The Assassin
Director: Billy Chung
Year: 1993
Rating: 5.5
Director Billy Chung
brings his bleak and violent style over from his Cat III film of the same
year, Love to Kill, and applies it to the wushu/kung fu genre with mixed
results. It does contain some individual scenes that are extremely stylish
and memorable, but overall it feels ponderous and self-important. It also
has moments that one might assume were influenced by The Blade and Ashes
of Time, but both these films actually followed Assassin (1993). Relentlessly
brutal and graphic with nary an attempt at character development, the film
begins to wear out its welcome but for the occasional flash of inspiration.
One has to wonder if the 80-minute DVD I watched this on was cut because
without even a bow to exposition it feels like it is in the middle of the
story as it begins. The dour looking Zhang Fengyi and wide-eyed Rosamund
Kwan are running away together when a whole cast of extras stops them and
imprisons Zhang. Inside the prison he is tortured and in a scene that looks
all too real has his eyelids sewn shut. I know HK will go to great lengths
to capture realism on the screen but they wouldn’t do that - would they?
His eyelids are later slashed open and he finds himself in an arena with
other prisoners. In an early version of Survivor, they are told that they
must kill each other until only one remains. Zhang is the lucky winner, but
instead of a trip to Disneyland he becomes an assassin for the evil Eunuch
Tsai and acquires the name Tong Chop and a chopping he does go.
In the next few years he and his partner, Max Mok, - carry out many killings
for the eunuch and Tong begins to lose all sense of his humanity – just a
killing machine with no regard to the virtue of his victims. In the
midst of one such assignment, he sees his old love Rosamund – who has remarried
and had a child and forgotten about poor old Tong like a bad rash. Unable
to carry out his mission in front of her big brown expansive eyes, he fails
and is now on the other end of the eunuch’s killers. Mok has his eye on Zhang
as well - either because he wants to become the number one professional killer
or he is concerned that Zhang will get the GQ cover over him. Unlike the
well coiffed eunuch with his high bee hair style, fashionable killers these
are not as both have hairstyles from hell – I felt like my father “get a
haircut why don’t you”.
The film rests on its action scenes – as much of the time in between is taken
up by bilious dialogue between the killers about their fate in life – stop
talking – get a haircut – and these are generally fairly well done (choreographed
by Stephen Tung Wai). Full of decapitated heads and other limbs flying about
like so much debris, it is interesting, but brings few thrills because everyone
always looks as if they should be on anti-depressants. A few scenes stand
out such as the eunuch being attacked by his killer courtesans and the final
duel among a maze of columns and sharp flying objects. Rosamund is totally
wasted in the film - she could have done her part while waiting for a bus.
My rating for this film: 5.5
