The Assassin

Forbidden to see the woman he loves; a man (Fengyi Zhang) becomes a hardened assassin.

Sha ren zhe tang zhan, also known as The Assassin in the US, is a confusing, violent, underwhelming Hong Kong export that has very little going for it.

Although the movie runs a brief 78 minutes, you’ll find yourself reaching for the fast-forward button about 15 minutes into it, right about time the filmmakers decided to put in a gratuitous eyelid sewing scene.

Seriously, this movie is bad. Even putting aside the horrible dubbing (which isn’t mixed and sounds like a voice-over), the story is edited together at such a ridiculous pace that it seems you’re watching a trailer for a real movie.

Even the fight scenes are bad, as their only point of note is their excessive (and often cheesy) brutality. Limbs and heads are chopped off as a matter of course, but there’s no elegance in the choreography and, as a result, the film seems more reminiscent of a an 80s slasher picture than a martial arts movie.