Oh, joy. It's yet another big-budget Mainland-produced historical epic based around the period in history documented and dramatized in the classic Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Even with Chow Yun-Fat bringing a suitable amount of gravitas to his role of the iconic character of Cao Cao, one definitely senses that the well is starting to run dry when it comes to these types of films, which have been seemingly coming out at a blitzkrieg pace towards audiences over the past few years.

The film takes place in the latter portion of Cao Cao's life, where he finds himself alone and full of regrets. His only friends have been people that he has killed on the battlefield in the service of the emperor (Alec Su), who uses Cao Cao's loyalty as he sees fit. Dealing with an internal power struggle from his own son, Cao Pi (Qiu Xin-Zhi), isn't helping matters. The icing on the cake is Cao Cao's mistress Ling Ju (Liu Yifei), who just happens to share his bed while being one of the titular assassins.

The Assassins falls more into the drama side of the equation for historical epics. There's only a few small action sequences, with most of the emphasis being placed on the interactions and back-stabbings between the various characters. This sort of thing is interesting to watch for a while; Chow Yun-Fat is well-regarded as one of the world's best actors for good reason. However, Chow's star power can only carry things so far. In the end, The Assassins doesn't feel like it exerts itself in anyway, leaving the audience little reason to be compelled by the proceedings.

It almost feels like director Zhao Lin-Shan took too much stock in having Chow Yun-Fat to work with and felt like that was reason enough for people to watch his film. The cinematography and set design is flat, the editing is workmanlike, and the story holds no surprises. Overall, The Assassins just feels like a lazy effort. Especially considering just how crowded the historical epic sub-genre has become, film-makers are going to push themselves further than this average effort to make audiences take notice.

RATING: 5