REVIEW: Legendary Assassin (2008)

4/10 - Wushu star Jacky Wu Jing (KILL ZONE) gets behind the camera for the first time by co-directing this flimsy martial arts drama with action director Nicky Li (INVISIBLE TARGET). When a typhoon warning leaves an assassin, who is fresh from his latest kill, stranded in a small community on an island, he inadvertently befriends a female police officer (Celina Jade) and her coworkers before he’s forced to contend with revenge-seeking gangsters. While managing to be a minor diversion, the film is burdened by sappy and clichéd scripting, over-dependence on heavy wirework and excessive kicking, and a weak lead performance.

From his forgettable introduction in Yuen Woo-ping’s TAI CHI 2 in 1996 through Lau Kar-leung’s poor-received old school reboot DRUNKEN MONKEY (2002), I have been willing to cut Jacky Wu slack for not displaying leading-man potential, knowing that it takes time for some martial arts actors to mature. Concerns over Wu’s lack of screen charisma have been somewhat negated in years since by generally impressive screen fighting skills and especially by quality roles in Yuen Woo-ping’s excellent kung fu TV series THE TAI-CHI MASTER (2003) and Wilson Yip’s KILL ZONE. Since, Wu has done nothing but exploit his new anti-hero persona from KILL ZONE in a series of increasingly inferior action films while repeating the mistakes that Jet Li made a decade earlier with his less-than-stellar contemporary action films.

As with FATAL CONTACT, Wu Jing yet again reveals an inability to carry a movie on his own. He lacks the necessary charisma. What ever he may possess under the surface in real life is not translating adequately to film. My hope had been that as co-director, Wu would be able to use the opportunity to finally show us something that perhaps he hasn’t been able to do thus far. It didn’t happen.

Wu Jing’s screen fighting ability, or at least his fighting experience, remains the best of his generation in China or Hong Kong. That, however, is exactly why his physical performance in LEGENDARY ASSASSIN is so disappointing. Wu and Nicky Li seemingly decided to use wirework as much as humanly possible during the film’s action sequences. Wu spent so much time in a harness they might as well have made this a computer animated movie and let him voice his character. As ridiculous as this ends up looking, what’s worse is that Wu uses almost nothing but legwork, regardless of the circumstances. Wu is a talented wushu practitioner, there’s no doubt there, but a superkicker like Xiong Xin-xin or Dorian Tan he is not. Over half of a good screen kick is in the presentation and in roughly 14 minutes of fight work the presentation is all exaggerated and sloppy kicking where opponents might as well have been training dummies.

A film like this lives or dies by its supporting characters because the assassin is this cool, emotionless personality whom we are unable to identify with. He ends up surrounded by equally detached and completely undeveloped gangsters, police who act and dress like high schoolers and a couple random oddballs in an outdoor restaurant who could have stepped right out from a nonsensical Stephen Chow comedy. Kara Hui, a talented former Shaw Brothers kung fu star, is wasted on an insubstantial throwaway role as a restaurant owner with a vague connection to Wu Jing’s character. Even Lam Suet, a gifted character actor, who could do wonders with just about any role, is reduced to little more than a perpetually out-of-breath gangster.

Tin Kai-man, who memorably played “Iron Shirt” in SHAOLIN SOCCER and Danny Chan’s advisor in KUNG FU HUSTLE is wasted on a forgettable, non-comedic role as Lam Suet’s cohort. He actually gets into a brief kung fu battle with Wu Jing but I’m guessing that he was heavily doubled given his character’s exaggerated fighting moves and his lack of screen fighting experience. I don’t understand why a better opponent for Wu couldn’t be found. If nothing else, cast a stuntman as a prominent villain so we can at least get one decent match.

Absolute, drop-dead gorgeous singer Celina Jade in her film debut ends up with the best acting performance in the film although she too is grossly mishandled. She’s not even remotely believable as a police officer capable of doing kung fu but her interaction with her co-stars is the most convincing and is suggestive of far greater dramatic acting potential.

In contrast, Sammy Leung gets the award for most annoying supporting actor in a film for his whiny and juvenile performance, complete with boy-band mop hair. He plays a police officer ever jealous of Wu Jing and the attention Wu receives from Celina. He is meant to be comic relief but there is nothing amusing about his embarrassing antics that only further reduce this movie to the level of something like SAVED BY THE BELL. Yeah, I said it.

The combination of heavy wire use and overdependence on average kicking, coupled with poorly executed and clichéd scene set-ups makes for a series of dull and forgettable action sequences that desperately needed to be better in order to overcome the equally forgettable non-action filler.

The film’s most enjoyable fight sequence occurs when Wu and Jade face three crooks in an outdoor restaurant. The set-up is flimsy and it’s not established well enough who these guys are but given that two of them look as if they’re bulky relatives of pro-bastketballer Yao Ming, this makes for at least a memorable match up between near-fantasy high-flying kicks and over-sized brawn. Had the rest of the film maintained the quirky tone that this sequence did, it would have been a lot more fun even with its flaws.

The rest of the film’s fight sequences are far less entertaining. Camera work and lighting are decent but too many cuts break up the flow. Too little attention is paid to making moves distinctive or match ups memorable. Characters have no character. Fighting styles have no definition. Wu Jing has no rivals.

The fights are staged with tired conventions, especially the finale. It’s been a while since I have seen a sequence with so many overused clichés all together. It has the anguished damsel in distress all tied up. It’s nighttime and raining for dramatic effect. Dozens of faceless opponents are lined up on either side like imperial soldiers as the hero approaches. When the fight begins, everyone stands around politely waiting for their turn to get kicked. Heaven forbid any criminal reach for a gun, least of all their boss, a non-fighting female who feels confident enough to try and cut off Wu’s head after he has just single-handedly wiped out her entire army of thugs.

Some may believe that I have just dropped a spoiler. Not really. The only thing that would spoil this experience would be going into it expecting something more.

Screenwriter Fung Chi-keung takes a potentially good premise and does nothing of any consequence with it. As clichéd as “professional killers with a heart of gold” are, I liked the idea of one being stranded on a small island and having his smooth operation thrown off by getting involved with local police officers. Unfortunately, it’s completely squandered by what I can only describe as very immature storytelling.

As example, police officers act like children. Assassins wear white high-top sneakers, presumably to enhance their kicking prowess. I wonder if those high-tops had flubber on their soles. The film opens and closes with overlong, moody reflection that has no substantial meaning, nor reason for the audience to care. Ill-defined characters come and go with little consequence or resolution related to the main plot or the two leads. Fighting action is repetitive, dull and about as believable within the context of the movie as a flying, Buddha Palm-blasting wuxia superhero would be leaping effortlessly over the skyscrapers of central Hong Kong.

It needs to be said — Nicky Li and Jacky Wu should leave action filmmaking to the grownups and get back to their respective fields of expertise, although I’m not sure Li should be directing action at all. So far all he has shown is his ability to copy wire action from the 1990s while audiences have moved on to more substantial MMA or Southeast Asian action. Li and Wu have had more than enough experience in the industry to put a quality film together. There’s no excuse for their collective skills producing nothing better than a mediocre film like LEGENDARY ASSASSIN. It was adequately scaled down to its limited budget. It had a decent cast and the added incentive of potentially broader overseas distribution given the release of KILL ZONE and FATAL CONTACT in the U.S. The effort was wasted on what will go down as yet another throwaway Wu Jing movie that is neither good enough to build up Wu’s international status as the next big martial arts star, nor will it satisfy core genre fans looking for a continuation of standards set previously by the likes of Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

REVIEW: Legendary Assassin (2008), 4.8 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

by Mark Pollard

Related Topics:
Celina Jade  •  Jacky Wu Jing  •  Legendary Assassin (2008)  •  Nicky Li  •  wirework