Reign of Assassins (Blu-ray) (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Martial Arts	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Making Of Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	119:49
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Chao-Bin Su
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Chao-Bin Su Michelle Yeoh Woo-sung Jung Kelly Lin Shawn Yue Xueqi Wang Barbie Hsu Yiyan Jiang Pace Wu
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$39.95	Music	Anthony Chue Peter Kam

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Mandarin Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The case of this movie tells us that this film is "From John Woo - Director of Red Cliff and the Star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The second one is certainly true as Michelle Yeoh plays the main character in this film, assassin Drizzle. However, John Woo is credited as Co-Director and seems to have been an onset adviser to the actual Director and Writer of this film Chao-Bin Su. This does not mean that this is bad film at all, just that this advertising leads you to believe it is a film directed by John Woo. It was nominated for many Hong Kong and Asian film awards and is certainly worth watching.

     The story is quite an interesting one, involving a group of assassins called Dark Stone, led by a man with a strange voice known as The Wheel King. The group includes a number of assassins and an impressive young woman, Drizzle (Kelly Lin), who decides to steal part of the remains of a monk which is reputed to give eternal life and fix illnesses, if recombined. Drizzle's name stems from her impressive sword fighting style. She takes off with part of the remains and travels to another part of China after undergoing surgery to change her face (now played by Michelle Yeoh). She rents a house and sets up a business selling cloth. Soon she starts a romance with a local messenger, Jing A-Sheng (Woo-sung Jung) but her old gang is hot in pursuit as they want the remains back. Will she be able to find happiness or will her past catch up with her?

     Unfortunately, despite the interesting nature of the story, it is told in a fairly confusing way with more exposition required, certainly for western audiences. Having said that, there is a lot to like about this film with quality acting, impressive fight scenes and some interesting surprises as the film progresses. Yeoh is impressive as the lead character and it is certainly interesting to see a film of this style with a female lead character.

     Well worth a look for fans of the Asian martial arts action epic genre.

Video

     The video quality is excellent. The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 1080/24p coded using the AVC codec.

     The picture was extremely clear and sharp throughout. The shadow detail was excellent. The colour is excellent, with no issues to report. There was one very minor spot of compression artefact at 69:15 but this is being very picky.

     There are subtitles in English.

     There is no obvious layer change during playback.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio quality is very good but not quite as good as the best of Blu-ray. This disc contains Mandarin Dolby Digital TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack and a Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The TrueHD is obviously the pick of the two.

     Dialogue was clear and easy to hear although my Mandarin is not the best. The award nominated score is quite good, suiting the style and setting of the film well. The surround speakers were used a lot during action sequences but generally the film did not have the surround ambience of some other Blu-rays. The subwoofer was used for action scenes and music support.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

     The menu is designed to reflect the opening Chinese drawing style of the film.

Making Of (23:26)

     There seems to be a bit of a glitch here with the English subtitles for this featurette seeming to be the subtitles for the opening 23 minutes of the film rather than ones which actually apply to what is being said here. Accordingly, this making of is nearly useless for English speaking audiences, although it looks quite interesting. I checked this glitch on two different Blu-ray players.

Theatrical Trailer (1:02)

    There is Region A locked Hong Kong edition of this film on Blu-ray with very similar features except that it has both Mandarin & Cantonese soundtracks. The local edition is fine except for the subtitle glitch on the extras.

     An interesting but slightly confusing Chinese action epic with impressive swordplay.

     The video quality is excellent. The audio quality is very good. The extras are limited and the main one has a glitch with the English subtitles.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall