Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Thomas M REIGN OF ASSASSINS is a high budget, traditional martial arts epic that should please many viewers who liked CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, a film that also boasted superb fight choreography, lavish sets, an emotionally charged story set against a parallel, mythological Chinese background, spectacular cinematography, effective music and a string of memorable characters - and, like REIGN OF ASSASSINS, wasn't innovative in any way. What TIGER did better than most of the slew of wu xia epics that have been flooding Asian cinema since the early 1990s (e.g. ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA by Tsui Hark) included presenting a fairly stringent storyline and fleshed-out central and supporting characters. The latter are two aspects that Hong Kong screenwriters aren't particularly good at, or simply just don't seem to care about.Director/screenwriter Su Chao-Pin clearly aims for an intriguing and coherent plot with colorful and developed characters, too. He largely succeeds, after a hectic and mildly confusing first 10 minutes. Once the central figure, Shi Yu (first played by Kelly Lin) is transformed into Zen Ping - and, thus, Michelle Yeoh, the story gains profile and depth. Yeoh plays a former elite assassin and member of the martial arts order "The Dark Stone", led by mysterious kung fu expert Cao Feng (Wang Xueqi). 800 years earlier a monk with supernatural powers had died; and assassins, politicians, bankers etc have been looking for his bodily remains ever since so that when they track it down they can benefit from its healing powers. A bit of a stretch I know, but read on: Shi Yu/Zen Ping has stolen the body and is now living peacefully with her new husband, Jiang Ah-Sheng (played by Korean "Musa" star Jung Koo-Sung) in some border town. But, of course, she hasn't heard the last of "The Dark Stone" yet. Soon her former fellow assassins have descended upon the town to look for her and the body. They are a colorful lot, including the particularly nasty and sexy Ye Zhan-Qing (played by Taiwanese singer and TV personality-turned actress Barbie Hsu) who does not shy away from disrobing to seduce elderly suitors (Don't get your hopes up, boys: It's half-naked backs and shoulders only).The performances are mostly up to par or better. But while Michelle Yeoh's role is the most substantial in terms of screen time and profile, she is frequently upstaged by various supporting actors, especially Barbie Hsu as Ye Zhan-Qing. While initially presented as a scheming and unscrupulous bitch (She's qualified to joining "The Dark Stone" by having killed her groom and his father), Hsu manages to imbue her role with a degree of vulnerability. When she finally gets her comeuppance - and in a particularly cruel way, too - the viewer cannot help but empathize with her and feel *some* pity. Wang Xueqi lends suitable gravitas and quiet authority to his role as the clan leader earlier in the film, but also conveys the actual desperation and loneliness of Cao Feng later on.Korean star Jung Koo-Song is the weakest link in the cast mostly because his role requires to him to be blandly friendly for the greater part of his screen time. There's a twist though to his character which is fairly ludicrous but still works.REIGN OF ASSASSINS boasts excellent photography (movement and framing), and veteran Stephen Tung Wei's fight choreography ranks with the best I've seen in a long time. Unfortunately, the "modern" quick cutting undermines his work, if just a little bit. Peter Kam, better known for his music for modern action thrillers, delivers an appropriately varied and serviceable, if not truly imaginative, score that mixes orchestra, Chinese folk instruments and electronics. John Woo produced the film and is credited with "co-direction", but his trademarks (slow-mo fighting, melodramatic excess, the occasional flock of white doves populating the frame) are nowhere to be found. Thankfully, I might add.REIGN OF ASSASSINS is a highly satisfactory and polished entry in the wu xia/wire fu genre that will appeal to both veteran kung fu/sword fight movie fans and "newbies". It does not add anything new to the genre but manages to come off as above par in almost every respect. Recommended.

TNThabomb When I watched this movie I thought I would get another average martial arts flick with no story at all. But I was quite surprised; it had me entertained and gave me a few surprises. Especially the plot twist at the end. What I like a lot is the symbolism in the movie. Like the scenes with the rain were sweet and the stuff about karma. The characters weren't too boring or exaggerated. It was a nice touch to see one of the assassins have a wife and kid like a normal person. The fighting scenes were nicely choreographed. Overall it was an entertaining movie to watch.

Alison The Dark Stone gang is tracing the remains of a Buddhist priest, because the rumour is that the person who owns those remains will rule over the kung fu world. One of the assassins kills the person who owns half of the corpse, and then makes off with it, thereby betraying her gang. She then meets Wisdom, a martial arts master turned monk, who teaches her that her deed was wrong; she therefore seeks a physician who can change her face for her, turning her into Zeng Jing (the lovely Michelle Yeoh). In her new identity, she becomes a fabric merchant in the big city, where she meets and falls in love with messenger Jiang A-sheng (Woo-sung Jung); soon they marry and appear to have a tranquil life together. But all is not as it seems; not only is Zeng Jing not who she says she is, but neither is Jiang A-sheng, and in the meantime her old gang, among others, continues to search for their erstwhile companion - and the remains of the monk....This 2010 film was Michelle Yeoh's first wuxia film since the acclaimed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and she is as beautiful and graceful as ever, playing a rather complex character who is adept at hiding who she really is, yet capable of sincerely falling in love even when she's, perhaps first and foremost, a killer. The martial arts fights are amazing, but never silly-looking, and the supporting characters are all well-drawn, including a young woman brought into the gang to take Zeng Jing's place, a "magician" who uses both martial arts and magic to defeat his enemies, and the leader of the Dark Stone gang, a eunuch who wants nothing more than to be a "real man," yet who is more skilled a fighter then all of them. Must of this story takes place in city-scapes and at night, so we don't have the lovely landscapes sometimes seen in historical martial arts films, but with Yeoh illuminating the screen with her graceful presence, who needs mere trees and mountains?

lasttimeisaw English Title: Reign Of Assassins Original Title: Jianyu Year: 2010 Country: China Language: Mandarin Genre: Action Director: Chao-Bin Su Writers: Chao-Bin Su Cast: Michelle Yeoh Woo-sung Jung Xueqi Wang Kelly Lin Shawn Yue Barbie Hsu Leon Dai Hee Ching Paw Yiyan Jiang Zonghan Li Xiaodong Guo Pace Wu Matt Wu Feixia Wu Rating: 7/10My gut feeling after the first view of this film is mixed with some relief and a shred of disappointment. Last year, it was propagandized as a John Woo's work in order to infuse some incentive into this star-studded kung-fu film to conquer the local cinemas. Shamefully this trick stumbled quite severely as it was largely overshadowed by DETECTIVE DEE (2010) at the box office with the same release period (during Chinese National Day, October 2010).Its reviews were generally favored though, which should be merited to Chao-Bin Su, the real man behind-the-wheel and whose previous director works SILK (2006) and BETTER THAN SEX (2002) have won him some reputation as a gifted and emerging Taiwan director. As a Chinese, the fact is that we tend to be immune from domestic Kung-fu films much more than foreigners, because since our infancy, we haven been surrounding and tested by myriad films like these, so it is difficult to make a fuss about it unless there is truly something special in it.So speaking of this film, in spite of that it has many plot holes which doesn't make sense (even in the time of Jiang Hu, to name a few, our heroine's initial motivation of stealing the half buddha body in the first place; the plausibility of face-lifting technology; the sudden intensifying kung-fu mastery of our hero, etc.), the film converges some genuine talent to entertain its audience, especially the dreamlike cinematography successfully builds a ruthless world of Jiang Hu as well as its innovative fighting design which embodies each main character their own personality.The cast is solid for an action film, it's the first time since CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (2000), Michelle Yeoh finally collected a decent leading role as a martial fighter, which is well-done too judging by the criterion of acting. I do have high expectation of her to take a leap in the upcoming Aung San Suu Kyi's bio-pic THE LADY (directed by Luc Besson). To sum up, I am pleased to watch this film and sincerely hope Su will become a big name in the near future.