Code of the Assassins
“Code of the Assassins” seems like a story that was conceived of after the success of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” but wasn’t ready to be unleashed until the filmmakers could make the film with the scope of your typical Marvel movie. What makes Daniel Lee’s film unique is how it infuses the concepts of steampunk culture into the world of ancient Chinese assassins, and a story that builds its myth into a two-hour adventure where the search for a mysterious map leads to betrayal and war between different leaders. Visually, the movie pops and holds our interest; narratively, you might lose the plot before it comes back together. There’s been a lot of that, I’ve noticed, in some Asian films. To be fair, American action movies have been doing that for decades, as well.
The film revolves around a collection of assassins called Ghost Valley. Many of the adherents to the collective wear masks like they’re at the orgy in “Eyes Wide Shut,” but here, the only activity people engage in with insane numbers of people is bloodshed. Qi Junyuan (Shaofeng Feng) is a pupil of one of the assassins, and is set on a mission to retrieve a brass map from his father’s past, which will lead to treasures. As he is on his quest, however, he uncovers a plot by the elite members of Ghost Valley to pit some of them against the others. Exiled after failing his mission, he nonetheless works to uncover the truth, which will lead him to the person who betrayed his father.
When it comes to action movies, how much of an emotional connection really matters to a film? Certainly, the ones I find myself returning to most engage me with how they tell their stories, and the characters, but is spectacle and action enough in most cases? “Code of the Assassins” is an interesting case study for the answer to the second question being, “yes.” While the film does allow for character introductions and their names being put on-screen at the beginning, when a movie like this gets into the action- and the costuming is practically indistinguishable for character to character- I think one can be forgiven for losing track of who is who. I recognize Qi enough to keep track of him- it helps that he’s the youngest of the assassins, and his character has a mechanical arm which he can deploy in action sequences- but others like Golden Mask, Grim Ghost, Ghost Judge and many others become interchangeable. So long as you find yourself enjoying what you’re watching, isn’t that enough?
Co-writer/director Daniel Lee does a fine job staging the spectacle of this story. Yes, a lot of times it feels as though we are watching computer wallpapers come to life, but there is an energy and sense of momentum to what he does that keeps us on board, even if the story gets muddied. I did not find myself particularly enamored with this film to where I feel like I want to see the further adventures of its main characters, but the visual design- especially with how it brought steampunk into the equation- was very cool-looking, and I enjoyed watching this film, even if running around 2 hours felt excessive by the end. It’s probably not a coincidence this is coming to America the week after the latest “John Wick” film; this also features a collection of assassins that seem to be able to run amok with reckless abandon in society. How does that seem to happen? This isn’t “John Wick”-levels of action greatness, but Lee’s film will entertain fans of the genre suitably.
