Michelle Yeoh adds another quality film to her name with ‘Reign of Assassins’.
The story revolves around the remains of an old mummified Buddhist monk. It is believed that whoever possesses the remains will be able to attain great power in the martial arts world.
The Dark Stone gang have discovered that half of the remains are in the possession of the Governor Zhang. They send their top assassin Drizzle to kill Zhang and his son Renfeng. After completing her mission she takes the remains and goes on the run.
Drizzle happens to meet a monk, who teaches her that her sword technique has 4 major flaws that would be capitialized on if she were to cross blades with a real master. After some time with the Monk, Drizzle is convinced by the monk to leave behind the life of being an assassin after he gives his life as ‘her last kill’.
Drizzle then feels guilty and wants to change her life around. She then goes to a surgeon to have her face altered to look like a completely different person and then ventures off to start a new life, hiding the remains.
Before long she meets a man, gets married and things are going well. That’s when she is discovered and things start to get messy as she must defend herself and her new husband from harm.
Michelle Yeoh’s Character Drizzle.
Drizzle is a top assassin who, after her time with the monk, wants no longer to kill and instead to lead a normal happy life and become a better person.
Her story is about her quest to become this person but is faced with violence and death right when things were becoming easiest. Just she adjusts to this new way of life with her husband, the Dark Stone gang are there to make the whole situation more difficult.
(spoilers) This manages to get even harder when he discover that her husband Ah Sheng reveals himself to be Renfeng – threatening the very marriage she has come to treasure, even asking him if he ever really loved her. This was a nice little twist and added something a little deeper to the movie as well as creating an even harder situation for Drizzle to prevail in.
The story itself is pretty standard and doesn’t really break new ground, but the twists at the end give it a bit more credibility.
The Action & Martial Arts
The action in this film relies heavily on wire work and finds a good balance between the wire work and martial arts action.
As a big fan of the whole ‘No CGI, No Wires’ approach that seemed be shot back to life by Tony Jaa in Ong Bak, I can’t help but be a bit disappointed when I see obvious wire work and CGI in a film. But I also understand not all martial arts movies are about the stunts.
Some of the ideas behind the fight were relatively unique. Michelle Yeoh’s character has a sword technique in which she uses the flexibility of the blade to land attacks at different angles on her opponent, often bending around her enemies swords and blocks.
The fights were fast and entertaining. They met my expectations of the movie and fall pretty much into the ‘standard’ box in my opinion. Cool and entertaining, but ultimately nothing very outstanding – from the point of view of an action junkie / martial artist who wants the real deal.
In terms of visual style and aesthetics, very smooth and nice to watch.
The Verdict?
The story is decent, with good acting and great characters. But let’s face it, you’re watching it for the action! If you’re the type of person who’s into Crouching Tiger & House of Flying Daggers then this movie is for you.
If you want the realism that guys like Tony Jaa & Scott Adkins have to offer, you’ll find it pretty average.
On Blu Ray –
Region A (US & Canada)
Reign of Assassins [Blu-ray]
On DVD –
Region Free (Plays in any country)
Reign Of Assassins DVD
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
Reign of Assassins [DVD]
