The Assassin
- Title: Nie yin niangn
- IMDb: link
It begins with murder and a failed assassination attempt in stark black-and white. Set in China during the waning days of the Tang Dynasty, the film’s title refers to Nie Yinniang (Qi Shu), a young woman trained since the age of 10 to be an assassin. 13 years later when Nie Yinniang shows mercy rather than kill a corrupt government official in front of his young son her master punishes the young woman by returning her home to the northern province of Weibo with orders to kill the cousin (Chen Chang) to whom she was betrothed to as a child before her life took a very different path.
A far cry from the sleek, fast-paced, wire-effects-heavy, and often bloody kinds of films that the genre has been known for in recent years, The Assassin is a slow-paced character study about a woman who struggles with the morality of a calling she’s so obviously skilled at performing. Despite the lush setting of misty mountains, director Hsiao-Hsien Hou‘s film isn’t as polished as expected with several abrupt transitions and a mix of inventive but also bizarre camera placement throughout the film’s 105-minute running time.
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