Reign of Assassins 2010 Chao-Bin Su & John Woo

First off, let me just say that this movie is not even really co-directed by John Woo.  He helped out with the fight scenes somewhat, but that's about it.  I had really high expectations for this one, and it was a letdown, but when I found out the truth behind the "co-director" credit, I figured I should cut it a bit more slack.

Remember Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?  Of course you do.  But when people saw that movie they weren't that well versed in kung fu cinema.  Everything in that movie seemed new and fresh.  We heard that it was an updated version of old Chinese kung fu movies, but nobody had really paid that much attention to kung fu movies in a long time.  Now if you watch it, you're much more likely to see the different films it references and appreciate it on that level.



Flaming Sword kung fu is badass

 Reign of Assassins made me appreciate just how good Crouching Tiger was.  It's not that this new one is a bad movie, it's just an okay one.  It borrows heavily (and I do mean heavily) from Crouching Tiger, as well as from John Woo's own Face-Off.  Oh, Kill Bill is in there as well.

You see, there are a group of bandits led by one Wheel King, who are out to get the remains of Bodhi Dharma, an ancient kung fu master.  His remains were split in two, so naturally whoever can find both halves of his corpse can become king of the martial arts world.

Wheel King and his cronies (collectively, they are known as The Dark Stone) find the top half of Bodhi Dharma and kill the father and son who were unlucky enough to have an old corpse in their possession.  In the confusion, a member of the team, the unfortunately named Drizzle, makes off with the body.



"Thank you for your money -sorry I
had to trick you"

 In true Face-Off fashion, Drizzle knows that everyone's coming after her, so she gets a surgeon to modify her face.  Thanks to some poison bugs that like to eat facial bones, Drizzle becomes Michelle Yeoh and begins life as a fabric seller in the streets of the capital.  There she meets a messenger named Ah-Sheng, and the movie stops dead while they begin a relationship and end up married.  John Woo probably took a vacation during this part.

Back to the kung fu.  The Black Stone get off tour and finally find Michelle Yeoh.  This is where the movie gets really good.  There are lots o' references to old Shaw Brothers movies of the late 60's - mid 70's.   I really enjoyed the nods to One-Armed Swordsman and Touch of Zen, I just wish there could have been some one-armed swordsing to go with all the crouching and hiding.  It does get nicely convoluted in an old school chop socky way though, which was also a lot of fun.



Her name is Barbie!  No, really!!!

 In the end, I did like this movie.  Like House of Flying Daggers, I'll probably like it more if I watch it a few more times.  Right now, it's only available as a region 3 import dvd, so if you don't have an all region dvd player, it's too bad for you.  Go get one, or wait for the Weinsteins to release this in a few years.  It'll be dubbed and called something ridiculous like Legend of the Kung Fu Mummy.