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The Assassin

The 21st Century’s 100 greatest films (BBC)

Nie yin niang

2015

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ethan Juan ...

5.5

3,485

Drama. Action The film is set in 8th century China during last years of the Tang Dynasty. The film centers on Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi), an assassin who is directed to slay corrupt government officials by her master, Jiaxin, a nun who raised her from the age of ten. When Yinniang displays mercy by failing to kill during her duties, Jiaxin punishes her with a ruthless assignment designed to test Yinniang’s resolve: she is sent to the distant ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Justin Chang Variety	"A mesmerizing slow burn of a martial-arts movie that boldly merges stasis and kinesis, turns momentum into abstraction, and achieves breathtaking new heights of compositional elegance"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"Hou is concerned to do something new with the wuxia genre, to take it to the next level in his own language, and I think he is more successful here than Wong Kar-wai was with his The Grandmaster (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)"	POS
United States	Jessica Kiang IndieWire	"Hou's greatest achievement in 'The Assassin' is a very rare kind of period naturalism, where he makes this elaborate, exquisitely detailed past feel real, and the people seem human"	POS
United States	Deborah Young The Hollywood Reporter	"Hou Hsiao-Hsien brings a pure, idiosyncratic vision to the martial arts genre (...) Detailed period costumes and art direction make it extraordinarily beautiful to watch"	POS
United States	Mark Olsen Los Angeles Times	"Combining Hou's patient, observant style with a historical martial arts tale, the film is a fascinating hybrid of craft, genre and story"	POS
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"Mr. Hou rejects some of the traditional satisfactions of the wuxia genre (...) without offering much in their place. The film is intriguing, but ultimately opaque"	NEU
United States	Mark Jenkins The Washington Post	"As with Wong Kar-wai's 'The Ashes of Time,' Hou's take on the martial-arts flick is affectionate, but may frustrate fans of the genre. 'The Assassin' is a mood piece, evoking rather than explaining"	POS
United Kingdom	Robbie Collin Telegraph	"An immaculate treasure box of light, texture and movement. It is one of the most purely beautiful films I have ever seen (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of five)"	POS

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