Reign Of Assassins (6/10)

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[/caption]John Woo hasn't impressed me for quite a while. I was hoping this one would be good because it did look good in the trailer.First thing that boggled me was, why Michelle Yeoh? Surely there must be some other younger actress that they could have cast and saved money on making her look younger throughout the movie. (Because, really, the rest of the CGI could use some more budget!) It certainly was distracting to hear somebody else's voice, one that was considerably younger too, coming out of Yeoh's mouth.Kelly Lin looked good for once, as her role didn't really need too much emotions; so I liked what she did here. I don't really have much complaint for the rest of the cast as I thought they were decent, except Barbie Hsu who was a little uncomfortable to watch; and Jung Woo Sung who I thought was a serious mis-cast. He was too much of a deadpan to be able to draw me in and this could be because of the language issue. There seldom was any emotion from him and I couldn't tell sometimes if he was being serious or funny. Plus I couldn't find any chemistry between him and Yeoh.The direction in creating a love story didn't really work for me. Plus the twists in the third act felt too much of a gimmick to be taken seriously. The essence of the story was there and it was good, the first two acts were done quite well. But I just couldn't agree with how everything tied itself together in the end, from Jung's character getting punched in the face to falling in love and then later we found out what we found out (can't go into detail or it'll be a spoiler). Everything was too far fetched.Woo has always been all about the action and flair. The action sequences here were just OK. Nothing really stood out like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (which this movie certainly has reminded me of). So yes, I'm disappointed. I think Woo should go back to Hollywood, instead of delving into Chinese period martial arts pieces. (I really didn't like the two Three Kingdoms movie he did.)Oh and by the way, the 12 zodiac movie posters are super misleading.Then again, how much was he involved in the direction here because the main director's chair had somebody else's name on it?