I must warn you that The Assassin is a very artistic film so it is not recommended for all viewers. I brought my mom with me to watch it and she didn't like it at all. For her, I think she had the preconception that it would be something closer to a commercial film. For me, I think it's definitely a film that requires their audience to think after they watched it. I thought it was curious that director Hou Hsiao-Hsien picked such a strange aspect ratios for the film. Don't expect the film to be in 16:9 widescreen, guys, but don't worry, there's color.
What may put off viewers is that it may seem slow. There is heavy emphasis on capturing the sound and lack of motion in scenes. Some scenes record very minor events that would normally be cut out from a commercial form. Had this film been a commercial one, it would probably be finished in one hour. The slow movement I feel is to mimic the perspective of an assassin, always silent and always observant. Shu Qi who plays, Nie Yinniang, the titular assassin, has very little dialogue and many of the scenes focus on her observing her target. I thought it was a very clever way to shoot the scene of Ji'an and his wife behind layers of fabric. The fabric is sheer enough to let you see everything and having it constantly sway in the wind is almost like mimicking one's breathing as they silently prey. A lot of the scenes in the film are like paintings. You can very easily pick out any moment from the movie and make it into a stunning poster to look at. The use of color is vibrant and it is reflected in the costume as well as the natural landscape.
Hou has been praised for being meticulous and it really shows. The language may be Mandarin, but to stay true to the context, characters speak in an archaic version of Chinese, something akin to Old English. It made it hard for me to understand some parts so I had to rely on the English subtitles which were actually more closer to modern translations. Some words were not so audible as they were spoken in a different dialect and sometimes they were spoken almost too quickly and minimally. Hou also made sure that the setting was also made true to the historical context. During the 7th century, we only had candles as lighting so it makes sense that the palace would be dim. You get the idea that a palace presents itself as majestic, but not overly lavish with shimmering gold like you would see glamorized in popular Chinese period dramas.
One of the prized aspects of The Assassin is establishing the characters. Yinniang may be the main assassin, but there's also other assassins. There is the gold masked assassin that confronts Yinniang who I will not spoil, but not a lot of people caught on that the assassin is one of the characters we have already seen. This masked assassin serves as pressure for Yinniang in the real world and a symbol for her inner conflict, should she kill her cousin or should she spare her cousin? Then there is always this idea of having different images of assassins. There is Yinniang who is the assassin in black and the one with virtues, choosing not to kill in presence of a child. Then there are assassins that dress in color and walk out in daylight yet hide their ugly motives and conceal their weapons through lies.
Even as a piece that has many famous people working on it, I think we should also be critical of their production and presentation. One is that it wasn't made clear who Yinniang's parents were. Though you can figure it out in the end, I think it takes too much work and I rather that you be more direct. There's no need to intentionally hide her background and it's just too much work trying to figure out the identities while trying to process the rest of the movie. For instance, I entirely missed the part that Princess Jiaxin and Princess Jiacheng were twin sisters. It would explain the entire Nie lineage. There was very little dialogue throughout the film and I kind of wish it had been a little more fulfilling. Having the film in Old Chinese is already difficult to process and on top of that the lack of explanation makes it even more difficult to understand.
The other fault I find is they way they promoted the film. They called it a wuxia film which I find highly inaccurate. This should not have been marketed as a spin on the traditional wuxia genre. The fighting choreography was very lacking and not at all tense like a wuxia film should be. As Chinese speakers know, wuxia is made up of the two characters "martial" and "hero". There is a lack of action and there really isn't a hero in the story. The prevailing idea is not to play hero, but to uphold one's virtues. Even though Yinniang has characteristics befitting a heroine, she is not in the film to save anyone nor herself. In additional to the bad categorization, I think the marketed synopsis failed to capture the idea behind the film. It's almost like they describe the relationship between Ji'an and Yinniang as romantic love which I think isn't the case. Yinniang may have harbored true feelings in the past and into the present, but it's no longer something of passionate love. It's very subdued like the entirety of the film.
During the film, I noticed that there was a strange white light to my left. This theater was extremely dark so there shouldn't be any extraneous lighting. It turns out that most of the audience were on their phones. C'mon guys. You paid $14 for a ticket and you can't sit for two hours? Maybe it got too boring, but put away the phone for later. It's basic etiquette. While I tried to watch the movie, there was a loud crinkling noise next to me. It was my mom getting her bottled water. I hate it that she has to stick every single thing in layers of paper bags and plastic bags. Next thing you know, she's whispering to me, "I need a lemon mint." So I have to discretely fish my bag for a piece of candy. A few minutes later, "Pass me the cookies." I wanted to shout "Woman, we're not here to start a meal." Hunger gets what hunger wants. I angrily told her after the film this is precisely why I come to movies mentally and physically prepared.
I watched the film at IFC Center. Though small and not commercial like AMC Theaters, it was very well ventilated and still had good sound and color like a professional theater. My mom and I decided to walk to Chinatown to go grab food. We decided to try New Mandarin Court. Despite some very poor reviews that I read on yelp, my food was very fresh and tasty. Maybe I got lucky because my servers were really nice and stuff came on time. I'm guessing they have different people everyday and I happen to land on the shift of nicer people. Dim sum is $2.50 each and the selection is rather simple. We had chicken feet, the steamed tofu skin roll, and some taro filled dumplings. I got myself the General Tso's lunch special which comes with rice for $5.50. My mom got this huge rice noodle sheet platter that we could barely finish. Smart move mom, this is why you get a lunch special. I have to deal with a mom that never goes out to eat. I guess the best way to teach her is to take her out more often.
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