During a mission, Tong sees by pure chance his beloved Yui who now has a new life as a mother of a young boy and the wife of a farmer. Because of this unexpected meeting, Tong's past life comes back in his memories and feels ashamed of his current life of an assassin. So he decides to give up his deadly life and seek refuge in the village were Yui lives. But during the passing time, Wong Ka, his young partner in crime, has taken his place as the top assassin and his now looking for a duel against Tong Po to know who really is the number one assassin.

Review: An old time period bone crushing swordplay fighting movie, The Assassin has a nice and classic premise to become an instant classic but unfortunately doesn't even scratch the surface of its full potential and just ends up in the list of numerous average swordplay movies that HK has produced during all these years. The biggest flaw of the movie is not being uninteresting, because I had a good time while watching the flic, but unfortunately the movie doesn't bring anything new to the genre. It only mixes a couple of concepts to build itself, that we have already seen in other numerous swordplay movies, instead of trying something new to capture his audience. On the other side, director Chung Siu-Hung which his latest movie was My Schoolmate the Barbarian, has given a special look to the movie that is quite dark, shocking, bloody and far from the usual poetic look that we are used to see in swordplay movie.

Typical is what could describe the story. The premise was not very original, dealing again with a lovely couple deeply in love undergoing a forced separation is still not something new, the movie was still interesting to follow but was very predictable and didn't offer a surprising plot, which left the story on a very ordinary level. I don't think that the filmmaker wanted to do a groundbreaking story but instead just chosen a very simple premise to tell a swordplay love story.

As for the actors, I don't think that any of them really surprised me. Maybe with the exception of Rosamund Kwan, well known for her role as Aunt Yee in OUATIC series, none of them were very appealing. Especially the two main characters which looked more like heavy metal fans from the 80's with their big fake wigs, rather than real deadly assassins. Siu Chung Mok, also known for his role of Leung Foon in the OUATIC series, played Wong Ka the young and ambitious assassin. As for the main character, it was played by Zhang Feng Yi. Both of the characters were interesting but never reach a memorable level of dignity, something that kind of chivalry character usually reach in epic swordplay movie.

The style, setting and visual impact were the most stunning aspect of the movie. Maybe not a visual masterpiece, Assassin has a very grim, violent and dark environment that we don't see very often in swordplay movie, which usually try to look colorful and poetic. The director used a lot of creepy sets and stunning lighting that really give a chilling look to the movie. The fighting sequence also fitted that dark environment mood, with a lot of graphical violence shown directly on screen. Blood is spilt everywhere, swords cleave limbs and bodies that are torn apart are only a few examples of what you can expect in the fighting sequence. As for the fighting choreographies, because of the quick editing it was sometime hard to really understand what was going on. There were also wires that were sometime used for enhancing acrobatic stunt, but it never goes to the point of being completely out of place. In all I was not very impressed by the fighting sequence, they were entertaining not really because of the choreographies but more because of the cold violence that is mixed in it.