Sha ren zhe Tang Zhan

Tong Po Ka, played by a young Zhang Feng Yi - star of Red Cliff 1&2, and The Emperor & The Assassin - tries escaping down-river with his lover, Rosamund Kwan of whom he has been accused of kidnapping. Chased by hundreds of men, they are caught and he is shipped off to a dark and violent prison where the red-eyed rats feed on the blood of men, and prisoners get their eyelids stitched closed in a graphically disturbing fashion.

There's a reason Billy Chung's epic The Assassin is a Category 3 movie, and in about 6 minutes of its running time, you start to see why!

A tale of forbidden love, and a fight for survival, this 1993 graphic swordplay, martial arts flick is not director Chung's first foray into Cat 3 territory having made the dark, Love To Kill. Beautifully shot with stunning cinematography from Zhao Fei (who also shot Warriors Of Heaven & Earth, Raise The red Lantern, and Let The Bullets Fly), the film just oozes that Hong Kong new-wave style of film-making with gorgeously lit night shots, smoke filled scenes, and great set-pieces...

The handsome Max Mok Siu Chung soon joins the story as another assassin for the band of killers, joining Zhang since his recruitment from prison. Not long after, we are treated to a decent attack on officials in a nearby town with some bloody action, enhanced with a little wire-fu by choreographers Stephen Tung Wei and Benz Kong To Hoi. While they don't bring anything spectacular to the screen, the fights still entertain and offer enough great moves and violence to keep fans happy!

At this stage, Zhang has become a ruthless killer, letting no man stand in his way and enjoying the smell of burning corpses at his feet. Both he and Mok bond together, often fighting side-by-side as more missions come along. Obviously, that isn't to last as Zhang finds Rosamund Kwan once again who is now married with a child, and defies his master to try and escape the killing life.

Thankfully, it also means escaping that dreadful wig!

Forced to fight his new friend to the death, Zhang must take on the Assassination Factory in a bid to get his life back and survive the violent world he now lives in. Thankfully, this results in a few more pretty sweet battles reminiscent of classics such as The Bride With White Hair, Blade Of Fury, and Burning Paradise. While flawed in many areas, The Assassin still entertains and offers plenty of bloody action in its short running time...

Overall: Like a violent Ashes Of Time, only a little more straight forward, The Assassin is pretty sweet and a forgotten classic of the Hong Kong new-wave era!

The fighting was dull and unspectacular, the story was likewise rather boring and cliched. The action tries to get by on the sheer force of its violence rather than by exciting, well choreographed sequences. There certainly is a lot of violence, rather graphic in relation to other movies of the genre (many beheadings and dismemberments, and most notably an eye-sewing-shut scene), but it is a VERY poor substitute for good action. I think it's terribly unfortunate that this movie has received full DVD release and The Blade (Dao) (1995) has not, as that movie shared the same form of unnerving violence, but it was much, MUCH better done on every level.

This film offers plenty: perfectly choreographed swordfights with dozens of men, a nice plot and gore. The fast-paced action sequences are well timed during the film so I have never been bored while watching the movie. Everyone who liked A Chinese Ghost Story should not hesitate and get this film. One last word to the gore hounds: Though there are lots of amputations, everything happens so fast that you hardly have time to watch it, but don't cry: there is a scene where a man gets his eyes sewn and it is shown very explicit. Overall this film is worth a 9/10.

The Assassin (1993) is directed by Hong Kong film maker Siu Hung Cheung (Love To Kill), and it stars Max Mok and Rosamund Kwan as lovers who are separated during the Ming Dynasty era by some villagers who don't accept their marriage. He is captured and sent to horrible torture prison in which his eyes are sewn shut in graphic detail. Soon he gets an opportunity to fight 7 other convicts and if he wins, he gets a chance to become the evil emperor's super effective hitman and that he does. He works as a ruthless killer/assassin, until he meets Rosamund again accidentally and starts to have memories about his lost love and past life. He decides to quit as an assassin, but it is clear his master won't accept that and then the quest for life and love begins. This is in many ways similar with Ronny Yu's masterpiece Bride With White Hair.

The main theme in The Assassin is love, piece and morality of killing in general. Kwan's character is so warm and beautiful (both mentally and physically), it is clear that the main character understands the value of this and cannot continue his way of living in the dark side by killing people. The main themes in Bride were desperate love and trust more importantly, as all the hell broke loose when Brigitte Lin noticed she had been betrayed by the one he loves in Bride. The theme in The Assassin, however, is more about piece and safety and the depiction of killing's immorality. The main character learns that life is much more rewarding when he does good things instead of bad like killing and avenging. This is not as deep and philosophic film as it could be, but still these symbols and themes are present and make this film more powerful experience for me.

The sword fights and wire fu is breath takingly brilliant and shot with equally striking power as in Bride With White Hair. The magic created in The Assassin is wonderful as the whole film is so dark and bathes in blue and menacing smoke and mist. The exteriors are as fantastic as the interiors so the cinematography in The Assassin is very convincing and memorable. The fight scenes themselves are professionally staged and as fierce as they come. They are over-the-top violent and gory in the tradition of Japanese samurai films like Baby Cart films. The fierceness in the fight scenes is taken even further by using angry blood and gore in the scenes and those scenes are as symbolic here as they would be in a book so I definitely don't think this is gratuitously violent and exploiting. Still, this film got CAT III rating originally due to the excessive violence which includes many torso splittings, poison deaths and other acts of savage violence. The one fight scene near the end is in slow motion and is perhaps the greatest fight in the whole movie as it really depicts the decay and wickedness which lives in the world and inside its characters. I think the sword fights are as great here as in Bride With White Hair.

The Assassin is extremely highly recommended for lovers of Hong Kong "fly fu" and wuxia films, and I was pleasantly surprised by the high merits of this pretty unknown film. The Assassin can and is recommended to be seen many times since it unfolds and gives more by each viewing, which is usually the case with Hong Kong and Asian films. 9/10

Assassin should be considered another lightweight entry into the dark themed HK swordplay/action genre, like The Blade, Ashes of Time, and the excellent Burning Paradise. The film has a great premise- A country bumpkin and flower lover, Tong Po, falls in love with a girl (Rosamund Kwan) he is not allowed to marry. They try to run away together, but they are captured and he is thrown into a jail where his eyes are sewn shut. Next, his eyes are opened to find himself and some fellow prisoners in a gladiatorial ring where they must kill each other in order to survive, the last man standing gets to live and be trained as an executioner for a power corrupted eunuch. Tong Po wins of course, becomes an adept killing machine, is renamed Tong Chop, and given an apprentice who both idolizes and wants to replace him. During one nighttime raid, Tong sees Rosamund and his past starts creeping back on him, so he leaves the killing business and hides out with her in her village where she has remarried and has a son. But, his old life as a prominent killer is not easily left behind, and both his protégé and the powerful eunuch are out for his blood, leading to the bloody conclusion

It has a great story, pretty good cinematography, and the gore one comes to expect (the eunuch likes to tear his victims in two, and of course the swordplay involves many geysers of blood), but it suffers from poor production values and lack of a charismatic lead. The film has serious `fright wig' syndrome, with some laughable costumes and really bad, uneven, frizzy wigs on Tong Chop and his protégé. With a more substantial budget, design, and casting of a better lead this could have been a great film. It could definitely benefit from being remade.