The Assassin

2015 action drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An assassin is given a task that her past and her emotions will not let her carry out.

Quite possibly the slowest action movie ever made, Hsiao-Hsien Hou's drama was very pretty but a little hard to digest. Actually, I can't say I understood what was going on at all. About fifteen minutes in, I consulted Wikipedia, but that didn't help me much. Another fifteen or so minutes later, I stopped the movie and read a blog that outlined the characters, their political relationships, and the legend this is based on. Honestly, that didn't really help all that much either. I gave up, too stupid for this movie's narrative, and just appreciated the visuals.

And there are some knock-out visuals here. They all slowly unfold, kind of like watching somebody sculpt or work on a painting. There's one scene with a developing fog that is as beautiful as anything you're going to see in a movie, and there are all kinds of other scenes where colors, light, and especially the wind are used to create some stunning pictures. There's a depth to the cinematography, the foregrounds and backgrounds separated by flowing curtains and nature, and it all fills the screen so nicely. Clearly, Hou knows what he's doing with a camera.

That storytelling, however, is difficult. I might have appreciated this more when the characters didn't speak at all, when the visuals told the story. They wouldn't have succeeded in telling a coherent story, but it's not like I got a coherent story anyway. Instead, there are times when this gets very talky, when one character will just fill us in on what is going on by describing something that could have been in a flashback or sharing a fable. It didn't seem natural at all.

I wanted to like Qi Shu's character, but I thought she was a little flat. Hou and she are working to create this emotionless assassin who is forced to deal with emotions, but the stoicism feels a little forced and it was a little too hard to connect with the titular character. Clever editing convinced me that she could be an assassin with deadly efficiency, but the dramatic parts of her character really didn't work for me.

If you're in the mood for a very slow-moving action drama with very little action, this is worth watching for the imagery alone. But I'd read a plot synopsis before diving in.