Review: Reign of Assassins

The Dark Stone band of assassins steal half of the remains of a martial-arts expert and monk, apparently possession of the full remains is said to grant enormous power to the possessor. The Dark Stone assassins also murder the people currently in possession of said remains. However, during the chaos, one of the assassins, Drizzle (Kelly Lin) betrays her brethren and nicks off with the half of the remains. However, after hiding out with a monk named Wisdom (Li Zonghan) who helps her hone her sword technique (not a euphemism for sex), and later leads her towards a possible redemption for her past misdeeds. She ends up leading the quiet life, having taken surgical measures to hide her identity (hence Michelle Yeoh now playing the role) and pose as a simple merchant. She even shacks up with a guy (Woo sung-jung). Unfortunately, her past is about to catch up to her, as her old gang show up with a nasty replacement for her (an excellent Barbie Hsu), and bad intentions in mind.

 

Ten years after “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, we’re still getting all these wuxia epics, it seems. I haven’t kept up with all of them, but to be honest, the last really good one (and in fact, the best of the lot) I saw was 2006’s “Curse of the Golden Flower”. I haven’t seen a bad one, don’t get me wrong, but they’re all a bit samey, don’t you think? Having said that, this modern crop of wuxia films are essentially big-budget (i.e. Chinese financed) versions of old Shaw Brothers flicks anyway (and I do like some Shaw Brothers flicks very much, particularly “Eight Diagram Pole Fighter”). This 2010 offering from Taiwanese writer/director Chao Bin-Su and producer John Woo (director of “The Killer”, “Mi2”, and “Face/Off”) isn’t bad but all the dopey “Mission Impossible”-style face-changing was a bit too silly for me. I mean, the sketches on the ancient wanted posters look so nondescript that changing your face seems pointless anyway. And c’mon, it’s Ancient China for cryin’ out loud, not modern day L.A. Apparently producer Woo had a hand in directing some of the film, and if so, it’s likely that the shitty plastic surgery nonsense was his input. Still, you don’t get to see flaming swords in a film very often, and flaming swords are always cool. The film also features what can only be described as a curling sword that might just be the coolest weapon I’ve seen in any martial arts film since “The One-Armed Boxer vs. Flying Guillotine”.

 

The action overall is really cool (the dopey character names, however are anything but cool), if not frequent enough for my personal liking. And hey, not every martial arts film has a eunuch in it, so there’s that. And a kid gets killed. You almost never have that happening. By the way, was that the Five Point Exploding Heart Technique being used? Looked like it to me (It also looked like at one point that Yeoh was paying homage to either the Stooges or Rowdy Roddy Piper). It’s also a really attractive film, as most of these things tend to be, with really nice use of light and shadow in particular. It’s certainly a vibrant-looking film, and it has more stylised rain than in a Wong Kar-Wai film.

 

But overall, this film is hampered by narrative and pacing issues that have it working only in fits and starts. The opening in particular gives us way too much information far too quickly to handle, despite the plot being rather simple. And yet at the same time, the film contains so many choppy wipes that you almost feel like you’re getting the film’s highlights. It eventually slows down, but perhaps a bit too much. Either that, or the lack of action and thrills are intentional, in which case the title is misleading. It’s a really bizarre and discombobulating narrative style and structure nonetheless. It really wouldn’t surprise me if Woo ended up taking over the film, because the film sure does feel like more than one person’s hands are on it, and not in a good way.

 

Yeoh has such a beautiful, graceful and commanding presence on screen and is always a welcome addition to any film. Her presence, in fact, makes the film seem fresher than it really is. But I can see why this film isn’t as well known as some of the other wuxia films: It’s not all that great. It definitely needed more flaming swords.

 

Rating: C+