Contract Killer - Im Auftrag des Todes

Fast action and lots of laughs too!

In The Contract Killer, Jet Li supplies the charisma and quick kicks as a lowly trainee hitman going for the big score in tracking down the King of All Hitmen.

Li's character is in tandem with a sly, but bumbling conman, played by the great Hong Kong character actor Eric Tsang (Men Suddenly in Black, Accidental Spy), who excels at menace and comic relief. Tsang gives one of his typical 3D performance a la Bob Hoskins or Sydney Greenstreet.

A rare directorial effort from actor/stuntman Wei Tung, who also directed Magic Cop.

This is a good movie that may have never made it to the American market if not for the success of Jet Li in the U.S. Eric Tsang is a very successful actor in the Hong Kong market, but has virtually no following here -- which is too bad. He may have even been listed as the star of the movie in the original Chinese version.

Eric is a Chinese blend of Danny DeVito and Joe Pesci. He can portray the wormy character of DeVito in the Romancing the Stone/Jewel of the Nile movies. And he also does a great blending of the Home Alone/Lethal Weapon Joe Pesci character. People should rent this movie to see him render his role.

As for the movie, itself, this is a little different than most Jet Li fare -- maybe because he is not the clear star. There is a little less of the martial artist and a little more of the actor. It is a pleasant change.

The Contract Killer is one of Jet Li's best films. Besides the cool action sequences, the movie has effective humor (courtesy of Eric Tsang), and well... more action sequences. Not to mention the movie has one of the most rubbish scripts ever in the history of Kung-Fu/Action cinema. The script is so bad, the sub-villain is a guy with lasers on the tip of his shoes. And the villain eats his diseased grandfather's ashes. Yeah.

Anyways, long story short, Jet and Eric must find the killer of old mafioso don Tsukamoto, in order to receive a 100 million dollar reward. Everything else is action and buddy comedy.

It is important to recognize the talent and agility Jet demonstrates in his fighting scenes. Although they are far from being his best, the work he puts in here is astounding; heavily inspired by most of Jackie Chan's work as a matter of fact. Jet isn't a killing machine here, or a spiritual white robbed man with a bad haircut. He is but a skillful martial artist that doesn't want to hurt anyone badly, therefore, he resorts to use his surroundings most of the time. Like Jackie in most of his films.

It is also important to recognize Eric Tsang. The man is very good in this one; funny, enjoyable and overacted (but in a tasteless way of course). I also liked the musical score and requisite Hip Hop soundtrack.

Statement: You are not a Jet Li purist if you haven't seen Contract Killer. I also highly recommended this to anyone that wants to laugh and see some large amounts of ass kicking at the same time.

5.3/10

As most other reviewers have noted, this film is a surprise. Not a standard Jet Li actioner, but an amusing buddy comedy with a pretty intricate plot. Jet Li is Fu, a mild mannered and highly skilled, ex Chinese army soldier who lives in the cheap end of town (in HK, that is). He hangs around with a bunch of blowhard hoods who get hit jobs from coded requests in the personal ads (presumably Fu wants to be one of them for the money and prestige, but I thought this aspect was a little thin. Something lost in the subtitles no doubt). A high level Japanese businessman/crook was assassinated, activating his revenge fund of $100 million and attracting bounty hunters from across the globe. Fu gets wind of the job via his little network and tries to get in on it. It is here that he meets Eric Tsang's character, a fairly seasoned lowlife, who sees Fu's potential and latches on to him, becoming his sponsor or agent. Well, they make quite a pair; one an achingly polite, meek, ass kicker (!), the other a sharply dressed professional liar with a fake resume from hell.

Surrounding these two and their odd relationship is loads of wheeling and dealing as global hit squads, the police, the dead guy's grandson and those who control the estate vie for whatever they can get out of the deal. All the while rumours circulate that the job was done by the mysterious uber-vigilante know as the Angel of Death or The King of Killers. It's a multi-lingual, multi-cultural affair that really reflects our contemporary world in a way that isn't seen often enough on screen. And by the end it's clear the film has bitten off more than it can chew, not getting the most out of the power games and some characters. But that doesn't stop it being generally well acted, exciting, funny and filled with character ( a lot more than most that share the Jet Li shelf at my video store anyway)

Do check it out.

Hitman is a good solid action comedy which calls upon Jet Li to do a little more acting than usual. The cast is good, with Eric Tsang standing out particularly, and Heiji Sato making a decent debut as the nasty Japanese guy (there seem to be a lot of these in Hong Kong movies). Action scenes are relatively thin on the ground but what's there is of a good standard - although you might expect better from "Hong Kong's greatest action export".

What's most refreshing about this film is its understatement. The plot isn't anything special but it's pretty water-tight, and the action is all pretty believable if unspectacular.

One thing I particularly liked about Hitman was the way that different languages were used throughout the film (without using dubbing as in The Black Sheep Affair). This contributes to the overall realistic feel of the film and is something I would like to see more on screen. This aside, there is nothing particularly innovative here, but nothing worth criticising either - a film I could recommend to people who don't usually enjoy foreign martial arts movies.