Reign of Assassins

I was quite skeptical bout this movie and it doesn't really into my 'must watch' list of movies this season. But since I heard some occasional 'OKs' from some friends, I'd decided to give it a try. Well I didn't went to the cinema to watch it first of all. I don't have to tell you how I got the movie but just gonna leave it to you all to guess. Anyway, the movie is directed by one of Hong Kong finest action director, John Woo. Set in ancient China, which tells the story of a famous monk who was the master of the martial art world. He died finally of old age and his remains are stolen by some unknown people who later separated it into two halves. It is believe that whoever possesses the whole remain of the monk would be able to be the master of the martial art world.

There is a group called The Dark Stone, an underground society which sent 3 of his assassins, Xi Yu (Kelly Lin), Lei Bin (Shawn Yue) and Lian Sheng (Leon Dai) to get one of the remains. Xi Yu decided to get away with the remains which resulted in the pursuit of Cao Feng (Wang Xu Qie) a.k.a King of Dharma Wheel. Xi Fu later decided to change her face and start a new life without having to hide for the rest of her life. He meet with a nice guy name Jiang-A-Sheng (Jung Woo-Sung). But during one time, she has no choice but to reveal her martial skills and later alerted The Dark Stone. Enough for now, I am not going to spoil the whole movie for you, you can go and watch it to know what is the ending like. 

The movie seemed like Face Off to me at some point, having the same idea of changing faces and personality but at the end fate had the better of it and someone had to sacrifice for what they believe and love. This is your typical martial art (Wu Xia) movie but I like it particularly of it's plot and also the pace of the movie. The movie is not all slash and chop but rather tells the story of how two peoples life got change of what happen in the past which may result in a tragic future. And how they overcome it at the end of the day. As usual, you can see John Woo's trademark in the whole movie if you are a fan of his past movies. Overall, I am really pleased with the whole movie and wouldn't mind introducing it to a friend to watch. Well maybe no in the big screen but who knows. (Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0)