Rogue Assassin (also known as War) is a typical action film, though it has a fairly boring name. The summary of the plot sounds just as boring as the name of the movie: an FBI-agent dies as a bystander in the competition between two criminal organizations(Yakuza versus Chinese Triads), and his partner starts chasing the killer for revenge.

Altough the plot of Rogue Assasin isn’t the most imaginative, the movie has a certain tension, which leads to that the movie can be watched again and again. The plot contains lots of clichés such as ninjas with samuraiswords, rule breaking agents and mob bosses defending their honour. There is also some problems in the plot, but a normal viewer doesn’t pay attentintion to those, since the main focus is on the action.

Jet Li makes brilliant work as an assassin named Rogue. Stone-faced Li is an ideal choise for this role, and he is very believable as an ruthless killer. The character of Rogue is told to have worked for CIA, but for some reason he started to work for Yakuza and help them with their competition with the triads. Suddenly Rogue begins to kill people also from the Yakuza, secretly collecting fees from both sides. The film tries to give the impression that Rogue is just greedy and wants to push the two factions in full war in order to get more money, but the viewer can easily see that there is something more complex behind Rogue. The real motive of Rogue is kept as a secret till the end, and the reveal ads a quite intresting twist to the movie.

The second main character is John Crawford (played by Jason Statham), an angry and frustrated FBI’s special agent who has tried to catch the murderer of his partner over three years. The revenge soon becomes an obsession, and Crawford stops following the rules – so the suspects are usually beaten and even slightly tortured. Jason Statham is definitely one of the best action actors of  today, however in my opinion Statham is unimportant for this movie – he could be easily replaced with a fresh and unknow actor, to emphasize Li’s great performance – besides, Statham is a bit too rough to be an agent.

So there are some problems with the casting and the plot, but Rogue Assassin is an action movie, so the action scenes are what matters the most. And this movie contains a lot of action. Fist fights, gun fights, sword fights, car chase, motorcycle chase, explosions. And everything is very well done. Overall I’m very pleased with the action scenes and the special effects, tough the final fight could have been a bit longer.

So this isn’t a masterpiece worth of Oscars, but Rogue Assassin is still a very good flick which fits perfectly for friday night if you want some action.