Ci ke nie yin niang
Directed by:
Hsiao-Hsien HouCinematography:
Mark LeeComposer:
Giong LimCast:
Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Yun Zhou, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ethan Juan, Dahong Ni, Wen Jiang, Fan Xu, Chun Shih, Shao-Huai Chang, Nikki Hsieh, Holly Weston, Mei Yong, Fang MeiPlots(1)
During the mighty Tang Dynasty-period in 9th-century China, Nie Yinniang is a young woman who was abducted in childhood from a decorated general and raised by a nun who trained her in the martial arts. After 13 years of exile, she is returned to the land of her birth as an exceptional assassin, with orders to kill her betrothed husband-to-be. She must confront her parents, her memories, and her long-repressed feelings in a choice to sacrifice the man she loves or break forever with the sacred way of the righteous assassins. Rich with shimmering, breathing texture and punctuated by brief but unforgettable bursts of action, The Assassin is a martial arts film like none made before it. (Vendetta Films)
(more)Reviews (3)
For lovers of meditation and film as a painting art, this is 120 minutes of the deepest ecstasy. Ingenious work with a mise-en-scène, extra-terrestrial use of open-air scenes, a distinctive rewrite of the rules of the Wuxia genre as defined by Hollywood opuses of recent years, and a film vision from which you physically feel every second of the seven years that Master Chou devoted to film. [Cannes 2015]
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Already at school, I really hated poetry analyses. "What did the author mean?" If I answered I didn't care, I was told to watch my manners, so I chose to keep quiet and avoid eye contact. Well, I felt the same way about this film. The visual aspect was perfect, but the story – dead boring. The plot itself was practically missing. Instead, I watched a number of long shots which often felt like my DVD got stuck. None of the dialogue was going anywhere, nothing was brought to a conclusion, and I refuse to ponder what the authors were trying to say.
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The visuals are really beautiful in places, but the poetry in the film just doesn't work for me. It's just that I'm more of an epic type who loves plot and narrative. This film, with its promising international title, didn't offer me that, so I settled for the fact that it's mainly a lengthy contemplation on the characters and the landscape.
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