Long nga

The awesome Wu Jing has been making quite a name for himself lately with the almighty success of his Wolf Warrior films, and deservedly so! Looking back on his directorial debut, Legendary Assassin, you start to wonder what his fascination of wolves is all about with the image of the animal carried alongside him on the Hong Kong DVD artwork and the wolfs tooth he wears around his neck throughout the film.

Had he thought about it (I guess) and knew how big the following two films were going to be, this would have been a great closing chapter - albeit with a connecting rewrite, stronger characters and fight scenes.

But hey - no doubt Wolf Warrior 3 will be along soon enough (at time of writing)!

When I first saw Legendary Assassin, I really enjoyed it. I loved Wu Jing in Fatal Contact and many other roles, so it was nice to have him back as leading man and good guy once again. There is a certain charm and return to the 90's HK film style of sorts, with fun and hard hitting fight scenes, simple storyline, odd comedic moments and lighting of shots. A repeat viewing many years later still did entertain me, but I just felt something more spectacular could have been done with the talent behind and in front of the camera.

Wu Jing's character of the assassin drifter was cool and intriguing although it might have been nice to find out a bit more on him. The idea of him stuck on an island after beheading a top mob boss and dodging his henchmen as a typhoon creeps in, was quite exciting and might have served better as the closing act. Alas, it is not - which then leaves us with a short and unimaginative, though painful looking, stunt filled fight against 100 henchmen and the (hardly) threatening dead boss's wife. Its not that the fight is disappointing as such, but just a lot of the same moves over and over unlike the big end battle of a classic Jackie Chan or Sammo Hung flick that had incredibly choreographed moves that had you cheering at the screen! Legendary Assassin is still most definitely worth the watch, and shows the promise of what we have now witnessed of Wu Jing as a director and star. And maybe now because we know what he can do, this lets us see what was missing here...

Still - plenty of fun to be had!

I may call this film kind of refreshment, even if we agree it has cheep plot concept all the way from the start. What I like about this film is that it is opposite of now-days Hollywood failure attempts to make a good film from the great investments. This film looks like attempt to make a second rate Hollywood movie but it finally got into more than that. Good directing, very good camera, pretty good SF martial arts effects (even though I don't like such fairy tale kung-fu picture) and excellent acting. What I also like about this film is charming and natural style of film making, kind of discrete and cute sense of humor, easy to swallow but still not underlined as a movie trademark. All in all, it is far from dull film and solid entertainment in the sleepy nights.

From IMDB: "A female cop befriends a mysterious martial arts drifter, who turns out to be a deadly assassin."

Starring Jing Wu (Wolf Warrior) and newcomer, Chinese-American Celina Jade. Wu followed the same path as Jet Li to China's School of Wushu (Kung Fu) at age six, so is quite an accomplished Martial Artist. Jade was taught Taekwondo by her father, so is no slouch in the fighting dept.

For a small budget movie, there is plenty of scenery and action, at times non-stop. Wu is an assassin who carries his 'trophies' around with him, and the main plot is that one of his kills' relatives wants it back. The final 'fight' is completely over the top and his romance with Jade is kept on the back burner.

All in all, well worth spending 90 minutes of your time.

This is not an art-house movie nor the most amazing action movie you will ever see. But it is a good, solid, entertaining action movie.

The relationship between Jacky Wu and Celina Jade was nice, the café scene was both funny and with great action, the scenes at the police station were a mixture of tension and comedy, and the climax fight scene was ridiculous but who cares?

I'd never seen Jacky Wu before and I found his silent stoic character rather enjoyable. This appears to be Celina Jade's first film and she was excellent, as well as rather attractive. Secondary characters played there roles acceptably (although the blonde policeman seemed to be in the wrong film).

The point is that I was thoroughly entertained for the duration, and even my wife enjoyed it. Overall I think that's pretty good.

Being a big fan of Wu Jing, I've waited nearly a year for Legendary Assassin after his dazzling moves in Fatal Move left me in limbo. I'm not sure how big a role he played as co-director in this film, but the direction and the story was fairly mediocre. It takes place on an island where he meets the girl cop (Celina Jade), and gets chased around by the bad guys. They are trapped on the island because a tropical typhoon has shut down all the ferries. It feels a bit like Assault on Precinct 13 but nowhere near as intense or exciting. A 6 to 6.5 rating is about right.

The thing about Jacky is that he always seems to fall short of making that 'big break' movie that truly shows how great an actor he can be. In Legendary Assassin, his acting is pretty much exactly the same as in Fatal Contact, whenever someone talks to him he smiles and waits a few seconds before replying. He plays the underdog secret assassin/kungfu master alternate identity that is in danger of being typecast nowadays. The big difference is that he talks a lot less than in Fatal Contact, and therefore in my opinion it is a step back. He actually took a step back from Fatal Contact. There should have been much more dialogue between him and Celina. The fighting scenes were slightly above average, nothing spectacular. A lot of people knock Fatal Move, but I thought it was intended to be over the top and ridiculous, like something out of a Japanese comic, CGI blood spraying all over the place. His fighting scenes were much better in Fatal Move and SPL. I guess I'm a bit spoiled by Donnie Yen, at the moment if Jet Li is considered to be retired, then Donnie reigns supreme (both on the screen and as producer/director) and Jacky is just behind him. In a leading role, Fatal Contact is probably still Jacky's finest, so he needs to step back and evaluate which direction his career should be headed. Perhaps he should take on projects with a solid script and director. I'm a huge fan of Jacky Wu and hope his next project can truly take it to the next level, and break more barriers.

A pleasant surprise is Hong Kong born newcomer Celina Jade making her debut, who is half Chinese and half American. Besides her natural beauty, she can also speak three languages (English, Cantonese, Mandarin). Perhaps because of the fact that she was actually born and raised in Hong Kong, she performed admirably in Legendary Assassin and looked very natural on the screen, never fazed or looking out of place alongside a solid cast with some old time faces. Besides those dreamy eyes, her language and culture is her greatest asset, as despite playing a naive cop, you take her seriously as she delivered her lines with sincerity and realism rather than just being silly or trying to look cute. She also displayed a wide variety of emotions convincingly, and is definitely one to look out for in future Hong Kong productions.