Reign of Assassins 劍雨

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

Woo hooo!!!

This is one time when not-high-expectations helped - the movie did not disappoint.

There is a distinct absence of John Woo's trademarks, so if he did significantly advised the director Suo Chao-pin, he must have mastered the art of subtlety and impart the essence rather than the form.

Though other reviewers compared it to Face-Off, I thought the plot was more akin to old-school Gulong's workmanship - especially the theme of betrayals, lies, and unexpected twists.

Overall, I agree with another reviewer that there were distinct plotholes and an unreasonable measure of coincidence - which could have been addressed but were not.

The movie opened with textual narration giving the whole background of the story - whatever happens to the adage "Show, Don't Tell"???

During early Ming Dynasty (clearly shown on the tombtone indicating reign of HongWu, plus capital was at Nanjing), the body of the legendary Damo was stolen from the grave.

Suddenly, rumours became rife that the body contained secrets to ultimate martial prowess.

Kind of strange that it took more than a thousand years after the body was buried for someone to suddenly be inspired to think that it possessed a great secret worth stealing.

The poor body was subsequently broken into 2 parts, and became the object of bloody strife among pugilists for its possession.

Among the victims was the Zhang family. That the patriarch was a senior Court official seemed almost just incidental and presented absolutely no relevance to the movie. This is yet another glaring hole I cannot overlook.

The culprits of the massacre was the assassins' guild known as Black Stone (黑石). Again, the movie-maker missed another story-telling opportunity to draw out significance of the name. Seems like the name was chosen at random.

Fortunately, the epithet of the guild-leader, the Wheel King (转轮王), had its origins in some Buddhist texts of the underworld, or so the movie claimed.

Anyway, the assassin Drizzle (细雨) was among those participating in the massacre of the Zhang household, and she left after obtaining their objective - half of the copse.

She did not make it to the rendezvous with the rest of the assassins, having been intercepted by a monk who seemed intent on reforming her.

After months of altercation, the monk died in the process of revealing to her the vulnerabilities of her skills, shaking her so much that she decided to undergo surgery to change her appearance and lead a mundane life.

And that was how she ended up renting a big house to live by herself, in a big city, and took up hawking textiles along the street.

Being a single, not-so-young but still pretty lady (Hey, this was Miss Ipoh okay?), she received endless proposals from pleibeians. It was a young courier who won her heart though.

Their normal lives were disrupted when she was forced to reveal her skills to save their lives during a bank robbery.

Yet despite leaving no eye-witnesses, the guild managed to track her down, somehow seeing through her totally-changed appearances.

To stall for time, she had to agree to help the guild retrieve the other half of the copse and surrender her own half.

Up to here, it was nothing new, though there was a witty remark here and there.

I felt for Barbie Hsu who was acted as a girl who was recruited to replace Drizzle in the guild. Her role offered very little towards the story.

There was potential there - she was supposed to represent an alternative, a girl who was in the beginning helpless over her own fate, given a chance to stand on her own, embracing the very life that Drizzle had given up.

Shawn Yue too, was under-utilised in his role as the assassin Thunder, playing a man who wanted little more than be with his family and make noodles.

One thing that did not disappoint though was the revelation of the real secret of the Damo copse.

The acting was fine, the underlying plot was okay - it's just the story-telling could have done with a bit more polishing.