Legendary Assassin is the directorial debut of both Wu Jing and Nicky Li. Nicky Li is a former fight choreography and stunt member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, who has had collaborated with Wu Jing in several projects like Fatal Contact and Invisible Target. And as debuts go this one is very solid to good.What I like about this film the most that it moves along in a nice pace where not a minute is wasted with redundant sub plots or other distractions. Every event or character interaction is functional. Through the non action scenes we get to know the main character and kind of what makes him tick. I say kind of since not much background is given on Bo Tong Lam (Wu Jing). But he is not your typical good guy as he is capable of cold blooded murder if the title didn't gave away this already. After assassinating a big crime boss (who was hiding out on a small island) he is forced to stay on the island since there are no ferries coming in because of a typhoon alert. It is this moment where he makes a connection with Hiu Wor (Celina Jade who you might recognize from Arrow where she played Shado). He gets to spend some nice moments with her and her colleagues and this was very pleasant to see because they make you care about the characters despite them just having met.And since you care it does intensify the action. It's such a simple device to do this and yet many similar films fail to do this. So I am glad that Wu Jing understood this. Now he does make some mistakes by making the film a little too serious and dramatic but I guess that you can't escape from tragedy in Asian films. But first and foremost it's done in service of the action and that is a good thing. It makes you involved and will make the action have more impact. The action on it's own is what you can expect from Wu Jing or Jacky Wu and is hard hitting and stylish. Sometimes wireworks are used but very sparingly.Overall this film delivers on the action and makes me want Wu Jing to do more projects. Wolf Warrior was excellent, let's hope the sequel to that will be too.

I may call this film kind of refreshment, even if we agree it has cheep plot concept all the way from the start. What I like about this film is that it is opposite of now-days Hollywood failure attempts to make a good film from the great investments. This film looks like attempt to make a second rate Hollywood movie but it finally got into more than that. Good directing, very good camera, pretty good SF martial arts effects (even though I don't like such fairy tale kung-fu picture) and excellent acting. What I also like about this film is charming and natural style of film making, kind of discrete and cute sense of humor, easy to swallow but still not underlined as a movie trademark. All in all, it is far from dull film and solid entertainment in the sleepy nights.

This is not an art-house movie nor the most amazing action movie you will ever see. But it is a good, solid, entertaining action movie. The relationship between Jacky Wu and Celina Jade was nice, the café scene was both funny and with great action, the scenes at the police station were a mixture of tension and comedy, and the climax fight scene was ridiculous but who cares?I'd never seen Jacky Wu before and I found his silent stoic character rather enjoyable. This appears to be Celina Jade's first film and she was excellent, as well as rather attractive. Secondary characters played there roles acceptably (although the blonde policeman seemed to be in the wrong film).The point is that I was thoroughly entertained for the duration, and even my wife enjoyed it. Overall I think that's pretty good.

Frankly I do not understand why this movie deserves such a pathetic IMDb score, given its decent plot and great story-telling. The movie reminded me of Infernal Affairs, which is not a bad example to look up to. It brought me back to the Islands District of Hong Kong, where life is much simpler. The dingy alleys, plainly clothed local police officers and a lone traveler from culturally different mainland China drew a picture in sharp contrast with penthouse office, high heeled diva and black suits donned gangs. The movie gave a successful preach that it's not appearance or wealth but compassion and dedication to higher ideals that makes the world a better place and life a fulfilling process. It thoroughly warmed my heart and plenty of unanticipated turns kept me absorbed throughout. I found it much more interesting than Ip Man, an over-hyped movie full of political correctness. I beg to differ with the other comment doubting Jacky Wu's performance and caliber as a co-director. I would definitely recommend it to my friends, who may even not turn out an Kung Fu movie fan.