Review: Reign of Assassins

After watching Tsui Hark's "Detective Dee", I couldn't believe that we'd get another really good wuxia epic in so short a time. Truth be told, I wasn't even planning to watch John Woo's "Reign of Assassins". The reason being that I thought it'd be a step backwards to ape Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon". Therefore when I finally saw the movie yesterday, I was totally blown away. It was nothing like Ang Lee's film and it is actually way better than even Tsui Hark's film!

In fact, this is the most beautiful wuxia film ever made. Everything from the engaging storyline to the very likeable characters and the graceful martial arts choreography and Sa Ding Ding's haunting soundtrack made the film the best wuxia film that I've ever seen in my life (and believe me, I've seen many hundreds!!!). I saw it twice yesterday actually. Took my wife to see it last night and she loved it. She's usually a lot more critical than I am with movies but she was so captivated by the story that she spent the whole day today thinking about it.

Honestly, I can't write an objective review of the film without gushing with endless praise about it. Therefore, I'll just leave you with the MV of the themesong with scenes from the film: