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!

This is not an art-house movie nor the most amazing action movie you will ever see. But it is a good, solid, entertaining action movie.

The relationship between Jacky Wu and Celina Jade was nice, the café scene was both funny and with great action, the scenes at the police station were a mixture of tension and comedy, and the climax fight scene was ridiculous but who cares?

I'd never seen Jacky Wu before and I found his silent stoic character rather enjoyable. This appears to be Celina Jade's first film and she was excellent, as well as rather attractive. Secondary characters played there roles acceptably (although the blonde policeman seemed to be in the wrong film).

The point is that I was thoroughly entertained for the duration, and even my wife enjoyed it. Overall I think that's pretty good.

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.

From IMDB: "A female cop befriends a mysterious martial arts drifter, who turns out to be a deadly assassin."

Starring Jing Wu (Wolf Warrior) and newcomer, Chinese-American Celina Jade. Wu followed the same path as Jet Li to China's School of Wushu (Kung Fu) at age six, so is quite an accomplished Martial Artist. Jade was taught Taekwondo by her father, so is no slouch in the fighting dept.

For a small budget movie, there is plenty of scenery and action, at times non-stop. Wu is an assassin who carries his 'trophies' around with him, and the main plot is that one of his kills' relatives wants it back. The final 'fight' is completely over the top and his romance with Jade is kept on the back burner.

All in all, well worth spending 90 minutes of your time.

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.