Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 20, 2023

Code of the Assassins is one of those films that goes to almost comical lengths to make certain isolated aspects clear, while leaving other vast panoramas of character and plot equally ridiculously un- or under- explained. Take, for example, a repeated visual motif that offers the film's hero, Qi Jun Yuan (Shaofeng Feng, billed as William Feng), who is a trained killer who is part of a secretive cult like cohort of hitmen who all wear masks. The film recurrently features moments where Qi's mask "dissolves" to identify the hero's face underneath it, just to make sure everyone knows who that guy is, and after the fourth or fifth time this happens, some may be prone to something akin to my general reaction, which was, "Yeah, we get it: that one's Qi. But who are the other ten thousand or so people you've already introduced?" That's of course a bit of a joke, something that may have the added punchline of this being a production that actually offers identifying text with names of several characters who are trotted out in rapid succession early in the film (see screenshot 7 for just one of several possible examples). Unfortunately, despite those identifying titles superimposed on the imagery letting the viewer know at least the names if not the plot "functions" of various other characters, some may still be wondering what exactly is going on, and even in this film's "Moishe the Explainer" late third act info dump, where it turns out even the McGuffin is a McGuffin, major head scratching may well be in order.

The film begins with a brief text crawl identifying a place called Ghost Valley, which is where a secretive group of assassins live and train, in a time where, as the text informs us, assassinations were used to "solve problems". That may lead some with jaded senses of humor to respond with, "Oh, so this isn't a period piece?", while I personally will only say that the synchronicity divinities are once again playing with me and/or my review queue, since one of the last films I wrote about was the 1969 opus The Assassination Bureau, which bears at least a bit of a resemblance to this outing, though that film at least had a recognizable plot line. Code of the Assassins actually begins with a somewhat briefer info dump that includes some voiceover from Qi which details a mysterious map inscribed on metal (that aforementioned McGuffin) which led to the extermination of Qi's clan (but not Qi, in a plot point which is never explained), and which then disappeared for some time, but which has now been magically rediscovered, leading to a cat and mouse game between various factions attempting to claim it and have it lead them to apparently untold riches.

What's actually going on is supposedly more labyrinthine and sinister, but the film despite its lack of development and narrative clarity actually telegraphs its two main villains so early on that it's absolutely easy to guess some supposedly surprising "twists" that are part and parcel of that aforementioned longer info dump toward the end of the film. There are some fun action scenes in the film courtesy of a kind of bionic arm and hand that Qi is fitted with, and I frankly wouldn't be surprised to see another Hi-Yah! production featuring this character. As odd as it may sound, there's a certain Game of Thrones feeling about some of the overheated plot dynamics, including rival clans from different areas, though this has some kind of laugh out loud territory names amongst the combatants' hometowns, including South Pagoda and East Mulberry.

Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Code of the Assassins is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.23:1. Probably unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a wealth of technical information online about this shoot, but this was competently digitally captured and I'm assuming had a 2K DI. While practical items like props, costumes and even the occasional actual human being offer typically excellent detail levels, some of the CGI is not exactly believable, and in fact some of it almost looks like cut scenes from your average marital arts themed videogame. A glut of what I have to assume were greenscreened backgrounds are often pretty soft and almost Impressionistic looking. The palette is decently saturated, but a lot of the production designs seems to want to emphasize neutral tones or at least kind of darker browns and blacks.

Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Code of the Assassins features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Mandarin (unlike many releases of Asian fare from Well Go USA, this disc does not feature an English dub). The weird semi-choreographed moments with the Ghost Valley clan provide good opportunities for both sound effects and score and some of the big action sequences, especially those involving the Swiss Army knife-like bionic arm feature some really fun effects that can ricochet around the side and rear channels, and there are some nice reverberant bursts of LFE during some of the fight scenes. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:31)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Code of the Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It may be kind of unintentionally funny that Code of the Assassins was evidently named Song of the Assassins somewhere along the line, since both the introduction of and later scenes featuring the inhabitants of Ghost Valley make it look like they're involved in some kind of Chinese version of a Busby Berkeley dance routine. When an entire film is ostensibly built around a hero on a quest for vengeance which has something to do with a magical map, and then late in the film it's pretty much divulged that the entire map aspect is fake news, so to speak, that then raises a whole host of new questions as to the not very surprising reveal of the Final Boss (again, so to speak) and how that character's history ties into Ghost Valley. It's all very confusing but at least occasionally rabble rousing in the action sequences. Technical merits are generally solid (especially audio) for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.