Legendary Assassin

The awesome Wu Jing has been making quite a name for himself lately with the almighty success of his Wolf Warrior films, and deservedly so! Looking back on his directorial debut, Legendary Assassin, you start to wonder what his fascination of wolves is all about with the image of the animal carried alongside him on the Hong Kong DVD artwork and the wolfs tooth he wears around his neck throughout the film.

Had he thought about it (I guess) and knew how big the following two films were going to be, this would have been a great closing chapter - albeit with a connecting rewrite, stronger characters and fight scenes.

But hey - no doubt Wolf Warrior 3 will be along soon enough (at time of writing)!

When I first saw Legendary Assassin, I really enjoyed it. I loved Wu Jing in Fatal Contact and many other roles, so it was nice to have him back as leading man and good guy once again. There is a certain charm and return to the 90's HK film style of sorts, with fun and hard hitting fight scenes, simple storyline, odd comedic moments and lighting of shots. A repeat viewing many years later still did entertain me, but I just felt something more spectacular could have been done with the talent behind and in front of the camera.

Wu Jing's character of the assassin drifter was cool and intriguing although it might have been nice to find out a bit more on him. The idea of him stuck on an island after beheading a top mob boss and dodging his henchmen as a typhoon creeps in, was quite exciting and might have served better as the closing act. Alas, it is not - which then leaves us with a short and unimaginative, though painful looking, stunt filled fight against 100 henchmen and the (hardly) threatening dead boss's wife. Its not that the fight is disappointing as such, but just a lot of the same moves over and over unlike the big end battle of a classic Jackie Chan or Sammo Hung flick that had incredibly choreographed moves that had you cheering at the screen! Legendary Assassin is still most definitely worth the watch, and shows the promise of what we have now witnessed of Wu Jing as a director and star. And maybe now because we know what he can do, this lets us see what was missing here...

Still - plenty of fun to be had!

It doesn't make you think really nor cry, but it does provide with some good old fashion ass-kicking...

And what ass-kicking it is!

Very well orchestrated fights but of course it's not just all random fights it does have a story, and the story is fairly good although at times a little confusing possibly because of the way it was edited, it does feel a little bit like there was a scene missing here and there.

Not to the point that it takes you out of the movie or anything though.

2 likable leads in the shapes of Wu Jing and Celina Jade, who both do very well as does the rest of the cast.

Not flawless by any means, but enjoyable.

Tagline: An empty directorial debut from Wu Jing…

Review by Neo: Wu Jing first comes into my attention when he first starred with the beautiful Christy Chung in Tai Chi 2 (aka Tai Chi Boxer). Since then it took him exactly a decade before he showed his head again. For whatever reason, he was one of the best things in the extremely engaging SPL and followed it up with plenty of leading and supporting turns. There is no doubting that this lad does have potential, but as a director, Wu Jing is too simple in scenes that should be more complicated and far too exaggerated in what should be more straight forward film-making. Having a bad story is alone a poor beginning, but that's not to say that Legendary Assassin is plain bad news. There are plenty of fight scenes that are alone worthy of the starving action fans' attention, including the restaurant fight which included a cameo by Ronald Cheng. A decent film at best, average acting, some quality fight scenes, but in the end, Legendary Assassin disappoints as it just never seems to take off.

The movie is basically starts off with Wu Jing hobbling to a mysterious island off the coast of Hong Kong to state the obvious for the purpose of killing someone. In the process and somehow, he met up with this cute looking police girl (played by Celina Jade) and from there one fight follows another and before you realise, he is back in Hong Kong, gangster, police are chasing after him and eventually the cliché of a hero fighting to save his girl which is so obvious that it does not require a mention.

So what's wrong with Legendary Assassin? The answer is simple, whenever there is a problem we should always try to find out by going to the root of the issue. The problem is the story, and then it comes down to some originally directing and the fact that this is an action film, where adrenalin is meant to be rushing. However, this is not the case and the result is leaving the audience with disappointment and perhaps something better from Hong Kong's lone action cinema new generation hope with Wu Jing. As mention before, there was one brutal fight scene that is of interest, in the restaurant fight during the heavy wind and rain, but apart from that those good moments are far and few in occurrence.

Going on to the acting, there is no question that Wu Jing is yet to experience what it is like to actually act. Here he is as stoic as ever or perhaps as wooden would provide a better description. While he graces the screen whenever he attempts to fight, his character is rather boring to follow. It is a shame as he was so cool in SPL, as the silent assassin and there were times in the past couple of years, where I called him the young Jet Li. Then again, Jet Li used to act rather stoic in his early days before alighting the screen with some dazzling displays like Fearless, Hero (he was stoic yes, but there was depth with his underlying performance) and more recently in the critically acclaimed role in Warlords. Let's hope this lad will continue to improve and seriously one must mention if he is half as successful as Jet Li, it will be pronounced as some sort of success. Turning to newcomer Celina Jade, she is actually likable and decently natural for a first timer. There was plenty of rawness in her acting, but somehow he manages to pull through to become one of the few good things about the movie. On another note, she looks great in uniform too. However, supporting players like Alex Fong and Ronald Cheng, either overacts or leaning towards annoying than likability.

All in all, Legendary Assassin is really a disappointment and even a step back from Wu Jing previous starring vehicles like Fatal Move or even Fatal Contact. Maybe Wu Jing needs more time and work with more different kinds of director before donning the hat of a director. Maybe Wu Jing need to start stretching his acting a bit more or even take a leaf out of Donnie Yen's unashamed style of overacting or even his restrained performance in Yip Man. Whatever the case is, Legendary Assassin is by no means good enough for both a Wu Jing's film standard and the potential he can certainly reach. While it may seem rather critical, but sometimes, when some needs to be said, it owe to be spoken, and the reality is that Legendary Assassin is disappointingly below average and a clear step in the wrong direction of a promising career … (Neo 2009)

I rate it 5/10

• www.thehkneo.com

Frankly I do not understand why this movie deserves such a pathetic IMDb score, given its decent plot and great story-telling. The movie reminded me of Infernal Affairs, which is not a bad example to look up to. It brought me back to the Islands District of Hong Kong, where life is much simpler. The dingy alleys, plainly clothed local police officers and a lone traveler from culturally different mainland China drew a picture in sharp contrast with penthouse office, high heeled diva and black suits donned gangs. The movie gave a successful preach that it's not appearance or wealth but compassion and dedication to higher ideals that makes the world a better place and life a fulfilling process. It thoroughly warmed my heart and plenty of unanticipated turns kept me absorbed throughout. I found it much more interesting than Ip Man, an over-hyped movie full of political correctness. I beg to differ with the other comment doubting Jacky Wu's performance and caliber as a co-director. I would definitely recommend it to my friends, who may even not turn out an Kung Fu movie fan.

This movie was a disappointment from the start. The direction was very poor and the simple story line was uninteresting. All the unnecessary slow motion scenes with bad cinematography just didn't work. The relation ship between the two lead character was the only thing of interest but even that was superficial. Plenty of better movies to spend your time than this one. It's hard to be positive about any thing in the movie, but there were glimpses of good action scenes but most of them were wasted by poor decision making by the director. I was hoping for something much better considering the exposure and the involvement of Jacky Wu. But what i got from this film was utter disappointment.