The Assassin

Probably the best way to watch "The Assassin" is to play it as 1.5 times the speed. On a serious note, the film takes Wuxia to an entirely different level. If Ozu had made Wuxia films then probably those films would have looked something like "The Assassin". Watching the film is like studying a life in slow motion. While the detailing is meticulous, the storytelling style can best be described as tedious. The action sequences, although beautifully choreographed, are minimalistic in style.

In her third collaboration with the master Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Shu Qi delivers a mesmerizing performance while playing a part that's tender and feral in equal parts. It's difficult to detest the ferocious killer she has become. It's difficult not to fall in love with the assassin who once was a princess. It's difficult not to be in awe of Hou Hsiao-Hsien after watching the film. It's difficult to wipe off the images from one's mind long after the end credits begin to roll. It's difficult to watch it just once.

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Many of the audience will not find this movie to be much flattering. Even in China, where the cultural barriers are not supposed to be a big problem, lots of people fall into sleep in the cinema. But there are still some fans of this movie, just like me.

1). Actually it has a quite complete story, which is about politics. In history of China, the tension between the central control and the local force has always been a problem for thousands of years. Weibo, the place where the story happens, has witnessed two different political forces fighting with each other. One group, inclined to make peace with the central court, includes Nie Yinniang and her family. The other group, inclined to the strengthening of local power, includes the wife of the lord (their marriage is a political alliance at the beginning, the same with the marriage of the lord's princess mother). As a fan who always love dramas of political fights, I quite fancy this story.

2). Tang Dynasty has always been a fantasy to most Chinese people. With a frequent communication with different ethics and civilizations, Tang's culture was quite inclusive, and even a little bit exotic for Chinese people. While most shoddy TV plays and films fail to represent Tang's lifestyle, this film presents not only the dazzling costumes and dances, but also original Tang Style's architecture. All those elements make the film attractive.

3). The film's pacing is very slow, and the actions of characters are very simple. The dominance in the shots is shared by natural elements, such as wind, smoke, fog, etc. The way how natural scenes are unfolded, as well as how people are embedded in the space, follows a pattern of classical Chinese poetries and paintings. People who love Chinese poetries and paintings would certainly like this film.

The images in The Assassin are like a massive coffee table book that you swear you'll open some day: Beautiful, lush, even overwhelming.

The pace doesn't suit a typical American audience, however. The action sequences are too infrequent, too much like ballet, too beautiful, and with too little blood, to satisfy the palates of my countrymen.

There are many quiet scenes--of vast landscapes, of sick old men, of beautiful women and children--that are almost as still as portraits but for the flutter of veils, drifts of smoke, and the sway of trees against a sky of wandering clouds.

A few of you will enjoy this film, appreciate its sensibilities and splendor. Too many, however, may leave the theater confused or lost as to what just transpired.

I'm surprised by the bad reviews on IMDb. I think the problem is that a film titled "The Assassin" happens to attract a certain type of audience--people who are only interested in martial arts flicks, or who walk in expecting an action-packed adrenaline ride. You might be disappointed in this film, but I don't think this movie was meant for you.

A previous review mentioned the "depressed, stilted tones" of the actors.

I don't know what you were expecting ... an assassin during the Tang Dynasty to burst out into song about her inner anguish and emotional turmoil? I watched an interview with Hou Hsiao-hsien, the director who won the prestigious Best Director award at Cannes for this very film. He used a tennis analogy to explain it perfectly, so I'm just going to paraphrase below:

"If you watch the tennis greats like Federer or Nadal battling it out, there's not much expression on their faces. The speed that they're going at, the power in each exchange, there's no room for emotions."

The director, Hou, actually instructed Shu Qi (The Assassin) to tone down her expressions. The crew filmed the fight sequences again, and again, and again, until the actors were all bruised up and the fight flowed naturally, by instinct. By this point, there was really no need for dialogue or excessive expressions.

If you're an assassin fighting for your life, kill or be killed, are you really going to be thinking "let me get my blue steel pout ready for the camera"?

If you can get over the need for overly dramatic expositions and go into a film knowing the main character only has approximately nine spoken lines, and if you can enjoy a film for how starkly beautiful it is.... this might be the film for you.

Birdman was a weird movie that was filled with stellar performances and nuanced scenes. It won at the Oscars because it was a film about film and theater makers, but few regular people actually got it at the level it was meant to. Even so, it was a great film on several levels.

I say this because The Assassin is kind of the same, but not giving a damn if you understand or not what is going on. The scenes are beautiful and I am sure filled with significance that grows the more Chinese you are or the more versed you are in the "art of the scene". For the regular viewer, though, is a very slow story related to Chinese characters that kind of dress the same, look the same and rarely say anything. When they do say something, they choose the minimal amount of words to convey nuanced meaning - which are then translated to English.

An adaptation of a Chinese story that has little to do with anything but the beginning of the film, this is more about the inner world of the girl assassin as portrayed by beautiful scenery and slow, calm, cricket noise filled sound. Or at least I think it is. I might be wrong.

Bottom line: great action scenes, all 4 or 5 of them. They all last for a few seconds each. Great dialogue, the 20 or so lines in all the movie. Fantastic nature shots and historically accurate decor, in the rest of the film. Not a film you will hate, but imagine you are watching people you can't distinguish one from another and that are prone to fight for a minute before they say anything... if they even do.