Thiên menh anh hùng

... because the story is very bad. I mean, it starts out fine, but the characters are basically every other wuxia movie cliché, and then at the end the story devolves altogether into one hot mess and badly done CGI soup. Accusations of plagiarism aside, this movie is just not good at all.

To answer many viewers who thought "Sword of the Assassin" looks like of Chinese origin, it is because IT'S COPIED from Chinese origin. In Vietnam "Sword of the Assassin" is widely known to have plagiarized from several Chinese and Korean movies. This is the same movie called "Blood Letter" but the filmmakers switched the title to "Sword of the Assassin" after Vietnamese social media exposed the plagiarism. It's a big scandal in Vietnamese language media and social media. Some Vietnamese language links: Youtube video "Vietnamese American movie director plagiarize more movies"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z0tYECq_ZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SGx04TL4SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0y8YdFddrM

Now you know the reason why everyone said how "Chinese" the movie is. Historical influence is no excuse for modern plagiarism, look at Korean movies they had same historical influence but didn't plagiarize and developed a unique Korean cinema. The director had a history of plagiarizing foreign movies and claiming author, particularly he was the first filmmaker investigated for plagiarism by Vietnamese cinema regulators and found to have plagiarized "Shattered"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WttzaJg2WdI

The Vietnamese subtitles in the "Sword of the Assassin" expose video say after the director was found guilty for plagiarizing "Shattered", he now copies from different movies and combine to make it harder for the public to find out original source.

The plot of "Thien Menh Anh Hung" is pretty much banal. I feel like each moment of the film reminds me of something I've seen in the past. Nothing new. Nothing exciting. What bothers me the most is that the film adopts too many features of Chinese martial arts movies, to such an extent that it really becomes a cliché. Victor Vu definitely didn't spend enough time and effort on developing a unique style and plot for his blockbuster.

The beautiful cinematography somehow makes up for the film's lack of originality. It does a great job of portraying beautiful scenery in Vietnam, and adds a great deal to the success of the film.

At first, this film is not well-acted without any painstaking effort from the producer or the director (Victor Vu). In this film, for his sake, Nguyen Vu decided to move out where he was brought up and came to the town to find out the truth. However, when the secrets were clarified, he easily refused to revenge who dared to kill all of his family. It was so ridiculous and rigid. this context should be somehow ambivalent which will either deliver a painful bane to innocent people or bring a elated boon when finally killing "demons". Moreover, film background was not definitely impressive. Not like a Chinese drama, a city would be crowded of people and shops, but in this film, it is poorly not. But it is just one of the vanguards in making history film in Vietnam, it should not be discouraged.

Sword of the Assassin (2012) is Vietnamese first wuxia movie based on the novel "Nguyen Trai-The Blood Letter volume (2) from author Bui Thanh Tuan that heavily inspired by the famous case of Le Chi Vien from the Le dynasty that set in an alternate timeline where we follow Nguyen Vu a made up descendant of the great scholar Nguyen Trai on his way to clear his family name. The reason why I want everyone to know that this movie based on a novel is because a lot of people said that this movie is just another copycat of every Wuxia movies ever existed and even worse plagiarism. Yes, the characters are generic and from the wire-fu fight scenes, anyone with the right head will know that this movie a pretty by the book Wuxia movie but there nothing wrong with pay homage to a genre that universally loved by anyone unless they claim their movie to be totally original. I enjoy this movie for what it is because from the technical standpoint the movie looks very impressive for a Vietnamese movie at that time and I would love to see more Vietnamese Wuxia movie in the future