The Assassin

I am tolerant of minimalism, but this is a clear case of needless sluggishness. Almost nothing happens in this movie, save for speckles of totally uninvolving feudal politics and a smattering of anemic fight scenes. Sure, it's full of spectacular sets and locations, but that's become a mannerism in Chinese costume productions ever since the odious "Crouching Tiger" or so. I would have loved to give a fuck about an ancient female assassin... and just any substance would have been nice really.

There's about 5 minutes of plot in this movie (which was 4 minutes too much for me, because I was still lost). But the scenery, costumes, and cinematography were all fantastic.

The pacing is slow and the simple story is totally unclear. The filmmaker makes up for this by making impressive images of a hot female assassin in fancy clothes surrounded by beautiful scenery and/or cool fortresses. Don't know if that makes a movie; You have people walking in forests, standing on foggy hills, lots and lots of sitting in golden palaces and in between you get some FUCKING CLOSE-UPS OF FLOWERS.

"Let the visuals do the talking," one might say about The Assassin. The problem there is that I couldn't tell what the visuals were trying to say. We get an establishing shot of a coastline at night, mist above the water, various shades of blue and black. It's beautiful. Yet it doesn't seem to mean anything. Due to the lack of dialog and influx of new locations or characters, I found myself wondering who the characters were and what their motivations were. Perhaps a rewatch is in order sometime.

Slow Cinema meets Wuxia. This way of filmmaking is exactly the way I dreamed "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" should've been made. The detailed scenography and overall approach in creating a truly authentic world that you can dive into. It's not a perfect film but it beautifully shows how artistic cinema can work with genre cinema.

The Assassin's biggest shortcoming lies in its sluggish storytelling, boasting an undernourished screenplay which makes its deliberate pace exacting. There's just too little meat on the bones in terms of its underlying plot or, for that matter, the characters. Granted, while I struggled with the film, I was however enticed by its reserved, captivating atmosphere and the ending is most fitting.

The strong aspect was that the plot was saying that even in the harsh necessity of feudalism, femininity as an attitude may let the humanity to expiate and look forward, in that sense the donkeys at the beginning and the goats at the end reminded me just a little of "Au Hasard" as a tale of acceptance and expiation, and that attitude was downing the tone and texture of the movie but the sad reality is that Hou can't give me any poetry and transendence with his forced and pretentious long shots.

Imagine a downmarket Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, smaller scale, without the stunning fight choreography. Hou transplants the stylistic tics of the Taiwanese New Wave here (long takes, lack of closeups, reliance on diegetic sound, still camera) but what felt vital in urban Taipei feels decorative and purposeless in this very different wuxia setting. The result is arty, classy and kind of dull.

satisfying on every level, but it was literally exactly what i was expecting, and i can't pretend to care about it very much. i suspect wuxia needs a film like this more than i do.

I guess I understand why this film got 'Best director' at Cannes but overall it just didn't do it for me. It has too many confusing moments and it's really really slow.

At some point during this film I decided to stop trying to understand what was happening and just appreciate it as abstract form, color, and motion, and on that level it's an incredibly beautiful piece of art.

It seems almost unavoidable to compare this to The Grandmaster, even if Hou and Wong aren't necessarily even particularly similar filmmakers per se. That said, whereas Wong was able to completely subjugate the wuxia genre and use it to further his typical style and themes, here the material feels more at odds with Hou's sensibilities and neither are particularly complimented by the other. Still, the cinematography is great, even if nothing else about this is very interesting to me per se.

Quite a shock to discover that Shu Qi, at 39, is still one of the most beautiful, youthful women in the world. The Assassin though, as ravishing and detailed as the images are, is lethargic, incomprehensible, and disjointed. For all I know it aspires to the kinetic melancholy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and misses by a picturesque country mile.

He tells a really simple story in a way you've never experienced before. Just beautiful. I want every frame of it on my room's wall.

Hou tells a simple story the long way around, basically letting us eavesdrop and spy on the story rather than telling it; there are shots from across the yard, from behind curtains, the camera pans off the action and the dialogue fades out... It's all very stylishly done, but the actual plot and characters suffer for it.

The beauty of its locations trumps the lifeless story. If only I had a reason to care about any of the characters.

Beautiful landscape, costumes, and cinematography. I wasn't paying enough attention so I might have to rewatch, since it was too confusing for me to follow. There are too many things unsaid so the slowness is probably meant for me to feel my own reactions, but I just wasn't paying enough attention. I appreciated the fights being fairly quick instead of the genre drawn-out battles. Fav scene: dispatching three people rushing her in the woods.

Gawd... People in costumes sitting around and telling you the movie, like some remnant from the early silent area when they had to resort to intertitles. And just when I thought a film couldn't be less suitable for my taste, they start flying... On the plus side, I will never make the mistake of confusing Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang again!

Boring and beautiful.

There's something intoxicating about the opaque formalism in this film's style & story. It conjures a breathless world of shrouds, masks, mists, social ritual & deceit where morality & truth only reveal themselves for half a blink. The sedate narrative makes this timeless & enigmatic though at times it can feel like watching some kind of gorgeous 9th century staring tourney. I get how this can translate to hollow/boring/pretentious but I found it deliberate & often mesmerising storytelling.

I was anticipating eagerly and couldn't believe how disappointing this was. Definitely not intended as a Western-acessible Chinese epic in the vein of "House of Flying Daggers". So many scenes of robed noblemen and women sitting at tea ceremonies discussing politics. No real sense of place because everything was set in a salon or a forest. No sense of society outside of nobility and assassins. The bizarre, underwhelming cinematography was the final nail. Spectacle assassinated by arthouse.

Even Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be able to figure what the hell happened in this movie. I can understand why somebody might love this movie and that my own attention span might be holding my enjoyment back, but I can't stand art that feels deliberately obtuse.

Absolutely gorgeous but lacks real substance.

An expensive set design and cinematography experience is accompanied by a supposedly threatening sound in a movie in which nothing specific happens. A bunch of dialogues repeating what we have already seen, makes it even harder to take.

So beautiful, but so lacking in any substance

A wuxia movie with a lot of trees shooted with differently coloured cinematographies. Hou likes trees, i guess. The fighting are more realistic than usual for this genre and they are never the centerpiece, never resolutive; it's all about theatrical poses, little body movements, the untold. With so few dialogs we don't get to know the characters well, but we know perfectly the relations between them: the words aren't needed. Interesting as a different way to do a Wuxia, but too slow, empty.

The scenery was mesmerizing, but not that much of the story here

...(meditating)...(meditating)...(pretty costume)............(beautiful shot)........(meditating)......(swordplay)........the film was alright.

It's beautiful but I'm not sure if I was in the right mood for it, I just didn't find it captivating whatsoever. I kind of wish I could rate this without giving it a score.

Beautifully shot behind gently billowing curtains and smoke. But very very slow and difficult to follow if not au fait with conventions of genre or historical setting.

This movie really pissed me off. There is no story or any character at all. Mesmerezing cinematography and sets can't save your assassin girl Mr. Hou. I'd rather sleep in my seat than watch the adventure of this chick

I guess the best thing you can do is forget about plot and characters and drink up the visuals. This may be the most pointless movie I have ever wanted to keep and watch again.

Painterly compositions and stunning cinematography, but somewhat abstract and deathly slow. Qi Shu is badass but there's too little action for that to matter much. One you definitely have to be in the right mood for.

Visually stunning. Vibrant colours. Didn't like the 4:3 ratio. Great costumes, sets, makeup, hairstyles, etc. But damn, that's a slow pace. Quite a difficult watch.

it was full of life and emotions . Audience is active in narrating the story.... if you think there are many holes or boges or slips in the story thats Because u didnt get the points that writters initiate in the story .... and it had no open ending in none of characters story line ...ul see bressons spirit in this movie..... (watch it , enjoy it ) :)

When people said Hou was making an wuxia movie, I went 'yeah right'. So, I wasn't really disappointed when The Assassin didn't go full bore action film, though it's annoying that Hou probably would've made a great one if he stuck to it. Still eye-meltingly gorgeous and love the final shot of those figures moving across the landscape with that music playing over it.

Gets all the points for its technical qualities, and none for characters, plot, storytelling or general watchability. Some arthouse movies have this weird thing where they're both glacially slow and impossible to follow, so maybe here it was just too much for me. On the other hand, I now know how people feel when they watch Drive but secretly just want The Fast and the Furious.

#18#, exp3, rw3, story, rartings

I don't really get it, but it's nice enough.

Meditative and real nice looking.

Every single frame of this film is stunning and the restraint shown by everybody involved is rather impressive.

chn_eng; [the assassin]; eine frau kommt nach vielen jahren im exil zurück zu ihrer familie - doch einem orden von assassinen angehörend soll sie mit ihrer alten liebe brechen.; (ruhig);

A wuxia movie that is all about the (sensitive, subtle) power of gestures. Beautiful movie -- but I could use a rewatch to try to love it more.

Even past the halfway mark, the number of assassinations in this flick was a couple of bodyguards and a paper doll. It's odd that the film stops dead in its tracks in the first hour to explain the twisted palace intrigue, and yet that still doesn't completely fill us in with who's who. Stunning settings and some very good costumes; otherwise, this is just a dull snoozefest.

Merkeze karşı en büyük muhalefeti yürüten Weibo Hanedanlığı’nda generalin 10 yaşındaki kızı Yinniang, bir rahibe tarafından kaçırılır. Dövüş sanatlarında ustalaşan Yinniang, zalim ve yozlaşmış bürokratları öldürmek üzere eğitilir, eşsiz bir suikastçıya dönüşür. Bunu okuyunca insan umutlanıyor ama film öyle ağır ki filmden geriye şahane görsellik, uzun ve tek planlar, doğa sesleri kalıyor. Takip etmesi gerçekten zor.

28 Subat 2016, !f &

I very much dislike this director. The fight scenes are over in a flash and then the camera lingers for a ridiculously long time on boring things. The pace is frequently excruciatingly. There is nothing wrong with the story, but style often replaces substance in the showing. There were some stunningly beautiful scenery, but for every beautiful moment there is a even longer pathetic boring one. Qi Shu was cute. Barely worthwhile.

So, I also have to admit that I absolutely could not follow this film. I generally love slow cinema and am content to let a film flow over me, but my brain steadfastly refused to pay attention to this film. I'm not saying it's a bad film. I place a lot of the onus on me and feel like I definitely need to watch it again some day. But seriously, it makes Wong Kar-Wai's "The Grandmaster" feel like "Supercop".

I'm not going to mince words: Good luck figuring out what the hell is going on. An epic martial-arts period piece, beguiling, ambiguous and - for some perhaps - frustrating in its storytelling. Good thing it's also one of the most visually breathtaking films you'll watch. Huba-huba for gorgeous wuxia costume drama. I think the thing to do is this: watch it, and don't care about anything else. Let the sensorial spill over you.

There are images in this film that are breathtaking. Hou isn't interested in images that create one-to-one meanings. Rather, he is attempting to root us in the beautiful world, even as the people often ugly up that world with their petty ways and short-sided behavior. Hou's still, almost peaceful style, developed over the course of his career, translates beautifully to the narrative of this action film, creating an interesting and productive tension within the main character.

Beautifully shot slow movie, but honestly I didn't feel the the shots was that expressive. At times hypnotizing, other times a let down, some times just confusing. Nie yin niang (2015) is a film you appreciate artistically, but wish had done a more focused job of telling it's story. Or at least brought more with each shot considering how carefully and searching they were laid-out by Hsiao-Hsien Hou.

there’s some beautiful photography here. nice landscapes, gorgeous constumes, but the pacing is truly glacial. it takes literal minutes of watching a character sit before they deliver a line of dialogue. boredom has never looked this stylish.