In the late sixties, Patrick McGoohan played British spies on the telly. He was the lead spy John Drake in Danger Man (1960–1961), re-titled Secret Agent for the U.S. market, when the Cold War was fueling the spy genre (the first Sean Connery Bond film Dr. No premiered in 1962). Back in those days, agents relied on guts. They had to trail a suspect on foot, ducking behind pillars and masking themselves with newspapers (as if anyone reads those nowadays), not tapping into surveillance cams on a laptop. Intrigue was low-tech. Torture was as simple as a lit cigarette to the eyelid, and then some.

McGoohan followed that series with his timeless parable, The Prisoner (1967–1968), which on the surface appeared to many viewers as Drake undergoing a surreal deprogramming. But on a deeper level it was an allegory about personal identity, mind control, democracy, freedom, and the dehumanization of digitization, with echoes of Orwell and Kafka. In a hidden detention center known as “the village,” former spies are reprogrammed, stripped of their identities and assigned numbers for names. McGoohan’s character rejects this, defiantly shouting in the opening of each episode, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed, or numbered! My life is my own.” Ironically, the real name of McGoohan’s character is never revealed. Throughout the series, he is only known as “Number Six.”

Fast forward to 2000 when the videogame Hitman: Codename 47 was released. The lead character is 47, a number, not a name, and a genetically engineered assassin. The numeral nombre is accepted; The Prisoner was prophetic. Nowadays, it’s all about the numbers. The Hitman franchise became quite successful, spawning eight editions of the videogame (the latest one being released this year), several novelizations (the videogames have plots that are arguably more complex than many action films nowadays), and the first film.

Hitman the movie was released in 2007, produced by the French action-film maestro Luc Besson with Vin Diesel as executive producer. Diesel was originally cast as 47, but stepped down from the role and was replaced by Timothy Olyphant. The film was critically panned. The main weakness was Olyphant, who couldn’t carry the role of a stoic assassin, a sharp criticism considering the source material was a shallow videogame caricature. Nevertheless as films go, Hitman reveled in its gratuitousness. The gunplay, a decade in the wake of John Woo’s Hong Kong gangster films, was not so much balletic as it was ballistic, sopping wet with sanguineous splatter. There’s a gratuitous sword fight where four assassins each manage to pull a pair of shotos from the small of their backs, reminiscent of when Bruce Lee magically pulled nunchaks from the rear of his trousers in Fist of Fury (1972). The fight choreographers were Wushu and Karate exponent Cyril Raffaelli, best remembered for his work on the original Transporter films (2002 & 2004) , and Gregory Loffredo, who also worked on the first Transporter and went on to work on Taken (2008). And of course, there’s Olga Kurylenko, who went on to become a Bond Girl in Quantum of Solace (2008). She spends much of the latter portion of Hitman gratuitously naked. And yet, despite these perceived cinematic flaws from those who disdain gratuitousness, Hitman hit its mark, grossing over $128 million.

Fast forward to 2015 for the release of Hitman: Agent 47. This is not a sequel or prequel or redux of the 2007 film. It’s a completely different tale, although again based on the source videogames. The late Paul Walker of Fast and Furious fame was originally cast as 47, but his tragic death forced Rupert Friend to step into the role. Friend first made his presence known as the dastardly Mr. Wickham in Keira Knightly’s version of Pride and Prejudice (2005)>. More recently, he hit his mark playing the PTSD-suffering assassin Peter Quinn from Showtime’s award-winning flagship series Homeland (2011–today). It’s an excellent casting call, as Friend can bring to the screen a killer’s intensity, a mask of stoicism betrayed only by flexing mandible and temple muscles. Opposing him is Zachary Quinto, another actor who specializes in the underlying slow burn as demonstrated in his role as Spock in the Star Trek reboot. Backing them is a new fight choreography team: Jon Valera, a decorated national champion and exponent of Karate and Taekwondo who has been working on many recent martial films like Ninja Assassin (2009), Man of Tai Chi (2013), Wolverine (2013), TMNT (2014), and John Wick (2014), alongside Jeremy Marinas, who also worked on TMNT as well as Expendables 2 (2012), Hunger Games (2012) and the new Bollywood MMA filmBrothers: Blood Against Blood (2015). Seems like a sure-fire hit, yes?

Unfortunately Hitman: Agent 47 misses its mark – to quote satiric spy Maxwell Smart, “missed it by this much.” It has a lot of potential but is largely derivative of other action films and seldom follows through on its promise. There’s way too much reliance on high-tech, creating some inescapable preposterousness. How is it that these spy networks have access to facial recognition programs that can find a missing child as an adult anywhere in the world but they can’t spot a dapperly-dressed bald dude with a barcode tattooed to his occipital? Both Friend and Quinto are decent in their roles, but they aren’t allowed to really dig into them. When Friend’s wry humor peeks out, it’s a reminder of how funny he could have been in the role. Unfortunately, much of the humor is unintentional.

But beyond that, there’s no gratuitousness. Hannah Ware, who appeared in Spike Lee’s 2013 remake of Oldboy, offers only a nipple-impressionable blouse while otherwise remaining fully clothed. The action sequences are okay, too reliant on one-action-cuts to be notable in today’s one-shot choreography trend (even this year’s spy spoof Kingsman: The Secret Service provided a thrilling one-shot CGI-enhanced fight scene in a church). This installment is not nearly as sanguineous as the first. And there’s ample opportunity. When a room in the villain’s lair is entirely white, the possibility of painting it red with blood promises the potential Japanese film splatter-fest. Another scene is shot on location at Singapore’s spectacular Gardens by the Bay. The panoramic footage here is absolutely stunning and a revelation to Western audiences who are naïve to this beautiful park. But when a firefight breaks out, the scene quickly moves elsewhere. It’s such a shame because a big fight scene in such a dramatic location could have completely redeemed this entire film.

The first film suffered poor reviews and still went on to be a financial success, so will this one do the same? Hitman: Agent 47 has another factor in play, and that’s Chollywood. The last opening credit goes to none other than Chinese superstarlet Angelababy. Angelababy is no stranger to the Kung Fu film genre. She was the main love interest in Stephen Fung’s cyberpunk Tai Chi trilogy (Tai Chi Zero (2012) and

Tai Chi Hero (2012) – part three is still pending), the damsel in distress in the disappointing prequel, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013), and starred in the Wong Fei Hung reboot, Rise of the Legend (2014). In May, she married Chinese superstar Huang Xiaoming, the actor, singer and model who Forbes ranked as #17 among China's 25 Most Powerful Celebrities in 2008. In Hitman: Agent 47, she plays Diana, Agent 47’s shot-caller. It’s a miniscule role that will go completely unnoticed by American audiences. But astute followers of global film will notice that she appears in a scene in the trailer that is not in the film. Perhaps her role is expanded in a version to be released in Asia.

Iron Man 3 (2013) adopted a similar strategy by releasing a different version in China that spotlighted Chinese stars. Those stars were nearly edited out of the U.S. version. Like Angelababy’s cameo, few Americans even noticed. This alternate-version strategy earned Iron Man 3 $121 million in the China market alone, more than many films make in their overall global box office. A reedited Chinese version also accounts for the removal of gratuitousness, as ultra-violence and nudity won’t get past China’s censorship bureau. Add this to the massive videogame market in China, coupled with the release of the latest Hitman videogame, and this might be a completely different play by the Hitman franchise. Expand Angelababy’s role and distribute this in China, and the true plot is revealed. Once again, it’s all about the numbers – box office numbers – not the Hollywood numbers but the global numbers. Even if the Hollywood version of Hitman: Agent 47 completely misses its mark, American audiences (like a good spy plot twist) may not have been the target at all.