Assassin

This movie caught my attention because of the A list martial artist movie cast particularly Hsu Feng, star of 1971 "A Touch of Zen". It opens with the helpful narrator explanation the historical setting. Fans of this genre are familiar with the Mongol invaders plot used again here.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as 4:3 resolution like the old VHS format and it is dubbed English by the voice overs A team. The run time is 1:36:21. The video quality is as good as it gets for this old format.

The Mongols are bored waiting for the next battle. They slaughter some prisoners for amusement. Hsu Feng is the arraigned bride for Pai Ying, the Mongol leader. She fails in her assassination attempt. The first big fight is her against Pai Ying's men. Later, Hsu Feng and Chia Ling fight. The fight was good but it should have been one of the best fights ever considering the two talents.

Taiwan martial arts movies at this time tended to be a bit heavy on the drama. The first half of this movie takes too much time to set up the simple dramatic situations. The second half has much more action and there is the big final fight that has become a standard at this point. I only rate the movie as average for the year and genre. The star power seemed to promise more and better fights but did not deliver above average.

This is on Youtube but I wouldn't recommend it. Wuxia movie plots are often somewhat lacking but this is just ridiculous. For example, it's called Assassin because the good-guys' female fighter is sent to kill the Mongol leader. Plan is to substitute her for a local girl chosen by the leader for his amusement - it seems no-one's bothered to tell the girl as she prepares to kill herself, but our heroine arrives in nick of time to save her, puts a cloth over her head, and is taken to the leader. Despite carefully frisking her, they don't look under the cloth because 'the leader is waiting'. Arriving at his place, she's told he's asleep - hang on, I thought he was so impatient they couldn't pause to lift her veil. Sent into his bedroom alone (seriously?) she produces her two long daggers - but hang on, I thought she'd been frisked - and guilelessly stabs his empty bed. Some assassin. It's silly like this throughout.

I have to admit, I'm a Chia Ling fan and put off because she's a bad guy. This goes fine with her standard Queen Boxer confident contemptuous persona, but her character is not a great fighter - that's left to the warlord himself. The heroine woman is OK, the main hero annoyingly bland and boring, everyone else instantly forgettable. The fights aren't too bad, which is why it gets 3 points, but they're never original and depend too much on jumping about, too little on precise use of fists and weapons.

Final nail in this coffin, the shot-framing in this version anyway is terrible. If two people are talking, most of the time half their heads disappear off the side of the screen. Really, don't bother.