Hitman [VHS] [1998]

The film opens quite impressively, with the assassination of a rich Japanese business man; the killer is good, having basically outsmarted and defeated a whole building full of bodyguards. Then we meet up with Fu (Li), a seemingly quite nice but cash-poor ex-soldier whom we find in the strange company of a gang of young assassins for hire. There's never really an adequate explanation for how he got in this unexpected business. Anyway, he's looked down upon because he has never really done a job. When he gets wind of a $100 million reward for the capture and murder of the man soon to be known as The King of Assassins, he tries to infiltrate the proceedings. There, he meets up with a con man named Norman (Eric Tsang), who for some unclear reason brings Fu to the meeting with him and tells him he will be his new agent. Fu is an unlikely choice for such a big job, and his first test shows clearly that he does not really have the heart of a cold-blooded killer. Still, he stays with Tsang and mixes it up with some major league assassins and criminals in an attempt to find the killer and claim the reward. There isn't a whole lot of action until the final third of the film, and only one scene stands out in terms of its impressiveness and length. The identity of the King of Killers did come as a surprise to me, although I'm sure it will be obvious to some. The end of the film, I might add, only further exacerbates my problem with the movie's concept; Fu's occupation just doesn't jive with the character's personality.

This is apparently as much of a comedy as it is an action film, thanks largely to Eric Tsang's character Norman the agent. You can't help but like the guy, especially given the fact that he doesn't seem cut out for the whole business of contract killing; he is pretty funny for the most part, but he does ham it up a bit much in several scenes. I think Jet Li did a fine job of acting here, but the character of Fu is by no means one of his better roles; Fu is just too vague and self-contradictory in nature. This is not really a martial arts film, I might add. There are several hand-to-hand contests, a couple of them involving a bad guy equipped with blinding light beams on his fingers and boots, but this is more of an action flick that just so happens to feature a few kung fu type encounters.

Hitman does offer a good view of Jet Li in the time period immediately preceding his jump to American movie stardom, and the contrast between this particular Hong Kong film and his American films is rather striking. Hitman is probably best suited for Jet Li fans because the movie itself just doesn't seem to click on all cylinders.