted, but they'll hate themselves in the morning. --David Chute Product Description In exchange for his family's safety in Beijing, an assassin takes a job with a powerful underworld figure to settle a deadly vendetta against a police officer.

Hired assassin John Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) is asked by Chinatown crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang) to murder the young son of policeman Stan Zedkov (Michael Rooker). Lee has the boy in his sights, but his conscience gets the better of him, and he spares the child's life. Afraid that Wei will take revenge on his family in China, Lee seeks out expert forger Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) to obtain the passport he needs to get out of the country, but a band of replacement killers is soon on his trail.