Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
The slinky Asian chick (Tiffany Yee) walks into the office building, asks for a pair of scissors, takes a seat and begins using these scissors to cut off her three inch nails. She’s going to be shooting people in the face in a couple of minutes and I guess Lee Press-On’s get in the way. I was thinking she could’ve done this before she got there, but I’m no professional assassin so what do I know? Soon the slinky Asian chick will be joined by some other Asian dudes, in particular the ultra cool Mr. Kim (Min-su Choi), and they will go about the process of casually murdering receptionists, accountants and mail boys in slow motion. How do know I Mr. Kim is cool? Because he wears sunglasses, a Fedora and most importantly he wears his coat over his shoulders. All the Damn Time. At no point does he put his arms through the sleeves of his coat. That’s something only cool people can do. Also, Tiffany Yee, the slinky Asian Chick? She was some kind Ms. Fitness USA a few years ago. However director Lawrence Riggins had her wear a business suit throughout this entire movie. Personally, I don’t see the point of casting Ms. Fitness in your movie if we’re not going to be privy to see how fit she is. This, among other reasons, is why this movie ‘Assassin’s Code’ was absolutely awful.
Next we’re introduced Paul Thorn (Julian Lee), a damaged ex-super agent ex-badass who mopes a lot. He’s sad because some years back he killed his wife in a car accident while rummaging through her purse looking for his blow. Never drive and look for blow. Lesson learned. He’s soon visited by an old friend (Christopher Atkins) who talks to him about old times and something he has to do later in the evening. While they were talking in the park they were gawking at some woman stretching, who could very well be the current Ms. Fitness USA. Regardless, his old friend would like him to come along and have his back. Thorn declines. The friend’s fate is sealed.
Later that night the friend shows up at Thorn’s crib all shot up, and passes Thorn a hard drive. Now we’re going to compress what happens next to make it sound exciting, even though it’s not. It’s the opposite of exciting. Some agents are following this guy, Thorn lays them to waste, Thorn picks up a hot nurse (Jessica Rizo) and holds her hostage for no particular reason I could tell, takes the hard drive to his good friend Arlo (John
Savage), more agents show up and get wasted, they talk to some other agent dude (Martin Kove) who works for some guy played by Richard Moll, Thorn then hooks up with the FBI dude (Kirk Baltz), Arlo is charged with keeping an eye on the nurse, he sucks at this, Mr. Kim shows back up to torment Thorn because he has the Hard Drive, he gets the hard drive and still torments Thorn. I don’t exactly know why and he still won’t put his arms through his coat, then some other stuff happens that I don’t really understand. I should understand it because the movie isn’t all that complex and it’s moving so slow it could be going in reverse, but at some point I clocked out. Until Selma started walking around naked. Roll the credits.
So about Selma… played by actress Christine Whitney. Or at least I guess she’s an actress, but this is listed as her only role ever, though we certainly hopes she gets more work. Selma is Mr. Kim’s girlfriend and even though she’s a mature woman, she is lovely and possesses gigantic bosoms. She doesn’t seem to have much bottom to balance out those boobs, but she’s heavy up top that’s for sure. Now we were thinking that the reason for casting this lady in this movie was for her to get naked at some point, but ‘Assassin’s Code’ just wasn’t that kind of movie so I didn’t know how they were going to squeeze that in. They found a way. That’s commendable. I wish we had more we could recommend about ‘Assassin’s Code’ but that’s about all we got.
Taking into consideration that ‘Assassin’s Code’ is a lower budgeted film and there’s only so much you can do, action wise, in regards to a lower budgeted film, but this movie is done in by the fact that it moves way too slowly. Star Julian Lee isn’t really helping matters all that much as he isn’t, to be kind, the most dynamic action hero around. My man also carries one expression throughout the entire movie, and while that worked wonders for Clint Eastwood, it didn’t have the same effect for Mr. Lee, possibly because that one expression was depressed disinterest. Plus he was an action hero who walked everywhere. I know walking is good for you, but when your best friend is being murderized by your enemy, if my man had some wheels, as opposed to footing it, he might’ve been able to save him.
The movie isn’t a complete loss however, mainly due to Min-su Choi because the man does have a presence about him. He too had one expression in this movie, but it seemed to work better for him for whatever reason and without a doubt ‘Assassin’s Code’ was always better when he was on screen, he just wasn’t on screen enough.
We wish we had better news for you, and we did want to like this movie because low budget action performed by a laundry list B-movie all-stars always works for me, but ‘Assassin’s Code’ left the oven still needing a lot more work.
