Reign
Of Assassins (2010/Anchor Bay DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: B Extras: D Film: B+
Long
ago, a Buddhist monk discovered the ultimate technique to martial
arts, after his death, it was said whomever possessed his body would
inherit the secret. Zeng Jing (Michelle Yeoh), a female assassin,
stole the body and disappeared, after searching for years the Dark
Stone guild of assassins have finally hunted her down and now prepare
to attack. Zeng Jing has left the assassin's guild and now lives a
normal life, but now has to rely on her old skills to save her and
her husband in Chao-Bin Su's Reign Of Assassins (2010).
Zeng
Jing was an assassin who left the assassin's guild. After changing
her face, she decided to live a normal life and even got married, but
her past soon begins to catch up to her and even her husband has kept
a secret from her, that he is the son of a man that she once killed
and he has known who she really is for some time. As assassins
appear in the capital, Zeng Jing will have to decide which life she
wants to live, a life in the assassin's guild or the life she has
now.
This
is another martial arts-filled movie; the story was like a Romeo and
Juliet story mixed with an assassin seeking redemption story, of an
assassin who wanted to leave the life of darkness and the guild, but
like all assassin's guilds there is no leaving it until you kill the
entire guild. This particular movie looked like it was took out cold
storage, but then that seems typical of modern American companies,
companies now prefer to buy the rights to the movies instead of them
making them.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 was shot in the Super 35mm film
format on Kodak Vision 3 negative film stocks and issued on Fuji 35mm
prints. This looks as good as it can in the format, though a Blu-ray
is definite;y bound to reveal more. The same for the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix which is as good as it can be, but we bet a lossless
presentation would be finer and more soundfield-consistent. There
are no extras.
-
Ricky Chiang
