Rolling Stone
"...Chow Yun-Fat is a legend in the making..." 02/19/1998 p.63Sight and Sound
"...[Sorvino] attacks her role with skill. She never smiles until the final scene, but has stolen the show long before..." 06/01/1998 p.54-5 New York Times
"...A sleek piece of filmmaking....[With] a mood that is dreamlike and almost lulling..." 02/06/1998 p.E19 Box Office
"...THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS is a dazzlingly slick actioner that should not only thrill Chow's many devoted fans, but win him legions of new admirers as well..." 03/01/1998 p.54 Premiere
"...As many stateside viewers get their first glimpse of Hong Kong action icon Chow, they're sure to be transfixed by [his] sexy combination of vulnerability and higher purpose..." 02/01/1998 p.21 Chicago Sun-Times
"...It's a high-gloss version of a Hong Kong action picture....It's done with a tilt and a zoom....Cool and self-assured..." 02/26/1998 p.34 Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
...What I liked about the film was its simplicity of form and its richness of visuals. There's a certain impersonality about the story; Chow and Sorvino don't have long chats between the gunfire. They're in a ballet of Hong Kong action imagery: bodies rolling out of gunshot range, faces frozen in fear, guys toppling off fire escapes, grim lips, the fetishism of firearms, cars shot to pieces, cops that make Dragnet sound talky. The first-time director, Antoine Fuqua, is a veteran of commercials and music videos; with cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister, he gets a sensuous texture onto the screen that makes you feel the roughness of walls, the clamminess of skin, the coldness of guns. The Replacement Killers is as abstract as a jazz instrumental, and as cool and self-assured. - Roger Ebert
Boxoffice Magazine 7 of 10
Fortunately, The Replacement Killers does more than simply mimic The Killer. Carefully constructed to play to Chow's strengths as both an icon and an actor, The Replacement Killers is a dazzlingly slick exercise in action filmmaking that should not only thrill Chow's many devoted fans, but win him legions of new admirers as well... As scripted by ex-cop Ken Sanzel, The Replacement Killers would be little more than an average genre exercise if not for the pure magnetism of Chow's persona and a dizzying display of visual virtuosity by first-time director Antoine Fuqua. Best known as the director of the award-winning "Gangsta's Paradise" video, Fuqua makes an absolutely stunning debut here... - Wade Major
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