Contract Killer - B-
By Kage Alan

A Japanese Yakuza boss faces down “the king of killers” in his penthouse apartment. Fortunately, the boss has rightly assumed that there would be an attempt on his life and arranged a huge reward for whoever finds and kills the assassin, only it doesn’t stop the king of killers from wasting him anyway. So, not only are the police investigating the murder, but every contract killer with a taste for money shows up in Hong Kong for a group meeting that will spell out the terms of the reward. Among them is conman Ngok Lo (Eric Tsang) and fresh off the streets Fu (Li, “The One”).

The usual amount of internal double crossing goes on while Lo takes Fu under his wing and tries to use the new guy on the block to make a few bucks. Throw in Lo’s concerned daughter and a couple of cops wanting to arrest all of the contract killers and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. Complicating things even more is when Lo is pegged as the king of killers and everybody starts gunning for him. Fortunately, Fu is at his side helping him dodge bullets and other assassins who have their brains on the money and not the truth.

While “Contract Killer” has some extremely entertaining plot ideas, too much time is spent on eliciting humor from the Eric Tsang and also dealing with his issues as a loser in society. Even Li plays a different kind of character in this film. Instead of his usual cool self-assured asskicker, he acts both naive and aloof, yet perfectly in control when it’s time to fight. And speaking of fighting, the film really picks up the pace during the action sequences and it’s for these alone that make it worth watching. It really could have used a couple more doses of action to make this production as exciting as it sounded on the back cover. As it is, it’s kind of an uneven mixed bag. The finale does make up for most of it, though.