At first, it seems as if The Assassins is heading down that same route: Cao is set up as the villain of the piece, the focus of any number of assassination attempts from every possible corner of the kingdom. As young children, Ling Ju (Crystal Liu) and Mu Shun (Hiroshi Tamaki) are groomed to become killers whose sole mission in life is to murder Cao. The ineffectual Emperor Xian (Alec Su) is not above endorsing a plot or two hatched by his ministers to get rid of Cao. Even within his own family, Cao is hardly safe from threat – his dead-eyed son Cao Pi (Terry Chiu) lusts after both the throne and empress of China (Annie Yi), and one gets the feeling he`s unlikely to let his father get in the way of his ambition.
But The Assassins has a more complex story to tell. As these characters and conspiracies spin relentlessly around Cao, the audience begins to get a sense that there is a lot more to Cao than meets the eye. The film doesn`t try to suggest that Cao is a saint – far from it. He is trapped by the blood on his hands and the untold death and suffering he has caused, he is suspicious and paranoid of everyone around him, and, as proven by a breathtakingly tense scene set in Emperor Xian`s court, he is completely, terrifyingly ruthless in dispatching his opponents when their plots against him are uncovered. But Cao is also portrayed as an occasionally kind man, one beset by headaches and the loss of his virility, and a father who has no idea how to love a son he must also treat as a potential enemy.
It all makes for a rich, complicated blend of character study, family drama and political intrigue, and first-time director Zhao Linshan does a pretty good job of juggling all the plot threads and characters. He pulls off a couple of nailbiting confrontations between Cao and his enemies – including a moonlit face-off with his own son – that are as fun as they are nerve-wracking to watch. As the centrepiece of the entire film, Cao is an absolutely fascinating character: more kingly than his king, less villainous than the snakes lying in wait for him, as fragile, real and complicated as any of the humans around him.
If anything, Zhao is let down by a script that plays a little fast and loose with history, weaving folk tales and a love triangle into the story that lend Cao a little more humanity but cost the film as a whole quite a bit of credibility. Ling Ju`s moments of introspection as she wanders through Cao`s court as his new consort are necessary, but often feel hollow in contrast to the far deeper, darker tales unfolding all around her. The Assassins is also not the film for you if you`re looking for an epic movie that will double as a booster shot of adrenaline. Apart from one thrilling midnight assault involving an ingenious use of ropes, the movie is talky and its pace more measured than you might hope for.
Fortunately, Chow anchors the entire film with his electrifying performance as Cao – radiating charisma and menace, he is reason enough to cough up the price of a movie ticket, and memorable enough to make up for the weaker performances from the rest of the cast. Like their characters, Liu and Tamaki seem a little lost and green when sharing the screen with Chow, albeit unintentionally so. In contrast, and to their credit, early `90s Chinese pop stars Su and Yi fare reasonably well in their roles, with the former especially effective as a puppet king retreating into his own shadow world of music and play-acting.
The Assassins is apparently the first film in a planned trilogy focusing on the turbulent warfare that passed for history during the Three Kingdoms era. On the evidence of this solid if flawed attempt to exhume Cao from his villain`s grave, there`s a great deal of history left to re-tell.
Summary: The Assassins makes a strong case for why Cao is a great man, even if he may not always be a particularly good one. Watch this for Chow and you won`t be disappointed.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Shawne Wang