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View Full Version : The Assassin (Hsiao-Hsien Hou)



ciaoelor
11-02-2015, 01:24 AM
http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/ea/a0/948cae2a45349243d69ba45875dc/the-assassin-poster.jpg

ciaoelor
11-02-2015, 01:33 AM
I might have had more patience with this if I saw it on a Lie-max screen. The cinematography is as gorgeous as reported, and in many of the scenes that don't involve action the camera barely moves, allowing you to soak in every colorful detail several times over. But watching the film on a smaller screen that doesn't force you to actually move your head to take in every detail just magnifies how stubbornly formal and dry the dialogue and performances are. I walked out of the theater after an hour or so.

Stay Puft
11-08-2015, 07:48 AM
Conversely, it's the best film I've seen all year. Equal parts astonishing and quietly devastating. One of the most profound and moving cinematic experiences of recent memory. I'm even tempted to call it Hou's masterpiece; it's certainly among the most formally impressive work he and his frequent collaborators (namely Lim Giong and Li Ping-bin) have ever done together.

There's a shot near the end that is set atop a mountain, and looks out over the landscape below, and over the course of the scene, fog slowly rolls up and over the hills. It's breathtaking. If that's the reason this film took so bloody long for Hou to make, it was worth it. The power of shots like this one is remarkable and a large part of what imbues the film with its sense of myth and tradition (it's like a classical Chinese landscape painting slowly coming to life).

The action is incredible, too. Hou's stylistic choices are brilliant. They hit hard, with incredible force and energy. The showdown in the forest between Yinniang and the gold mask assassin is one of the best I've ever seen, and I've been watching wuxia films for a long time now. The sound design is a big part of this, too. Even the way Tian slams a book down on the ground in one scene made me jump in my seat, the way it punches through the theatre, and the camera subtly shakes as if a shockwave had rippled through the room.

I can go on forever, but I won't. A+ four stars would watch again. I waited eight (8!) years and Hou delivered. I am absolutely blown away.

Ivan Drago
12-03-2015, 02:36 AM
Went into this with an open mind after hearing conflicting thoughts about it, and came out very surprised at how much I liked it. Mostly for its tone and cinematography than anything, and the pacing, while slow, kept everything all the more tense after every burst of action. I do wish I was more emotionally invested in the story, because the form and look of the film are so incredibly entrancing, but I may need a better understanding of the genre and Hou's directorial style in order to get that. But after a technical marvel like this, I definitely want to.

max314
01-24-2016, 01:49 AM
The positive reviews remark only upon the film's aesthetic achievements – its visual splendour, its sophisticated staging, its rich sound design, and its surreal atmosphere.

All of which are wonderful.

But, as a piece of storytelling, it fails quite completely.


Hou says large parts of the film were edited out in the end, leaving gaps that require viewers to work out the plot for themselves.

The director admits the decision might lead to confusion for Chinese audiences, let alone Western ones.

"It could be even more difficult for foreign audiences, but a film is a film - it doesn't matter. It's up to one's own feelings. If there are too many gaps, it would be hard to get a general release; if there aren't enough gaps, I'd feel it's too clear," he explains.

At best, this smacks of a storyteller who is evading judgement on his storytelling abilities by simply refusing to present them for scrutiny.

At worst, he's a storyteller who doesn't really know what he's doing when he's not letting non-professional actors do whatever they want in a single long take.

Izzy Black
01-24-2016, 08:55 AM
It's not news that Hou isn't a plot-oriented filmmaker, particularly late Hou.

max314
01-24-2016, 05:08 PM
The movie's a veritable jizz storm of plot.

We have an opening text card that is full of plot. The characters only ever open their mouths to discuss the plot. There are people plotting against people who are plotting against them who are counter-plotting the plots of the others' plots.

And yet, Hou doesn't give us the information that matters – namely, the information that lets us understand the emotional stakes for the characters. Except, of course...

...the titular assassin being assigned to kill her cousin who is also her ex-fiancé...

...which is actually a pretty cool premise.

Due to this lack of audience investment in the characters, Hou's aesthetic choice of displaying lingering reaction shots and scenic wide shots are hollowed of any meaning they might otherwise have had, which makes said choice come across as obnoxious and unnecessary.

There are moments when it works, but those moments are only the ones that are directly related to Yinniang's aforementioned central predicament. And those moments are too few and far between.

P.S.

It might sound like I'm really down on this movie, but the truth is that it had all the necessary components to make it the greatest wuxia film since A Touch of Zen.

It just feels like it was made by a monkey on marajuana.

Hence my frustration.

Izzy Black
01-25-2016, 01:08 AM
I think The Assassin has a fantastic plot and story, but often times, the plot is less important or not as emphasized as other things. His films are often times more mood and theme driven than narrative driven. This especially obtains for his last few films, particularly The Flight of the Red Balloon and Café Lumière (and going a bit further back, Millennium Mambo). The former s a film that devolves almost entirely into non-narrative symbolism, homage, intertext, and aggressive self-reference.

Nevertheless, I think The Assassin has a beautiful story (which, following Bordwell, I think can and should be distinguished from mere plot), but it is not in any sense told in a straightforward way. This has led to it being a rather confusing or challenging experience for many audiences. This is typical Hou. Even his more narrative driven films are told in a very abstract way and are difficult to gather, and this is often due to (and thus not mutually exclusive with) emphasizing elements that needn't be strictly tied to narrative (mood, theme, and setting).

There are are a few interesting examples of this. For instance, it can be easy to miss that Tian's wife is the other female assassin in the film because it's not rendered by any plot detail at all, but it is organic to the story and becomes much clearer on repeated viewings. You can see it's the same actress and it helps explain her mystery. But why not make this information explicit? I think it gives the assassin a haunting, mysterious aura, and while you may have suspicion of who she might be, you have to really invest in the film to make these connections. It also suggests that there may not be any characters in the film who are aware of this, or if they are, perhaps they refuse to discuss it. This has a lot of interesting implications (the more efficacious and subversive role of women in the narrative and historical context, the reticence of the time, the emotional limitations of the traditional language, and so on). Hou's commitment to realism sometimes prevents him from revealing too much narrative information in artificial ways (excessive reliance on flashback, contrivances, and so on), but it can make it more challenging for the audience to put the pieces together as we sit rather removed like a fly on the wall overhearing (both intimate and public) pieces of dialogue.

Is this bad storytelling? I don't think so. It's consistent with Hou's near career long approach to narrative, and especially his late work. He's by no means a traditional storyteller (and often times, the story he really wants to tell isn't given by the narrative trajectory of his protagonists in the immediate chain of events, but of a larger culture or historical narrative), but that doesn't mean his methods are for everyone.

dreamdead
04-03-2016, 02:21 PM
Feel like I'd need repeat viewings and greater understanding of the story to get more out of this one's internal storytelling, but the filmic qualities of this film are absolutely undeniable. The shot that Stay Puft emphasized, where the fog overtakes all the natural scenery, was revelatory and awe-inspiring. There was a set around the middle of the film where the titular assassin is absent in any narrative way, and that's where I think being more aware of HHH's agenda with the film might have revealed more of the subtext on successive viewings.

Nonetheless, the way in which the film explores a refusal to repeat murder is interesting on its own, and the stellar framing and cinematography throughout are amazing. I regret that I didn't connect more emotionally with this, but remain wholly impressed on a cinematic level.

Skitch
04-04-2016, 06:34 PM
Woohoo! This is now on Netflix!