Incannerax
What a waste of my time!!!
Ameriatch
One of the best films i have seen
ScoobyMint
Disappointment for a huge fan!
Ketrivie
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
sonnygoten
... because the story is very bad. I mean, it starts out fine, but the characters are basically every other wuxia movie cliché, and then at the end the story devolves altogether into one hot mess and badly done CGI soup. Accusations of plagiarism aside, this movie is just not good at all.
John Park
To answer many viewers who thought "Sword of the Assassin" looks like of Chinese origin, it is because IT'S COPIED from Chinese origin. In Vietnam "Sword of the Assassin" is widely known to have plagiarized from several Chinese and Korean movies. This is the same movie called "Blood Letter" but the filmmakers switched the title to "Sword of the Assassin" after Vietnamese social media exposed the plagiarism. It's a big scandal in Vietnamese language media and social media. Some Vietnamese language links: Youtube video "Vietnamese American movie director plagiarize more movies"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z0tYECq_ZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SGx04TL4SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0y8YdFddrM Now you know the reason why everyone said how "Chinese" the movie is. Historical influence is no excuse for modern plagiarism, look at Korean movies they had same historical influence but didn't plagiarize and developed a unique Korean cinema. The director had a history of plagiarizing foreign movies and claiming author, particularly he was the first filmmaker investigated for plagiarism by Vietnamese cinema regulators and found to have plagiarized "Shattered"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WttzaJg2WdI The Vietnamese subtitles in the "Sword of the Assassin" expose video say after the director was found guilty for plagiarizing "Shattered", he now copies from different movies and combine to make it harder for the public to find out original source.
vnottsnguyen
At first, this film is not well-acted without any painstaking effort from the producer or the director (Victor Vu). In this film, for his sake, Nguyen Vu decided to move out where he was brought up and came to the town to find out the truth. However, when the secrets were clarified, he easily refused to revenge who dared to kill all of his family. It was so ridiculous and rigid. this context should be somehow ambivalent which will either deliver a painful bane to innocent people or bring a elated boon when finally killing "demons". Moreover, film background was not definitely impressive. Not like a Chinese drama, a city would be crowded of people and shops, but in this film, it is poorly not. But it is just one of the vanguards in making history film in Vietnam, it should not be discouraged.
Alison
Young Nguyen Vu (Huynh Dong) is brought to the home of a monk after his entire family is killed at the order of the Queen, Thai Hau (Van Trang), who suspects the Nguyen family of assassinating her husband who happened to have died while in their home. The monk trains young Nguyen Vu in wuxia (the Chinese type of martial arts that one sees in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" - all floating through the air and walking up walls) and when he is old enough, tells him who he really is. This sets Nguyen Vu on the road to avenge his family's name; along the way, he meets Hoa Xuan (Mi Du) and her older sister Hoa Ha (Kim Hien), who have their own, very similar, reasons for wanting to destroy Thai Hau. They have many opponents, of course, including a bald-headed scar-faced man who appears to do Thai Hau's bidding but really is in league with another aspirant to the throne. And all of them are in search of the possibly non-existent blood letter, a letter written in blood by a dying eunuch who knew all the secrets of the royal household at the time of the Nguyen family's fall and the Queen's rise. How the two sisters and Nguyen Vu meet their challengers, and what fates await them, is all in God's hands, according to Nguyen Vu's mentor, but perhaps he can create some of his own fate....This is Vietnam's first foray into the realm of epic historical martial arts film, and while there is little that is new here, there is much to enjoy. First of all, the storyline is fairly clean (as these films go, anyway) and, while derivative, the action sequences are extremely well executed. In addition, the beauty of the Vietnamese countryside is given ample scope - by turns lush and harsh, beautiful and treacherous, this is an absolutely stunning film visually. One finds oneself caught up in the story to the extent of cheering when the hero wins a fight and booing when the bad guys turn up. There are some terrific fantasy sequences thrown into the mix, as at the very beginning when a statue of a lion/dragon in the monk's courtyard comes to life and the monk must battle it to return it to its stone state, and towards the very end when Nguyen Vu finds himself battling his foe on a lake or river, gathering his strength for one last push against his oppressor. Even the evil Queen becomes somewhat more sympathetic towards the end, which I felt was a very nice, humanizing, touch. I wouldn't list this film among the very best of its kind, but I *would* buy it should it appear in DVD form in the future, as it was quite entertaining and very beautiful to look at.
