The Assassin

[GeneChing]

Shu Qi? Chang Chen? I'm in.


Shu Qi, Chang Chen Join Hou Hsiao-hsien's Movie 'Assassin' (http://www.asianpopcorn.com/default.asp?Display=1038)

Cannes-winning director Hou Hsiao-hsien's new kung fu movie will be a US$12 million (€8.5 million) production about an ancient Tang dynasty woman who's adopted and trained by nuns as a political assassin, an investor in the film said Tuesday.

Taiwanese actress Shu Qi will play the female assassin, Huang Hsin-yi, a publicist at SinoMovie, one of the investors in the film "Assassin," told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Hou has also cast Taiwanese actor Chang Chen, who starred in the Oscar-winning "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," in an undetermined role and is considering approaching Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, Huang said.
Shu Qi Chang Chen

Shu Qi, Chang Chen (in black), and director Hou Hsiao-hsien at Cannes

Huang said it wasn't clear when and where the movie will start shooting. No other details about the film have been released.

The US$12 million budget makes "Assassin" a big production by Chinese standards and marks a departure from the art-house movies set in his native Taiwan that Hou's known for.

Besides Taiwan's SinoMovie, Huang said the Taiwan branch of Hollywood studio Fox is also investing in the movie and the Chinese news Web site Sina.com reported Tuesday that Hou is also raising funds at the ongoing Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea.

Hou's past productions have been explorations of Taiwanese culture. The director has shot movies about a local puppeteer ("The Puppetmaster"), southern Taiwan's gang culture ("Goodbye South, Goodbye") and government oppression ("City of Sadness").

"The Puppetmaster" won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 and "City of Sadness" won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1989.

Hou's most recent movie is the French-Taiwanese co-production "The Flight of the Red Balloon," starring Juliette Binoche. The movie is about a single mother who hires a Taiwanese student to take care of her son.

Hou and Shu are frequent collaborators, working together on "Millennium Mambo" and "Three Times," which won Shu best actress honors at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-language equivalent of Oscars, in 2005.

"Three Times," about three love affairs in three different eras, also co-stars Chang Chen.

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Genre: Kung fu
Cast: Shu Qi, Chang Chen
Chinese Title: 聂隐娘

[doug maverick]

sounds like good **** to me

[GeneChing]

You don't have some inside scoop on this one, Doug? You always have some inside scoop. Whazzup?! ;)

I don't think I've seen Hou's work before. I'm a big fan of Binoche so I'll keep my eye out for that one. Any picks for this?

[doug maverick]

gotta go to my sources. but hou is a pretty good director. it'll be cool if they had szeto kam yuen(exiled,spl,city with no mercy) write it(just thinking out loud.) the story sounds like this anime called hellsing and another old story about assisans trained by preist. if its done right then itll be good i'll find out more later.

[Li Kao]

Hmm when I saw Hou's name in the title along with Shu Qi and Chang Chen, I immediately thought "Hey wait a minute, I just watched a movie by Hou with those 2 in it!" It was the "Three Times" movie that's listed at the end of the article. I liked the 1st and 3rd part of the story, but the 2nd part, which was set in an ancient era, was a little annoying to sit through as there was no spoken dialogue -- the dialogue was all done in frames in between the camera shots on a black background similiar to old silent movies. I suppose it was creative/unique but it seemed too gimicky and was distracting for some reason. Still, it has shades of Wong Kar Wai (I suppose I compare all mellowdramas to him since he's my favorite director) -- all in all, the acting was rather subdued, especially in the 1st sequence and just didn't resonate with me like a good Wong Kar Wai film. So it was nice to see Shu and Chang on the screen together again, but the film didn't really win me over and I can't see ever watching it again. Still, I'm definitely willing to give Hou another chance and this one could be a winner. Definitely gonna want to see it.

[doug maverick]

yea its weird when watching mellow drama's now i always think of WKW, lust caution made me think of him alot.

[GeneChing]

There's an extremely mediocre pic of Shu Qi if you follow the link. In respect to her, I felt obligated to add this (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/entertainment/2006-07/17/content_642521.htm).


Shu Qi, Diane Kruger to Join Berlinale Jury (http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/01/31/1261@319249.htm)

Hollywood actress Diane Kruger, French star Sandrine Bonnaire, and Chinese actress Shu Qi will join the jury at the Berlin Film Festival next month, on a panel led by Greek-French director Costa-Gavras, organizers said Tuesday.

The jury, which will award the festival's Golden and Silver Bear top prizes, will also include Russian media executive Alexander Rodniansky and Oscar-winning cutter and sound designer Walter Murch.

Rounding out the list are Danish director Susanne Bier ("Things We Lost in the Fire") and German production designer Uli Hanisch, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick told a news conference ahead of the February 7-17 event.

The German-born Kruger ("Troy") is currently appearing in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" with Nicolas Cage. She starred as the wife of a South African prison guard in "Goodbye Bafana," which was in competition at the Berlinale last year.

Cesar award-winner Bonnaire has appeared in films by the biggest names in French cinema including Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Agnes Varda.

Shu Qi is a veteran of more than 50 Asian films including the 2002 international thriller "The Transporter" and Stanley Kwan's "Island Tales" in 2000.

Ukrainian-born Rodniansky is a major film and television producer as well as a documentary director in Russia and president of the Moscow media holding CTC.

Murch has worked closely with Hollywood director Francis Ford Coppola for 30 years on films including "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather."

A star of the dynamic Danish cinema scene, Bier got her start in Lars Von Trier's Dogma school of filmmaking and made a splash worldwide with her 2007 Oscar-nominated drama "After the Wedding."

Hanisch has picked up German and European accolades for the sets of "Perfume" and "Run Lola Run."

The festival announced in November that Costa-Gavras would serve as jury president. He made his international breakthrough in 1969 when he won two Oscars, including for best director, for the political thriller "Z."

He won the Golden Bear prize for best film at the Berlin festival in 1990 for "Music Box," starring Jessica Lange.

The Berlinale is ranked alongside Venice and just behind Cannes in the ranking of Europe's top film festivals.

It will kick off with the gala premiere of a Rolling Stones concert film by Martin Scorsese, "Shine A Light."

[GeneChing]

Hou's Assassin stops production (again) (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/hous-assassin-stops-production-again)
By Stephen Cremin
Wed, 31 July 2013, 10:00 AM (HKT)

http://www.filmbiz.asia/media/BAhbB1sHOgZmSSItMjAxMy8wNy8zMC8xOC81MC80Ni8yOTEvdG hlX2Fzc2Fzc2luLmpwZwY6BkVUWwg6BnA6CnRodW1iSSINNTAw eDEwMDAGOwZU?suffix=.jpg&sha=42e1d740

HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 stopped production mid-shoot on his martial arts film The Assassin 聶隱娘 last week. The film, which was originally set to finish shooting in April, has been plagued with rumours that it has run out of money.

The film — which has locations in China, Taiwan and Japan — previously stopped on 24 Apr after shooting in studio locations in Taipei City. At the time, Taiwan's Next Magazine claimed that the budget had run out.

The film's cinematographer Mark LEE 李屏賓 told Mainland media, "There is some pressure in terms of the budget. However, the so-called production halt from before was due to the time it takes to change sets, not because we ran out of money."

The film most recently stoppage was one week ago, on 24 Jul. Lee told media that no date has been set for production to restart. The cinematographer had canceled work on several forthcoming films to concentrate on Hou's film to year-end.

Hou's company originally claimed that actor CHANG Chen 張震 had to leave Taiwan to work on Mainland costume drama 飛魚服繡春刀. The next day, Chang's publicist denied this, claiming it was Hou who made the decision to halt production.

The film's main actress, SHU Qi 舒淇, recently announced on social media platform Weibo that all her scenes have been shot, suggesting that the filming is now in its latter stages of production.

The film project — based on a short story of a female assassin during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) who begins to questions her loyalties when she is commanded to kill the man she loves — has a long history.

It was first announced at script-stage 24-years-ago, when it was discussed in an interview with screenwriter CHU Tien-wen 朱天文 within the English-language press book produced for festival screenings of A City of Sadness 悲情城市 (1989).

The Taiwan government has announced a series of production subsidies for the film over the past decade, including NT$15 million (US$501,000) in 2005, NT$80 million in 2008 (US$2.67 million) and NT$20m (US$668,000) in 2010.

Hou filmed scenes with Japan's TSUMABUKI Satoshi 妻夫木聡 in 2010 before its main shoot began in China in Oct 2012. In Sep 2012, at the main press conference (pictured), the budget was announced as RMB90 million (US$14.7 million). Just show us Shu Qi's scenes. That might be enough.

[GeneChing]

A Shu Qi flick at Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes). Worth it just to see what she wears....;)


Hou Hsiao-hsien's 'The Assassin' to compete at Cannes Film Festival (http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201504160037.aspx)
2015/04/16 23:36:27

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Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure

Paris, April 16 (CNA) Renowned Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) will compete at the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival in France with his martial arts film"The Assassin"(聶隱娘), festival officials announced Thursday.

"The Assassin," a Tang Dynasty martial arts epic starring Taiwan's Shu Qi (舒淇) and Chang Chen (張震), is among the 17 films that will vie for the festival's highest prize, the Palme d'Or, according to the official selection lineup.

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure unveiled the lineup at a press conference in Paris.

Chinese director Jia Zhangke's (賈樟柯)"Mountains May Depart"(山河故人) and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Our Little Sister" are also among the 17 competition titles.

Hou, 68, is a prominent figure in Taiwan's "New Wave" cinema movement, which began during the 1980s. The movement is characterized by realistic and sympathetic portrayals of Taiwanese life, in stark contrast with the kung-fu action movies and melodramas of earlier decades.

Hou's film "A City of Sadness" won the Golden Lion at the 1989 Venice Film Festival, becoming the first Taiwanese film to be awarded the honor. "The Puppetmaster," featuring puppeteer Li Tian-lu, grabbed the Jury Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

Hou is known for his long takes, minimal camera movements, and observant and realistic style of filmmaking.

The Cannes Film Festival will run from May 13-24.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I like the pics that show what she ISN'T wearing....:D

[GeneChing]

Here's the Shu Qi poster. She's fully clothed. In armor, no less. :p


Shu Qi’s The Assassin film poster released (https://twstars.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/shu-qis-the-assassin-film-poster-released/)

Hou Hsiao-Hsien‘s 聂隐娘 The Assassin film poster featuring lead female cast Shu Qi was released. The filming wrapped back in January 2014. Post production has taken over a year now. This is one of my most anticipated films of 2015.

Plot summary: A female assassin during the Tang Dynasty who begins to question her loyalties when she falls in love with one of her targets.

The rest of the cast includes Chang Chen, Satoshi Tsumabuki, and Ethan Ruan. Supposedly it’s going to be similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with less CGI and special effects that have taken over the recent wuxia or period films. Apparently Shu Qi was one of Ang Lee’s first choices to play the role that eventually went to Zhang Ziyi in CTHD. Ever since learning about that tidbit, I’ve been wanting Shu Qi and Ang Lee to collaborate… maybe one day?

https://twstars.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/b_mjwwcuwaeevvf.png?w=660

[GeneChing]

I luv Shu Qi, but she tends to overwhelm the directors. Case and point: Stephan Chow's Journey to the West: Conquering Demons (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?61200-Stephan-Chow-s-Journey-to-the-West-Conquering-Demons)



Cannes First Look: Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Long-Awaited Martial Arts Epic 'The Assassin' (http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/cannes-first-look-hou-hsiao-hsiens-long-awaited-martial-arts-epic-the-assassin-20150428)
By Ryan Lattanzio | TOH! April 28, 2015 at 4:20PM
Hou Hsiao-Hsien turns to the "wuxia" genre of Chinese martial arts epics for his first film in nearly five years.

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Hou Hsiao-Hsien's China-financed period epic "The Assassin" is finally ready after decades of stop-and-go development and production. His seventh Cannes Competition contender, "The Assassin" has been in the works since 2012 when the Taiwanese cinema figurehead, master of many a meditative long-take, began filming in Taiwan. A departure from his recent dramas including "La Belle Epoque," this martial arts epic shows Hou painting on a much bigger canvas -- and with a budget of around $15 million dollars.

Starring Shu Qi, Chang Chen and Satoshi Tsumabuki, "The Assassin" is set in 9th-century, Tang Dynasty China, where the 10-year-old daughter of a general is abducted by a nun who then transforms the girl into an ass-kicking, martial arts assassin tasked with wiping out corrupt governors. After failing an assignment, she is sent back to her homeland with orders to kill the cousin who now steers the largest military region in North China.

Hou, now 68, works with longtime collaborator and Wong Kar-wai cinematographer Mark Lee, and screenwriter Chu T'ien-wen. "The Assassin" will world-premiere in the Cannes Main Competition this May. (New images below via The Film Stage.)

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[GeneChing]

Cannes: Competition Entry 'The Assassin' Nabbed by Well Go for North America (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-assassin-sells-north-america-794795)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/675x380/2015/04/The_Assassin.jpg
'The Assassin'
by Tatiana Siegel
5/11/2015 10:02am PDT

Well Go USA Entertainment announced Monday that it had acquired all North American rights to Hou Hsiao-hsien's martial arts epic The Assassin, which is playing in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Starring Shu Qi (Millennium Mambo) and Chang Chen (Three Times), the film has been in the works for close to a decade. Stephen Shin, Wen-Ying Huang, Chen Yiqi and Stephen Lam produced the film, which was shot by Hou's longtime collaborator Mark Lee Ping-Bing.

The story is set in 9th century China. Nie Yinniang, the 10-year-old daughter of a decorated general, is abducted by a nun who trains her in the martial arts. She is transformed into an exceptional assassin (Shu), charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt government officials. After a failed mission, she returns to the land of her birth with orders to kill her betrothed husband-to-be (Chang), a cousin who now commands the largest military force in North China. After 13 years in exile, the young woman must confront her parents, her memories and her long-repressed feelings. A slave to the orders of her mistress, she must choose: sacrifice the man she loves or break forever with the sacred way of the righteous assassins.

"We have a proud history of supporting films from Taiwan, and Hou Hsiao-hsien is a legend," said Doris Pfardrescher, president and CEO of Well Go USA. "It's like someone made a wish list, and we got everything we could have hoped for: iconic director, stellar cast and this exciting, moving story."

The Assassin will make its world premiere at the festival on May 21.

The deal was negotiated by Pfardrescher and Wild Bunch's Carole Baraton.
Well played, Doris (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1143).

[PalmStriker]

:) Can't wait to see this one!

[GeneChing]

This one is getting a lot of good buzz...AT CANNES NO LESS!


Cannes Film Festival: Hou Hsiao-Hsien Takes a Detour Into Martial Arts (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/movies/cannes-hou-hsiao-hsien-takes-a-detour-into-martial-arts.html?_r=0)
By AMY QINMAY 12, 2015

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A scene from Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s martial arts film “The Assassin,” which will have its premiere at Cannes. Credit Tsai Cheng-tai/SpotFilms Co. Ltd.

BEIJING — It has been eight years since the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s last feature-length film, the elliptical “Flight of the Red Balloon” starring Juliette Binoche, opened the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes International Film Festival.

During this time, the renowned arthouse director dedicated much of his energy to building up the independent cinema scene at home in Taiwan, serving as chairman of both the Taipei Film Festival and the executive committee of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.

But Mr. Hou, 68, said there was another reason for his prolonged absence: He was recreating the Tang Dynasty.

In a Skype interview from Taipei last week, Mr. Hou spoke of the painstaking research efforts undertaken for his newest film, “The Assassin,” a Tang Dynasty-era martial arts epic set to premiere on May 21 at the 68th annual Cannes festival.

The film, which features the actress Shu Qi in the title role, is the director’s seventh film to compete for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. Previously, Mr. Hou took home the Jury Prize for his 1993 film “The Puppetmaster,” the second in his trilogy of films dealing with modern Taiwanese history.

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Qi Shu plays the title role, a young girl who is kidnapped and trained to become a killer. Credit Tsai Cheng-tai/SpotFilms Co. Ltd.

Based on a popular legendary tale from the Tang Dynasty, “The Assassin” or “Nie Yinniang” in Chinese, takes place in the year 809 and tells the story of a young girl who is kidnapped by a nun and eventually trained to become a skilled assassin (Ms. Shu).

After failing a mission, she is sent by her master back to her hometown, 13 years after she was taken away, and is given a new target: the most powerful military governor in the North, a man who also happens to be both her cousin and her childhood love (played by Chang Chen).

The film represents the first foray into the traditional martial arts genre for Mr. Hou, who first rose to prominence in the 1980s as a key figure in the New Taiwan Cinema movement. He is best known for his layered meditations on Taiwanese identity within the context of the island’s turbulent 20th-century history.

“I’ve always had a dream to make this story into a film. I first came across the Tang Dynasty legendary tales when I was in university studying film and before that I had read many wuxia stories when I was a child,” Mr. Hou said, referring to China’s rich tradition of martial arts stories. “But I could never make the film because it required such a large amount of financing.”

Now, a string of internationally acclaimed films later, Mr. Hou has less difficulty finding investors. With a budget of around $14 million, “The Assassin” is the director’s biggest production to date. Costs were split between Sil-Metropole Organization, a Hong Kong production company, and Mr. Hou’s film studio, 3H Productions.

In taking on a wuxia film, Mr. Hou is joining a growing number of commercial and arthouse directors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Prominent examples from recent years include Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” (2000), Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” (2002), and Wong Kar-Wai’s “The Grandmaster” (2013). Even Jia Zhangke, China’s top independent film director, is said to be preparing a big-budget martial arts film. (In the meantime, Mr. Jia’s latest film “Mountains May Depart,” his first to be filmed partly outside of China (in Australia), will be competing alongside “The Assassin” at this year’s festival.)

Still, Mr. Hou’s decision to make a martial arts film has aroused interest among followers of his work, many of whom are wondering whether he has abandoned his signature contemplative style for high-intensity subject matter.

“It’s hard to imagine a director with Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s particular style — distant camera, slow takes and long takes — doing a wuxia film, which is very fast-cutting,” said Shelly Kraicer, a film critic in Toronto who is a scholar of Chinese cinema. “It has to be a different procedure for him, so it’ll be fascinating to see a director of his stature approach this experiment.”

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Chang Chen plays the protagonist's intended target, a military governor who also happens to be both her cousin and her childhood love. Credit Tsai Cheng-tai/SpotFilms Co. Ltd.

Mr. Hou, who began working on the screenplay in 2012, said that it would be different from other directors’ wuxia films and that he had remained true to his long-established approach.

“I rarely do costume pictures,” he said. “The Tang Dynasty element will be very new but I think people will see that my filming process is the same. It’s still long takes and a static camera. The actors have just changed their clothes and altered their accents a little.”

He added that he made minimal use of computer-generated effects. “I didn’t want the actors to be flying here or there,” he said, referring to the acrobatic feats in wuxia films like “Crouching Tiger.” “There’s essentially no flying.”

Hwarng Wern-Ying, the film’s production and costume designer and a veteran member of Mr. Hou’s creative team, said this time around Mr. Hou seemed even more meticulous in his attention to detail than she had seen in the past.

“He might film only one scene in one day, and then he would film that scene five or six times in one week,” she said. “Then a few months later he’d ask us to go back and film that same scene again but I had already dismantled the set.”

Mr. Hou said that he endeavored to make the film as realistic as possible, a culmination, he said, of several years of scrupulous research into historical accounts of the Tang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 906. It is often referred to as the “golden age” of Chinese civilization, a time when trade and culture flourished and Chang’an, the cosmopolitan dynastic capital, was the largest city in the world.

“Everyone has a different understanding of what the Tang Dynasty was like and I think this film will be a very pure representation of Hou’s vision of that time,” Ms. Hwarng said.

In the film, the actors speak classical Chinese, a decision Mr. Hou said he made to enhance the period feel. The language also turned out to be the “biggest challenge” during the filmmaking process, said the director, since classical Chinese was mostly used for literary texts and almost never spoken. The final version includes Chinese subtitles.

Admirers of Mr. Hou’s work may be pleased to know that the director does not plan to wait another eight years to make his next film.

“There are so many movies I want to make,” he said. “Even just in terms of Taiwan’s history the possibilities are endless.” He added that he was already in talks to make a film about the Taiwanese Communist Party under Japanese and later Kuomintang rule.

A version of this special report appears in print on May 13, 2015, in The International New York Times.

[GeneChing]

So far, reviews are fairly positive. :) Here's the THR review.


‘The Assassin’: Cannes Review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/assassin-cannes-review-797267)
4:21 PM PDT 5/20/2015 by Deborah Young

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Cannes
The Bottom Line
Hou Hsiao-Hsien brings a pure, idiosyncratic vision to the martial arts genre

Venue
Cannes Film Festival (Competition)

Cast
Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Sheu Fang-yi

Director
Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Shu Qi plays a mysterious female assassin whose heart gets in the way in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s first martial arts film

In his first directing effort since the 2007 Juliette Binoche vehicle Flight of the Red Balloon, art film master Hou Hsiao-Hsien confronts Taiwanese and Chinese myth, landscape and genre head-on. The Assassin (Nie Yinniang) is his first martial arts film and, at $15 million, his largest-budgeted project to date. As might be expected by those familiar with his work, this is an idiosyncratic, even personal view of the genre. Its bursts of lightning-fast swordplay interrupt long, still stretches of misty moonlit landscapes and follow a pure literary style more than current genre expectations. Detailed period costumes and art direction make it extraordinarily beautiful to watch, but its refinement may weigh against it for fans hungering after spectacular kung fu. The plot and characters are also hard to follow, and although this is par for the genre, game audiences will have to contend with substantial narrative ambiguity to reap the riches of an authentically poetic costumer. Still the film can expect a warm welcome from art film fans. It has been picked up for the U.S. by Wellgo.

The story opens in 9th century China where the Imperial Court and the powerful Weibo military province co-exist in an uneasy truce. The opening sequence introduces self-possessed protag Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi) and the “princess-nun” Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi) to whom she has been entrusted for her education. Though her parents back at the Weibo court may not know it, this consists in turning her into a killing machine of matchless skill, which she demonstrates in the pre-credit sequence. Striking with the speed of a cobra, she probably takes less than three seconds of screen time to slit the throat of a man on horseback. This is the first indication that Hou is deliberately out of the race to create longer, ever-more-astonishing and exciting aerial battles on wires; instead the film follows a formal logic of its own, where fight scenes are brief and to-the-point.

One surprise is that Hou is not shooting in anything resembling widescreen, but a modest, nearly square format that limits the number of actors who can fit into the frame. It’s a gamble that pays off in extra vertical space, which lets him exploit soulful natural locations and create images that pleasurably recall Chinese period paintings. The second shock is that exceptional D.P. Mark Lee Ping-bing is shooting in deep black and white, which is wisely dropped for bright color beginning with the next scene.

As a hit woman Yinniang has one weakness, which is a soft heart that often blocks her from carrying out her deadly assignments. Stumbling onto a governor cuddling his baby, she backs down from the kill. (It’s an interesting gender switch that points to the contradictions inherent in being a female warrior.) The nun, her master, is more than a little disappointed, and sends her home to murder the ruler Lord Tian (Chang Chen), to whom she was once betrothed. In Weibo, he’s making merry with his wife, concubines and small children, but the political outlook is not so good. Another stressful factor is that he’s receiving regular visits from a beautiful dark assassin, who is soon identified as Yinniang.

Revealed shot by shot, the royal court is a visual extravagance of Oriental fantasies illuminated by brightly colored silk robes and patterned, transparent curtains. The camera barely moves. There is plenty of sensual atmosphere in these luscious scenes, but the actors, locked in formal poses, keep their emotional distance. So when Lord Tian throws a tantrum and exiles a young councilor, no one gets worked up over it. This is one of the film’s hard-to-understand plot points, which eventually turns into an ambush in a birch woods, with Yinniang arriving for another short fight.

More confusion arises back at court, where one of Lord Tian’s favorites (Hsieh Hsin-ying) is hiding her pregnancy. A white-bearded sorcerer gets wind of this and initiates the film’s single and much appreciated supernatural moment. But as in the action scenes, Hou seems in a hurry to undercut the excitement (one can imagine what Tsui Hark would have done with a smouldering concubine.)

Shu Qi and Chang are both Taiwanese-born stars and co-starred together in Hou’s 2005 three-part love story, Three Times. Here their roles are much more stylized, and the minimum dialog often gives them an air of posing more than actually acting. Yet both young actors have the gravitas needed for their formal roles and costumes, and acquit themselves like ballet dancers in their mutual sword fights, one of which takes place on a roof at night.

Among the film’s superlative tech work, major credit goes to production and costume designer Hwarng Wern-ying and composer Lim Giong for a highly original use of music, drumbeats and other effects to convey an unsettling modern mood.

Production companies: Spot Films, Central Motion Picture Organization, Sil-Metropole
Cast:Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Zhou Yun, Juan Ching-tian,Hsieh Hsin-ying, Sheu Fang-yi
Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Screenwriters: Chu Tien-wen, Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Producers: Wen-Ying Huang, Chen Yiqi, Stephen Lam, Stephen Shin
Director of photography: Mark Lee Ping-bing
Production and costume designer: Hwarng Wern-ying
Editors: Liao Ching-sung, Pauline Huang Chih-chia
Music: Lim Giong
Sales:Wild Bunch
No rating, 120 minutes

[GeneChing]

Cannes Film Review: ‘The Assassin’ (http://variety.com/2015/film/news/the-assassin-review-cannes-hou-hsiao-hsien-1201501865/)

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/the-assassin-cannes-film-festival-3.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
May 20, 2015 | 05:45PM PT
Shu Qi plays the eponymous killer in this ravishingly beautiful foray into historical martial-arts territory from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien.
Justin Chang
Chief Film Critic @JustinCChang

In the seven years since Hou Hsiao-hsien began working on a ninth-century wuxia epic, his admirers have been madly curious about how the Taiwanese auteur known for such refined historical panoramas as “Flowers of Shanghai” and minor-key urban portraits like “Cafe Lumiere” would handle his rite of passage into one of China’s most storied and vigorous popular genres. We have the answer at long last in “The Assassin,” 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: Shot for shot, it’s perhaps the most ravishingly beautiful film Hou has ever made, and certainly one of his most deeply transporting. Centered around a quietly riveting performance from Shu Qi, the film is destined for a limited audience to which gore-seekers with short attention spans need not apply. Still, with a Stateside release already secured and passionate critical response assured, it should emerge as one of Hou’s more commercially successful and internationally well-traveled efforts.

Freely reimagined from a story written by the Tang Dynasty scribe Pei Xing, titled “Nie Yinniang” after its formidable female protagonist, “The Assassin” employs the sort of rigorously off-center storytelling devices that will prove immediately recognizable to Hou’s worldwide fanbase: a dense historical narrative laid out with unobtrusive intricacy, a masterfully distanced sense of camera placement, and an attentiveness to mise-en-scene that is almost Kubrickian in its perfectionism, as if a single absent detail or period inaccuracy would cause the whole thing to collapse. At the same time, the director and his d.p., Mark Lee Ping Bing, have delivered a picture that looks markedly different not only from any of its myriad genre forebears, but also from any of their nine previous collaborations.

The differences are made clear in the film’s prologue — lensed in crisp, high-contrast black-and-white and framed in the Academy aspect ratio — which situates us amid the volatile power plays and political instabilities that marked the decline of the Tang Dynasty. It’s here that we first meet Nie Yinniang (Shu), who was abducted from her family at the age of 10 by a nun, Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi), who trained her to become an exceptionally lethal assassin tasked with killing corrupt officials. A lithe but imposing vision clad entirely in black, Yinniang gives us a taste of her prowess when she coolly executes a man on horseback — an act pulled off with swift, unerring skill in front of and behind the camera, making use of a whiplash edit that briefly disrupts Hou’s usual aesthetic of long takes and slow pans. But Yinniang’s ruthlessness fails her when she confronts another target and, moved by the presence of his young son, chooses to spare his life, spurring Jiaxin to send her protegee on a mission that will both punish her and rid her of all pity.

At this point, the monochrome bleeds into color, the screen widens to the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and the location shifts to Weibo, the largest and strongest of the many mainland districts, which maintain an increasingly uneasy balance of power with the Imperial Court. This is where Yinniang was born, and now, after an absence of untold years, she has quietly returned with orders to murder the governor of Weibo, Lord Tian Ji’an (the charismatic Chang Chen, previously paired with Shu in Hou’s “Three Times”), who also happens to be her cousin. Yinniang makes her presence known through a series of furtive ambushes, though as with her last assignment, she never quite goes in for the kill. Her hesitancy is rooted, we learn later, in the fact that she and Lord Tian were once betrothed, with the intention that their marriage would help maintain peace between Weibo and China.

That peace looks in danger of crumbling imminently, as Lord Tian discusses with the other men of his court — a session that will have potentially deadly consequences for his unwisely outspoken aide-de-camp, Xia Jing (Juan Ching-tian), whom the governor angrily banishes from Weibo. The fallout from that decision precipitates the most robust action sequences in “The Assassin,” providing an occasional burst of visceral punctuation in a film where most of the battles are waged verbally. Hou and his chief collaborators (including d.p. Lee and editor Huang Chih-chia) rarely shoot these sequences the same way twice, and they understand that effective action is often a matter of both revelation and concealment. In their hands, an attack can be presented as a breath-catching blur of super-quick closeups, or shown from a discreet distance behind a row of birch trees, or captured in a straightforward medium shot, the camera never blinking as Yinniang’s foes are felled by swords and arrows (every blow and thwack registering in Tu Duu-chih’s immaculate sound design).

Pointedly, the expertly choreographed armed combat is never treated as an end in itself, and while the film presents it as an object of contemplation and sometimes excitement, the violence itself never becomes a source of pleasure. This is action forged by necessity and purged of all excess and spectacle, in the process achieving a clarity of vision that is not just aesthetic but implicitly moral. For the same reason, Hou and Shu wisely resist the anachronistic impulse to turn Yinniang into some sort of kickass proto-feminist avenger (Imperator Furiosa she’s not): When this assassin kills, she goes about it with matter-of-fact precision and practiced efficiency, never lingering or wasting a breath or move.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Still, there’s no denying that Shu’s sleek, stealthily commanding, intriguingly opaque performance — her third lead turn for Hou, after “Millennium Mambo” and “Three Times” — possesses a mythic allure that occasionally lends the film the dramatic coloration of a fantasy or folk tale. One way to think of “The Assassin” is as a very early version of “Sleeping Beauty,” in which Shu is playing the abducted princess and the evil fairy simultaneously — an association suggested by the heart-stopping image of her looming in wait behind a curtain, uncertain if she is going to prove murderous or merciful. We’re made to understand that Yinniang’s indecision, far from branding her as weak, is ultimately a mark of power: In a world where individual lives can be so cruelly limited by social circumstances and the unpredictable fluctuations of history (a thematic constant in so many of Hou’s period films), Yinniang emerges as the rare figure in command of her own destiny.

There are moments when the film’s relatively straightforward plotting can nonetheless seem a confusing tangle, simply because the story is allowed to unfold as it plausibly would in real life, with occasional digressions and repetitions — one key detail involving Lord Tian’s concubine (Hsieh Hsin-ying) is recounted at least three times — that reveal the complex channels of communication at work. As ever, Hou (who wrote the script with three other scribes) prizes verisimilitude over expedience. Dialogue plays the crucial role of not only advancing the drama but fleshing out context: Eschewing flashbacks and other narrative shortcuts, Hou understands the most piercing way for us to feel the past bearing down on the present is to have a character simply tell their story, as when Lord Tian sadly explains the significance of the two matching jade pieces that he and Yinniang were given as children.

The physical reconstruction of ninth-century Weibo is nothing short of astonishing, opening up a painterly world of brilliant green forests, silvery mist-wreathed lakes and the occasional gorgeous sunset (the exteriors were lensed in Inner Mongolia and China’s Hubei province). The Taiwan-set interiors are no less vivid, thanks to Hwarng Wern-ying’s exquisitely bejeweled costumes and obsessively detailed production design, all flickering candlelight and gorgeous brocades. Lee’s camera finds a marvelously subtle balance of colors and textures in every shot, and his eye for composition is as superb as ever; building a world frame by frame, his long takes and slow pans capture the interaction of Hou’s characters within the space and with each other. Particularly evocative is the way he films a private exchange between Lord Tian and his wife (Zhou Yun) through a gently billowing curtain, conjuring a mood of intimate languor while also lending the proceedings a clandestine, conspiratorial air. Lim Giong’s score, making use of menacing drumbeats and delicate zither strumming, is deployed with particular subtlety.

The sheer depth of its formal artistry places “The Assassin” in a rather more rarefied realm than not only the classic action epics of King Hu and their ilk, but also popular hits like Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” (2002) and “House of Flying Daggers” (2004), and Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” (2013), to name the most prominent recent examples of revered Asian auteurs making rare and overdue forays into martial-arts cinema. As one would expect, Hou implicitly grasps the expressive power of stillness and reserve, the ways in which silence can build tension and heighten interest. Above all, he never loses sight of the fact that the bodies he moves so fluidly and intuitively through space are human, and remain so even in death. As Jiaxin rightly tells Yinniang at one point: “Your skill is matchless, but your mind is hostage to human sentiments.” In that respect, Hou Hsiao-hsien proves himself to be not just the creator of this assassin but an unmistakably kindred spirit.

Cannes Film Review: 'The Assassin'
Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 20, 2015. Running time: 105 MIN. (Original title: “Nie Yinniang”)
Production
(Taiwan) A Well Go USA Entertainment (in U.S.)/Ad Vitam (in France) release of a SpotFilms, Central Motion Pictures Intl., Sil Metropole Organization production, in association with Wild Bunch. (International sales: Wild Bunch, Paris.) Produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chin Yiqi, Peter Lam, Lin Kufn, Gou Tai-chiang, Tung Tzu-hsien. Executive producers, Hou, Liao Ching-song.
Crew
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. Screenplay, Hou, Chu Tien-wen, Hsieh Hai-meng, Zhong Acheng. Camera (color/B&W, 35mm, partial Academy ratio), Mark Lee Ping Bing; editor, Huang Chih-chia; music, Lim Giong; set designer/costume designer, Hwarng Wern-ying; sound editor, Tu Duu-chih; special effects, Ardi Lee; martial arts consultant, Stephen Tung Wai.
With
Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Zhou Yun, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Juan Ching-tian, Hsieh Hsin-ying, Sheu Fang-yi. (Mandarin dialogue)


As Well Go has it, hopefully there will be a theatrical release.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWMIB449lCw
I haven't watched this. It's 48+ mins. But someone here might want to watch it so I'm posting it.

[GeneChing]

This clip is floating around the web.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymQvlTo0O_U

[GeneChing]

I posted some pix of her Cannes red carpet dress here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes&p=1284346#post1284346). But this dress is better. ;)


Woman warrior Shu Qi in The Assassin slays Cannes, wins over critics (http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/movies/story/woman-warrior-shu-qi-the-assassin-slays-cannes-wins-over-critics-20150522)
Published on May 22, 2015 11:25 AM

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Taiwanese actress Shu Qi (right) and director Hou Hsiao-Hsien at the screening of Nie Yinniang (The Assassin) during the 68th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2015. -- PHOTO: EPA

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(From left) Cast members Chang Chen, Shu Qi, Fang-Yi Sheu and Nikki Hsin-Ying Hsieh on the red carpet as they arrive for the screening of the film The Assassin at the 68th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2015. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/straitstimes.com/files/20150522/CANNES2e.jpg
A film still provided by the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2015, shows Taiwanese actress Shu Qi in a scene of Nie Yinniang (The Assassin). -- PHOTO: EPA

http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/straitstimes.com/files/20150522/CANNES3e.jpg
A film still provided by the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2015 shows Taiwanese actress Shu Qi in a scene of Nie Yinniang (The Assassin). -- PHOTO: EPA

CANNES (Reuters, Agence France-Presse) - Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien said on Thursday he had not wanted to make the customary kickfest-style martial arts movie, and Nie Yinniang (The Assassin) shown in competition at Cannes is anything but.

It stars Shu Qi in the title role as a trained killer during the Tang dynasty who jumps on her prey from roofs or trees and kills them with a single blow of her dagger.

With the lightning instincts drilled into her by a nun who kidnapped her as a young girl and trained her in the martial arts, Shu Qi's character, who is called "the assassin", can deflect swords flung at her and lay low a squad of imperial soldiers.

A difference from the usual martial arts film, though, is that the combat and killing take place within a gorgeously photographed costume drama that transports the viewer back to a vanished time.

And the combat looks plausible, not fantasised, even if the idea of a woman killing so many soldiers sounds like a tale from the Tang dynasty literature from which it was taken.

"I've seen a lot of kung fu films and I particularly like Japanese samurai films because the combats are so realistic," Hou told a news conference. "There are very few tricks in Japanese martial arts films, that's why I wanted to do my film in this way. It was very complex for the actresses in the combat scenes, while working on the film they ended up with a lot of cuts and bruises."

Shu Qi said Hou had put huge demands on her. "I nearly broke down at one stage, I thought we might have a clash because it was so demanding," she said.

Hou said the film had been expensive to make by his standards, with a budget of US$15 million (S$20 million), but even if it failed at the box office he would not want to start making films that were more mainstream or commercial. "In this day and age, when Hollywood reigns supreme, compare that with the time of the New Wave (cinema), and there were very interesting, different films. We don't want the cinema to become poorer in the future," he said.

Critics unanimously hailed the movie's beauty but were divided over its accessibility and its chances in the competition for the Palme d'Or. Many tweeted it was an arthouse "masterpiece" that deserved the top award.

Trade publication Variety called the film "a mesmerising slow burn of a martial-arts movie that...achieves breathtaking new heights of compositional elegance".

The New York Times said Hou "blew the roof off one of the biggest theatres here with The Assassin, a staggeringly lovely period film set in ninth-century China".

But others, including trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter, said "its refinement may weigh against it for fans hungering after spectacular kung fu".

[GeneChing]

Assassin to open HK Cine Fan Summer Fest (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/assassin-to-open-hk-cine-fan-summer-fest)
http://res-5.cloudinary.com/fba-photos/image/upload/c_fill,dpr_2.0,w_500/spabieng30gvmladewtc
By Kevin Ma

Mon, 20 July 2015, 09:30 AM (HKT)
Festival News

The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 is set to open the 2015 edition of the Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival 夏日國際電影節 (11-25 Aug), organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited 香港國際電影節協會.

In addition to attending the festival's opening night on 11 Aug, director HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 will also give a master class after the film's second screening. The film opens across the Greater China region on 27 Aug.

This year's closing film is Woody ALLEN's Irrational Man, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Allen's Magic in the Moonlight was last year's opening film.

Though this year's line-up doesn't include any new local title, its Fest Faves section includes six Asian titles: SONO Sion 園子温's Love & Peace ラブ＆ピース, MIIKE Takashi 三池崇史's Yakuza Apocalypse 極道大戦争, Japanese youth comedy Flying Colors 映画 ビリギャル, NAKAMURA Yoshihiro 中村義洋's Prophecy 予告犯, as well as Bollywood films PK and Piku.

The festival is also holding a retrospective dedicated to Taipei-based Malaysian auteur TSAI Ming-liang 蔡明亮, with four feature films and two instalments of his Walker short series.

After its Asian premiere at the Taipei Film Festival 台北電影節, the restored version of King HU 胡金銓's A Touch of Zen 俠女 (1970) will play at the festival's Restored Classics section. The Back to the Screen programme also includes a 35mm screening of IWAI Shunji 岩井俊二's Love Letter Ｌｏｖｅ　Ｌｅｔｔｅｒ (1995).
Good line-up - Sono Sion, Takashi Miike, restored King Hu, and I've been eager to see PK.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_msnMB_kYE

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_AcOHMsi4

[GeneChing]

...Our Times does not look like something I'll see.


The Assassin opens second-placed in Taipei (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/the-assassin-opens-second-placed-in-taipei)

http://res-3.cloudinary.com/htyz9sr25/image/private/t_show_retina_fit/sox4eih9clgjydgb012b.jpg

By Kevin Ma
Wed, 02 September 2015, 15:30 PM (HKT)
Box Office News

HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢's The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 opened in second place at the Taipei box office as local youth comedy Our Times 我的少女時代 remained at the top for the third consecutive weekend.

From 25 cinemas in Taipei, the wuxia drama earned NT$7.38 million (US$227,000) over three days. According to local media, the film earned approximately NT$20 million (US$616,000) from 83 locations nationwide.

Between Friday and Sunday, Our Times earned NT$15.5 million (US$477,000) in Taipei for a total of NT$89.5 million (US$2.76 million). Distributor and co-producer Hualien International Film Co Ltd 華聯國際商務股份有限公司 claims on its Facebook page that the Frankie CHEN 陳玉珊 film has made NT$220 million (US$6.78 million) as of Monday.

Fantasy comedy Open! Open! ＯＰＥＮ！ ＯＰＥＮ！ – based on the convenience store mascot character – opened in ninth place, earning NT$980,000 (US$30,200) from six Taipei locations on Saturday and Sunday. Including preview shows, the film has made NT$2.75 million (US$84,800) in the capital.

The official release of Open! Open! was delayed at the last-minute when Typhoon Soudelor had a huge effect on the box office early last month.

From eight Taipei locations, Ringo LAM 林嶺東's Wild City 暴走迷城 earned NT$410,000 (US$12,600) over three days.

To the Fore 破風 has made NT$25.6 million (US$789,1000). Local horror film The Bride 屍憶 has made NT$5.78 million (US$178,000). Dark comedy Laundryman has:1 has made NT$4.42 million (US$136,000). The Crossing II 太平輪　彼岸 has made NT$4.15 million (US$128,000).

All You Need Is Love 我的澎湖灣, Hero ＨＥＲＯ , Salut d'amour 장수상회, Paris Holiday 巴黎假期 and Vacation open this weekend.


In Hong Kong, local comedy Undercover Duet 猛龍特囧 was the top new film as Pixels and Inside Out remained at the top of the box office.

Opening in third place, Undercover Duet earned HK$3.05 million (US$394,000) from 35 locations over four days. The long-delayed comedy stars Ronald CHENG 鄭中基 as an undercover cop assigned to convince an old schoolmate (played by director and co-writer Mark WU 胡耀輝) to testify in court.

Topping the box office for the second weekend, Pixels earned HK$4.08 million (US$527,000) between Thursday and Sunday. The sci-fi comedy has made HK$13.6 million (US$1.75 million).

Local horror anthology Knock Knock! Who’s There? 有客到 opened in fifth place, earning HK$1.68 million (US$217,000) over four days plus early previews. The film is the first feature solo-directed by actress Carrie NG 吳家麗.

From eight locations, Hou's The Assassin earned HK$550,000 (US$71,000) over four days. The film is distributed by Golden Scene Co Ltd 高先電影有限公司.

Japan's Hero opened in seventh place, earning HK$1.29 million (US$167,000) from 20 locations over four days. In 2007, the first Hero earned HK$4.45 million (US$574,000) during its theatrical run.

CHOI Dong-hoon 최동훈 | 崔東勳's Assassination 암살 opened in ninth place, earning HK$759,000 (US$97,900) from 22 locations over four days plus early previews.

Three years ago, Choi's The Thieves 도둑들 (2012) earned HK$2.70 million (US$348,000) during its theatrical run.

Opening in six locations, The Emperor in August 日本のいちばん長い日 earned HK$218,000 (US$28,100) over four days.

Chinese comedy Hollywood Adventures 橫衝直撞好萊塢 opened with only HK$77,400 (US$9,980) over four days.

Inside Out has made HK$63 million (US$8.13 million). Wild City has made HK$4.63 million (US$598,000). To The Fore has earned HK$9.55 million (US$1.23 million).

A Tale of Three Cities 三城記, Assassination Classroom 暗殺教室, Love Detective 沒女神探 and Cat Funeral 고양이 장례식 open this weekend.

[GeneChing]

China and Taiwan pick Oscar reps (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-and-taiwan-pick-oscar-reps)
http://res-3.cloudinary.com/htyz9sr25/image/private/t_show_retina_fit/kxaf0g4pvyawior1soh1.jpg
By Kevin Ma
Fri, 11 September 2015, 00:00 AM (HKT)
Awards News

China and Taiwan have announced their respective representatives for this year's Academy Award Best Foreign Film race.

China is sending Wolf Totem 狼圖騰, Jean-Jacques ANNAUD's Cultural Revolution-era drama about a young man who becomes fascinated by wolves while living in Mongolia. The China-France co-production earned RMB699 million (US$109 million) during the Lunar New Year holiday.

This is the second consecutive year China is sending a film by a French film-maker to the Oscars. Last year, Philippe MUYL's The Nightingale 夜鶯 (2013) joined the race, but did not make it to the shortlist.

In Taiwan, the Ministry of Culture 台灣文化部 decided at a special meeting that HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢's The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 will be its representative at the Academy Awards this year. The announcement was made by the Motion Picture and Drama Association.

According to the association, a total of 13 films – including Thanatos, Drunk 醉・生夢死, Exit 迴光奏鳴曲, The Wonderful Wedding 大囍臨門 and Our Times 我的少女時代 – were submitted for consideration. The association says the committee chose Hou's film for its top-notch production values and innovative cinematic style.

This is the third Hou film to be submitted to the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Film race, after A City of Sadness 悲情城市 (1989) and Flowers of Shanghai 海上花 (1998). In May, the wuxia drama earned a Best Director prize for Hou at the Cannes Film Festival.

Last year, Taiwan submitted Midi Z 趙德胤's Ice Poison 冰毒 to the Academy Awards. It did not make the shortlist.

Totally called this. At least it guarantees some U.S. distribution.

Ah...the Oscar race. My forecast is that Taiwan submits The Assassin (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48362-The-Assassin) for Best Foreign.


Wolf Totem opens in SF this weekend. I was invited to a screener and was sorely tempted, but I'm just too busy right now. And then the screener was cancelled.

[GeneChing]

From our good friends at Well Go USA (http://wellgousa.com/theatrical/the-assassin)



http://wellgousa.com/sites/default/files/theatrical/Heropage-980x560_43.jpg
The Assassin

http://wellgousa.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/poster/WildBunch_Posterart_0.jpg?itok=QQko8hYf
Synopsis
Back with his first film in 8 years, legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien wowed this year's Cannes Film Festival (where he won Best Director) with his awe-inspiring THE ASSASSIN - a wondrous take on the traditional wuxia film. The story is simple, if elusive - in 9th-century China, Nie Yinniang is a young woman who was abducted in childhood from a decorated general and raised by a nun who trained her in the martial arts. After 13 years of exile, she is returned to the land of her birth as an exceptional assassin, with orders to kill her betrothed husband-to-be. She must confront her parents, her memories, and her long-repressed feelings in a choice to sacrifice the man she loves or break forever with the sacred way of the righteous assassins. Rich with shimmering, breathing texture and punctuated by brief but unforgettable bursts of action, THE ASSASSIN is a martial arts film like none made before it.

Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Cast: Chang Chen , Shu Qi , Zhou Yun , Tsumabuki Satoshi
Producer: Hou Hsiao-Hsien , Liao Ching-Song
Genre: Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 107 mins.
Theatrical Date: Oct 16, 2015
Original Language: Mandarin

USA Theater Location

October 16, 2015
NEW YORK CITY
IFC Center
323 6th Ave
New York, NY 10014
(212) 924-7771

Film Society of Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023
(212) 875-5610

LOS ANGELES
Laemmle Playhouse 7
673 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101

Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts
8556 Wilshire Blvd.
B.H., CA 90211

October 22, 2015
MIAMI
GEMS - Miami International Film Festival
300 NE 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33132

October 23, 2015
CHICAGO
AMC River East 21
322 East Illinois Street
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 596-0333

Music Box Theatre
3733 N Southport Ave
Chicago, IL 60613

NEW YORK CITY
Cinema Arts Centre
423 Park Ave
Huntington, NY 11743

October 28, 2015
ST. LOUIS
RagTag Cinema Cafe
10 Hitt St
Columbia, MO 65201
(573) 441-8504

WINCHESTER
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
181 Kernstown Commons Blvd
Winchester, VA 22602
(540) 313-4060

October 29, 2015
MIAMI
Miami Beach CInematheque
1130 Washington Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
(305) 673-4567

October 30, 2015
MIAMI
Tower Theater
1508 SW 8th St
Miami, FL 33135
(305) 237-2463

November 11, 2015
DENVER
International Film Series
1801 Colorado Ave
Boulder, CO 80309
(303) 492-1531

November 12, 2015
OKLAHOMA CITY
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
415 Couch Dr
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
(405) 236-3100

November 13, 2015
PHILADELPHIA
Landmark Ritz Theater
214 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 440-1184

December 10, 2015
COLUMBUS
Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 N High St
Columbus, OH 43210

CANADA Theater Location

October 30, 2015
TORONTO
Bell Lightbox
350 King St W
Toronto, ON M5V 3X5, Canada
+1 416-599-8433

VANCOUVER
Vancity Theatre
1181 Seymour St
Vancouver, BC V6B 2E8, Canada
+1 604-683-3456

Hold the phone....no S.F. Bay Area showings? :mad:

[GeneChing]

The Assassin (https://www.amctheatres.com/movies/the-assassin)
https://cdn.amctheatres.com/titles/images/Poster/Standard/3456_the-assassin_F7B0.jpg

Synopsis

9th century China. 10-year-old general's daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts, transforming her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors. One day, having failed in a task, she is sent back by her mistress to the land of her birth, with orders to kill the man to whom she was promised - a cousin who now leads the largest military region in North China. After 13 years of exile, the young woman must confront her parents, her memories and her long-repressed feelings. A slave to the orders of her mistress, Nie Yinniang must choose: sacrifice the man she loves or break forever with the sacred way of the righteous assassins.

Running Time
1 hr 47 min

Release Date
October 23, 2015


Confusing...:confused:

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO2XULtvHSg


The Golden Horse Awards 金馬獎 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?46108-Golden-Horse-Film-Festival&p=1287370#post1287370) nomination committee showed plenty of love for local productions this year as two Taiwan films lead the shortlist.

As may be expected, HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢's The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 scored the most nominations with 11, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (SHU Qi 舒淇), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Action Choreography.

[GeneChing]

Ahhh, the ever-gorgeous Shu Qi, who has been in so many mediocre films yet still comes out unscathed. I think she's so gorgeous that she distracts the filmmakers from their task. And yes, her gorgeousness is a reference to her appearance with Jackie in Gorgeous.

This film is gorgeous. It is a cinematic masterpiece for director Hsiao-Hsien Hou. The panoramic landscapes, the lavish costumes, the intricately detailed sets, all gorgeous. Every shot is a stunning composition of light and shadow, and the camera lingers on each frame with ponderous and quiet respect. From a film-making perspective, it's just exquisite film-making, the kind that film students will gush over for years. It reminds me of Kurosawa's early color films, dazzling cinematography for its subtlety and sublimity.

As a martial arts film, it sucks. The fights are few and not very sophisticated. The pacing of the film never builds to any sort of action crescendo. There's no big final fight - the film ends on quite a different note entirely. Martial arts fans will be disappointed. I really wanted to love this, but it's so not about martial arts. It is akin to Ashes of Time in this way, a glacial pace that makes for grand cinema d'arte, but not for the martial genre. Like I said on my Ashes review"


If you're into art film and martial arts, it's a must see.

If you just want to see some ass kicking kung fu, skip this one.


I would enjoy seeing this with subtitles on the big screen as I'm sure it's stunning. It's terrible on a Chinese-only subtitled Chinatown DVD. I suspect it won't make it to the finals for the Oscars.


AMC now lists participating theaters on its Asian-Pacific Cinema page, but I'm not confident that these are all guaranteed to show the films.


participating > theatres (https://www.amctheatres.com/programs/independent/asian-pacific-cinema)
Arizona

AMC Arizona Center 24
AMC Centerpoint 11

California

AMC Atlantic Times Square 14
AMC Covina 17
AMC Cupertino Square 16
AMC Fashion Valley 18
AMC La Jolla 12
AMC Metreon 16
AMC Mission Valley 20
AMC Ontario Mills 30
AMC Orange 30
AMC Plaza Bonita 14
AMC Puente Hills 20
AMC Tustin 14 @ The District

Colorado

AMC Arapahoe Crossing 16

Florida

AMC Sunset Place 24
AMC West Shore 14

Georgia

AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18

Illinois

AMC Loews Woodridge 18
AMC River East 21
AMC Showplace Niles 12

Indiana

AMC Showplace Bloomington 11

Kentucky

AMC Newport On The Levee 20

Maryland

AMC Loews Rio Cinemas 18

Massachusetts

AMC Loews Boston Common 19

Michigan

AMC Star Southfield 20

Minnesota

AMC Inver Grove 16

Missouri

AMC Dine-in Theatres West Olive 16

Nevada

AMC Town Square 18

New Jersey

AMC Loews Cherry Hill 24
AMC Loews Jersey Gardens 20

New York

AMC Empire 25
AMC Loews Bay Terrace 6

Ohio

AMC Lennox Town Center 24

Pennsylvania

AMC 309 Cinema 9
AMC Loews Waterfront 22

Texas

AMC Grapevine Mills 30 with Dine-in Theatres
AMC Studio 30

Virginia

AMC Hoffman Center 22

Washinton

AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16
AMC Pacific Place 11

Wisconsin

AMC Mayfair Mall 18

[PalmStriker]

:) Wow, not so good ~ forsaking kick ass in a titled "martial arts" nomination for the sake of ART. So not necessary. Salted Wounds.

[Jimbo]

Taiwanese filmmakers for the most part seem to have gone totally into artsy-f@rtsy cinema. Unfortunate, since in the 1970s into the early-to-mid-80s, Taiwan was a big hub of Kung fu filmmaking, probably even outpacing Hong Kong in that regard as far as sheer volume.

Several years ago, one of the Taiwanese art house movies I saw was Goodbye, Dragon Inn, about an old Taipei cinema showing King Hu's Dragon Gate Inn one last time before closing for good. I thought it would be a tribute of sorts to that classic movie, but it was just weird (and depressing and boring). I think that Taiwanese filmmakers are trying their best to stay as far away from KF or MA cinema as possible, even when it's implied, and making pretentious movies seems the way to do it.

[GeneChing]

The Assassin is a great film. One might even go so far to say it is a cinematic masterpiece. It's just not a great martial arts film. Don't go to see it expecting to see great martial arts. Go to see it expecting a gorgeous film. And if you are a true fan of the martial arts genre, it's a must see. It's impact on our genre as a Foreign Film Oscar contender makes it very significant.

Well Go USA (http://wellgousa.com/theatrical/the-assassin) has expanded their theatrical distribution.



USA Theater Location
October 16, 2015
NEW YORK CITY
IFC Center
323 6th Ave
New York, NY 10014
(212) 924-7771

Film Society of Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023
(212) 875-5610

LOS ANGELES
Laemmle Playhouse 7
673 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101

Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts
8556 Wilshire Blvd.
B.H., CA 90211

October 22, 2015
MIAMI
GEMS - Miami International Film Festival
300 NE 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33132

October 23, 2015
CHICAGO
AMC River East 21
322 East Illinois Street
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 596-0333

Music Box Theatre
3733 N Southport Ave
Chicago, IL 60613

NEW YORK CITY
Cinema Arts Centre
423 Park Ave
Huntington, NY 11743

SAN FRANCISCO / BAY AREA
Landmark Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 644-2992

AMC Metreon 16
35 4th St Suite 3000
San Francisco, CA 94103

Camera 3
288 S Second St
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 294-3334

LOS ANGELES
AMC Atlantic Time Square
450 N Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 407-0240

Edwards University Town Center 6
4245 Campus Drive, University Center
Irvine, CA 92612
(844) 462-7342

CHARLOTTE
Regal Cinemas Ballantyne Village 5
14815 Ballantyne Village Way
Charlotte, NC 28277
(844) 462-7342

KNOXVILLE
Regal Cinemas Downtown West 8
1640 Downtown W Blvd
Knoxville, TN 37919
(844) 462-7342

SCOTTSDALE
Harkins Theatres Camelview 5
7001 E Highland Ave
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 947-8778

October 28, 2015
ST. LOUIS
RagTag Cinema Cafe
10 Hitt St
Columbia, MO 65201
(573) 441-8504

WINCHESTER
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
181 Kernstown Commons Blvd
Winchester, VA 22602
(540) 313-4060

October 29, 2015
MIAMI
Miami Beach CInematheque
1130 Washington Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
(305) 673-4567

NEW YORK CITY
Time & Space Ltd
434 Columbia St
Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 822-8448

October 30, 2015
MIAMI
Tower Theater - Miami
1508 SW 8th St
Miami, FL 33135
(305) 237-2463

Cinema Paradiso
503 SE 6th St
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
(954) 525-3456

Lake Worth Playhouse
713 Lake Ave
Lake Worth, FL 33460
(561) 586-6410

SAN FRANCISCO / BAY AREA
Pageant Theatre
351 E 6th St
Chico, CA 95928
(530) 343-0663

Landmark Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 644-2992

SEATTLE
Pickford Film Center
1318 Bay St
Bellingham, WA 98225
(360) 738-0735

SIFF Cinema Egyptian
805 East Pine Street
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 324-9996

CHICAGO
Tivoli Theatre
5021 Highland Ave
Downers Grove, IL 60515
(630) 968-0219

PHILADELPHIA
The Colonial Theatre
227 Bridge St
Phoenixville, PA 19460
(610) 917-1228

GRAND RAPIDS
Celebration! Cinema Grand Rapids Woodland
3195 28th Street SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49512

WASHINGTON, D.C.
AFI Silver Theatre
AFI Silver
Silver Spring, MD 20910

Landmark Theatres - E Street Cinema
55 11th St NW
Washington, DC 20004

OMAHA
Film Streams
1340 Mike Fahey St
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 933-0259

AMHERST
Amherst Cinema
28 Amity St
Amherst, MA 01002
(413) 253-2547

SALT LAKE CITY
Tower Theater - Salt Lake City
876 E 900 S
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
(801) 321-0310

November 3, 2015
INDIANAPOLIS
Indiana University Cinema
1213 E 7th St
Bloomington, IN 47406
(812) 855-7632

November 6, 2015
IOWA
FilmScene
118 E College St
Iowa City, IA 52240
(319) 358-2555

NEW MEXICO
The Screen
1600 St Michaels Dr
Santa Fe, NM 87505
(505) 473-6494

BOISE
The Flicks
646 W Fulton St
Boise, ID 83702
(208) 342-4288

ALBUQUERQUE
Guild Cinema
3405 Central Ave NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
(505) 255-1848

SALEM
CinemaSalem
1 E India Square Mall
Salem, MA 01970
(978) 744-1400

November 11, 2015
DENVER
International Film Series
1801 Colorado Ave
Boulder, CO 80309
(303) 492-1531

November 12, 2015
OKLAHOMA CITY
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
415 Couch Dr
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
(405) 236-3100

November 13, 2015
PHILADELPHIA
Landmark Ritz Theater
214 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 440-1184

Zoetropolis Art House
315 W James St
Lancaster, PA 17603

CHICAGO
Normal Theater
209 W North St
Normal, IL 61761
(309) 454-9720

PORTLAND
Liberty Theatre
315 NE 4th Ave
Camas, WA 98607
(360) 859-9555

GRAND RAPIDS
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
2 Fulton St W
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
(616) 454-7000

November 20, 2015
NASHVILLE
Belcourt Theatre
2102 Belcourt Ave
Nashville, TN 37212
(615) 846-3150

November 27, 2015
HOUSTON
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet St
Houston, TX 77005

November 28, 2015
NEW MEXICO
Fountain Theater
2469 Calle De Guadalupe
Old Mesilla, NM 88046
(575) 524-8287

December 4, 2015
PITTSBURGH
Harris Theater
809 Liberty Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
(412) 681-5449

December 10, 2015
COLUMBUS
Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 N High St
Columbus, OH 43210

CANADA Theater Location
October 30, 2015
TORONTO
Bell Lightbox
350 King St W
Toronto, ON M5V 3X5, Canada
+1 416-599-8433

VANCOUVER
Vancity Theatre
1181 Seymour St
Vancouver, BC V6B 2E8, Canada
+1 604-683-3456

November 6, 2015
MONTREAL
Cinema du Parc
3575 Av du Parc
Montréal, QC H2X 2H8, Canada
+1 514-281-1900

November 13, 2015
ALBERTA
Plaza Theatre
1133 Kensington Rd NW
Calgary, AB T2N 3P4, Canada
+1 403-283-2222

OTTAWA
Mayfair Theatre
1074 Bank St
Ottawa, ON K1S 3X3, Canada

[GeneChing]

The critics are raving.



Cannes Best Director Winner On His First Martial Arts Film, The Future Of Movies (http://laist.com/2015/10/15/a_talk_with_hhh.php)
by Carman Tse in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 15, 2015 12:35 pm

http://laist.com/attachments/laist_carman/ASSASSIN-THE-Still-2.jpg
Shu Qi as Nie Yinniang in Hou Hsiao-hsien's 'The Assassin' (Well Go USA)

It had been eight years since director Hou Hsiao-hsien last released a feature-length film until This Assassin this year, but fans of the Taiwanese master will likely find that the wait was worth it. Serving as a leader for both the Taipei Film Festival and the Golden Horse Film Festival (the Chinese equivalent of the Oscars of which The Assassin, by the way, has eleven nominations), the de facto cultural ambassador of the island nation was simply too busy to find the time to make his follow-up to Flight Of The Red Balloon (2007) until recently.

When it finally seemed that his martial arts epic had finally taken off, questions lingered as to how the project would actually unfold. How would Hou—who gained international recognition for autobiographical meditations on Taiwan's 20th century history like A City Of Sadness (1989) and The Boys From Fengkuei (1983)—tackle the material? Wuxia, the martial arts genre known for its swordplay and being set in the antiquity, is one of the most familiar genres in Chinese film. But for a director whose work is known for its elliptical narratives, long takes, and abstract approach, it was an odd match. Thankfully, the result is one of the year's best films and one of the best in his decades-spanning career—it also netted him the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

http://laist.com/attachments/laist_carman/ASSASSIN-THE-Director.jpg
'The Assassin' director Hou Hsiao-hsien (Well Go USA)

In The Assassin, Shu Qi plays Nie Yinniang, a highly skilled assassin in the Tang Dynasty who's tasked with killing the governor of a semi-autonomous province (Chang Chen), a man to whom she was once betrothed. Hou often stresses that he frequently forgoes rehearsals or much directing of his actors before filming, preferring to keep them loose to achieve the realism he strives for. But for a wuxia film, fight choreography and preparation is a necessity, and that presented its own challenges with the cast of The Assassin. "The main issue was that two of our main actresses, Shu Qi and Zhou Yun, were not professionally trained martial artists," the director told LAist at a recent roundtable discussion. "We would just shoot everything in bits and pieces."

Otherwise, it was business as usual on the set. "[Shu Qi and Chang Chen] read the script and they figured it out on their own," he said of the chemistry between his two leads. He had previously worked with both in Three Times (2005) when they the two played lovers across three separate time eras. "They never had any questions for me."

Although Hou was able to shoot The Assassin and its gorgeous landscapes and luscious interiors in his preferred format of 35mm, he acknowledged that the technology had drastically changed since he returned to filmmaking. For his next project he's considering experimenting with digital cameras. "The language of visual expression might change," he said of the technology, which would allow the filmmaker more manipulation of the image and expand what he felt was idiosyncratic and expressive filmmaking. "There's a lot of flexibility and freedom. The possibilities are very interesting."

And even though this digitization means the the movie-going experience has become more individual, with home viewing and mobile devices, Hou feels that the technology also provides the means to bring the audiences back into movie theaters. "Filmmakers want to make sure films are communal experiences, that these are events," he said. "I think it's possible that these films become so advanced and so unique that you have to experience them in a theater."

Translations provided by Eugene Suen.

The Assassin opens this Friday in New York (at IFC Center and Film Society Of Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills). Hou Hsiao-hsien will be in-person for Q&As this Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles. Click here for more information on release dates across the country.




A Most Unusual And Beautiful 'Assassin' (http://www.npr.org/2015/10/15/448627753/a-most-unusual-and-beautiful-assassin)
October 15, 2015 5:03 PM ET
Ella Taylor

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/10/15/assassin-the---still-5_wide-d87398ba4a1ced0a2f2582dc84502e614a59831a-s800-c85.jpg
Shu Qi in a scene from The Assassin.
Courtesy of SpotFilms

The Assassin, a gorgeous new work by Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, is a martial arts film influenced by Hong Kong wu xia films and short novels based on early Chinese legend. The movie, which won Best Director at this year's Cannes Film Festival, has a few short, sharp fight sequences involving knives with a vicious curve to them. But it won't surprise anyone familiar with Hou's oeuvre that he invites us to slow down, to watch and listen to what goes on, and doesn't, in between. Or that the titular killer is a woman, though the nastiest of her adversaries can expect no mercy on that account.

Played with serene self-possession by Hou regular Shu Qi — whose full lips, hard stare and lithe stride carry echoes of Angelina Jolie — Nie Yinniang was abducted as a child from the unruly Chinese province of Weibo and trained to kill by a nun (Sheu Fang-Yi) who doubles as a warrior princess and quite possibly an agent of the Empire. We see early on that Yinniang excels at her job, but once she's under orders to return to Weibo and take out its governor Tian Ji'an (Chang), it soon becomes apparent that she's not fully committed to its rough justice, not least because the two were once betrothed.

Set in the ninth century, The Assassin is a legend, complete with curses and a bird allegory that unlocks the source of Yinniang's inner tumult. Yet the tale is told in realist language, with fervent attention to period rituals of eating, drinking, and bathing, and is opulently costumed in red and deep rose with touches of mint green. Of the women, only Yinniang appears in business attire, all in black with soft trousers that allow her to whirl around and stalk her hapless prey on rooftops, in forests of silver birch, in ornately upholstered palaces. The other women glide around like dolls, speaking their lines with ceremonial formality. Yinniang gets to move, and that is the source of her power, and her palpable unease.

If you haven't seen any of Hou's films (I recommend starting with his brilliant 1989 political drama A City of Sadness), the progression from one seemingly unedited scene to the next can seem slow, even static. Between the lines of the interior long shots that Hou favors (except, perhaps, in the impish Flight of the Red Balloon, his only film shot in the West, with Juliette Binoche in the lead), a complicated political economy of long-repressed feeling is at work that deepens without fanfare into repressed political conflict. Will Yinniang follow orders and carry out the harsh retributive justice embedded in her job description, or obey the ties of love, blood and family that draw her back home?

There's a way to read her choice as a rebuke to all the woman warriors currently rampaging through Hollywood's movie franchises, as if feminism were a matter of doing what the boys do, only more so. The most tacit and elliptical of filmmakers, Hou would never say so. The nearest thing to exposition in The Assassin comes in a black-and-white prologue that shows who and what shaped Yinniang into a toxic avenger. Like many of his films, The Assassin may be said to pursue an underground obsession with Taiwan's tortured relationship to the mainland that, on and off, has dominated it for centuries. You don't need any of this to fall in love and abandon yourself to the movie's exquisite landscapes, at once serene and melodramatic, revel in Hou's stealthy cutaways to quivering blossoms, or listen to the birdsong and the wind ruffling trees that counterpoint the bloodshed. With and without allegory, to watch The Assassin is to be carried along in the river of life, in all its ecstasy and terror.

[GeneChing]

...there's even more but I'm only cherry-picking a few.


Watching The Assassin Is Like Floating on a Gold-and-Lacquer Cloud (http://www.laweekly.com/film/watching-the-assassin-is-like-floating-on-a-gold-and-lacquer-cloud-6165005)
By Stephanie Zacharek
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 | 2 days ago

http://images1.laweekly.com/imager/u/745xauto/6165004/filmassasin1-1_10-15-15-728bb775fc86634c.jpg
The Assassin Courtesy of Well Go USA

Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin is the Taiwanese director's first foray into the martial-arts genre. It may also be his most resplendent film yet: Watching it is like floating along on a sumptuous gold-and-lacquer cloud. Hou favorite Shu Qi (who also starred in Millennium Mambo and Three Times) plays Nie Yinniang, a fierce fighter in 9th-century China who was kidnapped at the age of 10 and trained as an assassin by the scheming nun Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi). Don't you just love it already? Hou starts off with a gorgeous prologue: He sets it off, like a gray jewel, by shooting it in austere, elegant black-and-white, in the (squarish) Academy ratio.

We see Yinniang expertly dispatch an enemy on horseback — the action is as swift and graceful as the snap of a silk flag in the wind. But when she fails to fulfill one of Jiaxin's orders — she can't bring herself to kill her next mark when she sees him with his young son — Jiaxin sends her away on an even more difficult mission. At this point Hou shifts to a palette of deep, rich, vibrant colors that mirror the subtle intensity of the action: Yinniang is forced to return to her home province, Weibo, which is embroiled in a struggle with the imperial court. She has orders to kill her cousin, Tian (Chang Chen), the governor of Weibo, though their family connection is even more complicated than it first appears.


Film Details
Critics' Pick
The Assassin (Nie yinniang)
Rating:NR Genre:Action/Adventure Running Time:107 min.

I know some people who marched out of The Assassin fully confident they understood every angle of its somewhat labyrinthine plot, and others who lost the trail very early on. I'm somewhere in the middle, but I can assure you that you don't need to be schooled in late–Tang dynasty lore to be dazzled. Hou has always been a gifted visual stylist, favoring languorous takes that beckon you closer rather than hold you at a distance. In The Assassin — shot by master cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin— there's color everywhere: Princesses and concubines wear embroidered silk raiments in shades of pink and tangerine; rooms are dotted with bowls of peonies so bright they practically glow like lamps; gauzy patterned curtains let in just enough light, or provide subtle cover for cat-footed assassins.

The action is fleet and distinctive, quiet in a way that keeps you alert. Hou doesn't have to beg for our attention; he favors naturalistic hand-to-hand combat, as opposed to the more fanciful traditional wuxia wirework. So even though this is a fantasy, the fighting feels disarmingly real: The characters bob and weave and dance, and you can hear and feel their feet hitting the ground. The Assassin explores the fringy divide between love and duty, and Shu carries its emotional weight deftly. Dressed all in black, she moves like a half-glimpsed shadow.

Hou uses very few close-ups here, preferring to tell his story mostly through movement: combat, dance, the act of passing through a landscape of satiny green firs or silvery birch trees and just watching. Shu conveys complicated feelings — longing, regret, anxiety — with little more than the tilt of her chin or the set of her shoulders. The Assassin is the slowest martial-arts movie in the East, and that's a wonderful thing.

THE ASSASSIN | Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien | Well Go USA | Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts


‘The Assassin’ Review: Taiwan’s Oscar Entry Puts a Poetic Spin on the Action Genre (http://www.thewrap.com/the-assassin-review-hou-hsiao-hsien-shu-qi-chang-chen/)
Movies | By Alonso Duralde on October 15, 2015 @ 4:02 pm Follow @aduralde

http://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ASSASSIN-THE-Still-5.jpg

Legendary filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien blends stunning imagery with intentionally enigmatic storytelling in this tale of vengeance

If video stores were still a thing in this day and age, you could imagine customers getting confused over “The Assassin” — after all, a Chinese-language film with that title and whose key art features a weapon-wielding woman immediately calls to mind a certain brand of action movie.

For master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien — who won Best Director at Cannes for the film that Taiwan is submitting as its Oscar entry this year — the tropes of the wuxia movie (the best known example of which in the U.S. is probably “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) are merely the underpinnings for a haunting, enigmatic story of deferred, conflicted vengeance, set in ninth-century China.

In the far-off province of Weibo, which threatens to break free of imperial rule, our heroine Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi, “The Transporter,” Hou’s “Millenium Mambo”) returns to her noble parents after years in training with her aunt, a nun-princess. (There’s a hyphenate you don’t see every day.) This relative has transformed the young woman into a peerless assassin, and wants her niece to kill Weibo’s governor Tian Ji’an (Chang Chen, “The Grandmaster,” “Crouching Tiger”).

Nie Yinniang and Tian Ji’an have a complicated backstory, however: the two were once betrothed, but his subsequent wedding to another woman prompted his jilted fiancée to became a mistress of the martial arts. Hesitant to take Tian Ji’an’s life herself, Nie Yinniang nonetheless aids and abets the personal and political turmoil around him, plaguing him in ways that are quietly subtle yet no less effective.

http://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ASSASSIN-THE-Still-4-237x300.jpg

There are indeed a handful of combat scenes in “The Assassin,” and they are gorgeously, if pragmatically, mounted. You don’t get dizzying wire work or swooping camera shots, and the choreography is ruthlessly efficient, but these moments, rare as they are, nonetheless arrive charged with adrenaline.

Hou is more interested in creating a sense of visual poetry, the enigmatic kind that requires audiences to fill in certain narrative blank spaces. (I’ve seen the film more than once and am still a little unclear about who certain supporting characters are and what motivates them, not that it ultimately matters.) Working with his usual cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin (who also shot the rapturously gorgeous “In the Mood for Love” and “Norwegian Wood”), Hou creates indelible images, from a whispered conversation in a candle-lit bedroom where lacy curtains billow in and out of the frame to a cliffside perch surrounded by a mountain range that disappears into the clouds over the course of a scene.

This is the sort of filmmaking that demands actors who are as open and communicative with physical gesture as they are with their voices, and Hou’s ensemble is up to the challenge, from the leads down to supporting characters with absolutely no dialogue whatsoever. (That includes a master of dark magic who has the kind of floor-length eyebrows one seems to see only in Chinese-language cinema.)

The score by Giong Lim (“A Touch of Sin”) remains spare and period-sounding — except for one action scene in which it suddenly takes a turn into 1980s action-movie synth territory — and the spare, precise editing from Liao Ching-Sung and Huang Chih-Chia balances Hou’s long takes and the relatively fast-paced action moments with graceful skill.

Hou’s brand of reserve might not be for all audiences, but arthouse admirers of cinematic stillness will find themselves enraptured by this hypnotic tale.

[GeneChing]

...here's some non-rave reviews. I don't agree with all their points. I think if you go into this film expecting an actioner, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you go in expecting an art film, you will be rewarded handsomely. And if you're a true fan of the genre, you must see it - just to weigh in on the discussion here.


Film Review: The Assassin
A trained killer must choose between duty and honor in director Hou Hsiao-hsien's first martial-arts movie. (http://www.filmjournal.com/reviews/film-review-assassin)
By Daniel Eagan Oct 15, 2015

http://www.filmjournal.com/sites/default/files/assassin_md.png

Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien won Best Director at Cannes for The Assassin, a lavishly appointed, glacially paced martial-arts movie about vendettas, betrayals and the rigors of Academy framing. Esteemed by critics, Hou's movies are at their best an acquired taste. Years in the making, The Assassin is his first wuxia title—a genre that has become the last resort of art-house directors trying to connect to a broader audience.

Set during the decline of the Tang dynasty in the ninth century, The Assassin focuses on Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi), an efficient, highly trained killer first seen dispatching a presumably corrupt official on horseback. But Yinniang's emotions get in the way during another assignment, when she spares her target after spotting his young son.

Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi), a sort of martial-arts nun and Yinniang's handler, angrily sends her to the Weibo province to kill its governor, Tian Ji’an (Chang Chen)—Yinniang's cousin and her former betrothed. Reacquainted with her father Nie Feng (Ni Dahong), Yinniang steals through Ji'an's court, listening to his pronouncements and decrees, spying on his family and concubine Huji (Hsieh Hsin-ying), at times sparring anonymously with his guards.

Her emotions stirred by the sight of Ji'an with his young son, Yinniang is unable to bring herself to kill him. When Ji'an orders Nie to escort a disgraced official to the border, Yinniang secretly follows, saving them from an ambush by other assassins. Now Yinniang must answer to Jiaxin, who duels her former student for disobeying her.

The plot to The Assassin relies on wuxia staples, like secret assignations, fights in birch forests, or an intruder escaping guards by leaping onto a palace rooftop. Court intrigues, double-crossing minions, cryptic officials and bumbling peasants are as fundamental to the genre as the leads' stylized combat poses and miraculous skill with weaponry. Hou buries his familiar plot under elliptical dialogue and narrative digressions.

To fans, story is less important than execution, which makes some of Hou's choices here all the more puzzling. The opening scene unfolds in black-and-white and the old Academy 1.37 aspect ratio. Hou switches to color and a 1.85 frame for a musical number, then returns to 1.37 for the remainder of the film. As a result, most of cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bing's compositions are medium shots, with the action pulled back away from the camera.

In Hou's hands, the Academy frame emphasizes costumes and sets instead of performances. For one scene, the camera lurks behind candles and a gauzy curtain. Pretty? Yes, but also absurdly indulgent.

It takes a certain kind of skill to turn Shu Qi, one of the warmest and most charming movie stars in Asia, into a stony cypher. (Bedecked in black like Zorro, she remains glamorous.) The other performers can't break free from genre stereotypes. Villains hiss, leaders orate, teachers preach, Yinniang suffers silently.

Critics who wouldn't be caught dead at a Yuen Woo Ping or Tsui Hark movie have been blustering about Hou's idiosyncratic take on violence or his "startling bursts" of action. But the only thing startling about The Assassin's action is how poorly executed it is. The fights fly by in a blur, choreographed less for impact than to cover the actors' limited martial-arts abilities.

The Assassin does prove that if you slow it down enough, even kung fu can be boring.



‘The Assassin’ Misses Its Target (http://chelseanow.com/2015/10/the-assassin-misses-its-target/)
Added by Scott Stiffler on October 14, 2015.

http://1v9vs2crct23kkf8ttrqsixx.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Assassin.jpg
Shu Qui, as Nie Yinniang, in a characteristically well-framed shot in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Assassin.” Courtesy Well Go USA Entertainment.

BY SEAN EGAN | “The Assassin,” Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest effort, which won him the Best Director Award at Cannes this year, is ostensibly a wuxia film (a popular martial arts subgenre).

Set during the Tang Dynasty, it tells the story of Nie Yinniang, a young women trained to be a deadly assassin, who returns home for the first time in years on orders to kill the man she’s betrothed to — now the leader of the most powerful military region in China. So far, so good.

After a legitimately stunning and exiting black-and-white prologue, the movie grinds to a halt. While “The Assassin” is by no means a bad movie — indeed, its formal merits are considerable — it’s certainly an incredibly frustrating one. The problem is that Hsiao-Hsien’s direction is completely at odds with the pulpy nature of the story he’s devised, and the genre that he’s chosen to work in — which may well be the point, but doesn’t provide for a particularly satisfying experience.

Everything is carefully measured to a fault. As his primary stylistic trick, Hsiao-Hsien chooses to champion silence and stillness over all else, to the point that it deflates any and all tension. Characters do not speak any more than is absolutely necessary, in order to further a plot that’s at once too thin and overly complicated.

The score (when present) is sparse, often just consisting of a drum keeping time like a metronome, further contributing to the sense that the movie is even longer than its actual runtime of 104 minutes. As do the establishing shots of the picturesque Chinese landscapes and architecture, which linger interminably, and sometimes have little or no connection to the scenes that follow (also bearing little connection to anything: the seemingly random aspect ratio shifts).

The cinematography of Mark Lee Ping Bing has been rightly lauded — every shot is immaculately framed, and, with its expressive use of color, any given moment of the film looks as though it could be a painting by a master, or a glossy photograph in a coffee-table book.

But therein lies the problem: it’s all too stationary, too inert. You might as well not even be watching a narrative feature in order to appreciate the gorgeous photography. Some may have the patience to simply sit around and appreciate the beauty; more will be bored by this surface-level beauty, untethered to any real emotion or story.

The few requisite fight scenes, which flare up to fulfill the minimum requirements for a wuxia film, are well choreographed, but also swift and abbreviated — not nearly enough of a payoff for the tedious feature-length buildup.

There’s a difference between subverting expectations and disregarding them completely. With “The Assassin,” Hsaiao-Hsien has decidedly done the latter. While intellectually the experiment is definitely interesting, it also makes for a maddeningly slow-paced film, less likely to inspire passion than induce sleep.

“The Assassin” is directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and written by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Chu Tien-wen, Hsieh Hai-Meng and Zhong Acheng. Opens Fri., Oct. 16 at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave., at Third St.). Visit ifccenter.com.

[Jimbo]

Well, I'm still intending to see this. Who knows? I may like it more than I expect to. I do like the old Shaw Brothers Chu Yuan/Chor Yuen-directed wuxia films, which almost never had any 'great' fights. Whether I can enjoy The Assassin as much as those old wuxias, I'll only know as I'm watching it. Much of the appeal for me of Chu Yuan's wuxias were the (usually predictable), almost Scooby-Doo-esque mysteries; the Shaw sets; the dreamlike quality of the films; and the performers themselves. With The Assassin it will be mainly to watch Shu Qi.

[GeneChing]

Any fan of the martial arts genre should see this. It is an amazing film. It's just not a great martial arts film. Just don't go with that expectation and you'll enjoy it. I was disappointed at the martial arts but knocked out by the film on the whole and I hope to see it again on the big screen. It's that kind of gorgeous, well worth the price of admission.

And if it does secure an Oscar, our genre will change.

But I don't think it will. Of course, we'll see what the rest of the field looks like.

Here are some more rave reviews from noted newspapers - the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times:

Chicago Film Fest pick of the day: 'The Assassin' (http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84762795/)

Michael Phillips
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

'The Assassin'
10:00 pm, October 20, 2015
Is this the most contemplative martial arts movie ever made? It’s certainly the most rapturous, thanks to master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who won the directing prize at this year’s Cannes festival. In the 9thCentury Tang Dynasty, a stealthy killer for hire (Shu Qi) stalks her prey and wrestles with her conscience in silver birch forests and other wonders photographed in remote mainland China. The Tawainese filmmaker’s patient, unblinking camera eye may throw some martial-arts fans used to zooms, frantic editing and wilder technique in general. But this is an enveloping fantasy of another time, another place and stillness interrupted, periodically and violently, by some pretty cool moves. "In a discussion with my team of young fight choreographers," Hou recently told NPR, "I made a rule never to leave the ground. You don't want to be like Spider-Man swinging around." And yet "The Assassin" floats like a butterfly.

6 p.m. Wednesday (repeats 8:15 p.m. Friday), AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois St. Tickets $11-$14 at chicagofilmfestival.com. Running time: 2:00.

-Michael Phillips


Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 'The Assassin' gives martial arts an art-house punch (http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84769887/)

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Chang Chen in director Hsiao-Hsien Hou's movie, "The Assassin."

BY DAVID NG
October 20, 2015, 4:50 p.m.

When Hou Hsiao-Hsien set out to make his first wuxia, or martial arts, movie, it was a virtual given that the acclaimed Taiwanese director adored by the festival circuit and art-house cinephiles around the world would create a fight picture unlike any other.

With his preference for long, trance-inducing takes and an indirect storytelling style, Hou undermines the genre's high-adrenaline imperative to craft an action movie in his own distinct signature.

"The Assassin," which is currently in limited release, contains fight scenes, to be sure, but the emphasis is squarely on the textural look and feel of a 9th century Tang Dynasty court.

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"Realism is very important to me," said the director in a recent interview. "I see it as a realist movie that has fighting in it."

Hou, 68, was making a rare stop in L.A. — his first in nearly three decades. He is currently riding a wave of acclaim for "The Assassin" that began at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where he won the director award. Taiwan has submitted the film as its selection for the Academy Awards' foreign film category.

"The Assassin" follows a young female killer (Shu Qi, in her third feature with the director), who returns to her home village to eliminate a local official (Chang Chen) to whom she was once betrothed.

Shot on locations in Taiwan, Japan, China and Inner Mongolia, the movie is the biggest of Hou's career and took 1 1/2 years to shoot, on and off.

Hou said the most difficult sequence to film wasn't any of the fight scenes but an extended conversation between Chang and a concubine that is intermittently obscured by a wafting, diaphanous silk curtain.

"This took the longest of them all," he explained through an interpreter. "I shot it, but then I kept coming back to it to adjust the performances. The language they're speaking is an old form of Mandarin, and it takes practice." (The silk was imported from India.)

When it came time to shoot the fight scenes — which come in short, sudden bursts and are often over before you realize they've begun — Hou avoided imitating the balletic style of Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers and King Hu. Instead, he took inspiration from the earthier Japanese samurai movies he loved as a kid going to the cinema.

"I did anything to get in. I begged people to sneak me in, or I would piece together torn tickets," recalled the director, who grew up in the south of Taiwan.

Later, when he moved to Taipei, he encountered the Hong Kong-style wuxia pictures, but "the Japanese films were more formative for me. They're more concrete. In China, wuxia is more like a dance."

The protracted filming schedule gave rise to rumors in some cinematic circles that "The Assassin" was having money problems. Hou dismissed those whispers, saying that financing, which came from multiple countries, wasn't a problem.

He said shooting dragged on "because we shot in far-away places and often high up in the mountains."

For one visually arresting scene that comes late in the movie, Hou chose to shoot on the edge of a steep cliff in a wilderness section of central China's Hubei province. As Shu's assassin confronts her mentor, a dense fog gradually invades the frame until the characters are barely visible.

"It was very humid that day. It just happened that way," recalled the director, adding that there are no digital effects in the scene. "I seriously contemplated another take without the clouds, so you could see the rock formations, which are quite striking. But I didn't."

The movie was shot on film by Hou's longtime cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin. There was no discussion of shooting digitally, Lee said.

"There have been a lot of costume dramas on television and in movies of this time and place," he said via email. The crew "didn't want to be influenced by what's been done and wanted to create a distinct look."

Lee added: "I like paintings, particularly Chinese paintings of nature, so to be able to capture something like this on film means a lot to me."

"The Assassin" is Hou's first feature in nearly eight years; his last release was the French-language "Flight of the Red Balloon," starring Juliette Binoche. In between, he devoted himself to leading film festivals in Taiwan.

"It was something that I took very seriously," explained the director. He also runs a small chain of art-house cinemas in Taiwan, but he doesn't consider himself to be a film buff.

"I don't watch a lot of movies these days," he said, adding that he recently managed to catch "The Grand Budapest Hotel."

Hou was part of Taiwan's new wave of filmmakers that came to international prominence in the '80s and early '90s, and included Edward Yang and Tsai Ming-Liang.

Their films embraced the daily realities of Taiwanese life, but Hou distinguished himself with his oblique storytelling methods and hypnotic camera work that eschews most Western idioms of cinema — there's a near absence of close-ups in his films and an avoidance of the shot-reverse-shot vernacular of filming a conversation.

His 1998 film "The Flowers of Shanghai," an ornately claustrophobic depiction of 19th century brothel life, vaulted him to the top ranks of international auteurs.

But it wasn't until 2003 that he received commercial distribution in the U.S. with "Millennium Mambo," his neon-and-techno Ecstasy trip through youth culture.

"The Assassin" takes his penchant for narrative indirection to new heights, especially in the second half when romantic entanglements and political alliances become increasingly difficult to parse. The movie even confounded some of the critics who raved about it at Cannes.

Part of that is his own fault, Hou admitted.

"The script was very complete and detailed, but what happens during editing is that if I don't like something, I cut it out without regard to continuity," he explained.

"That's my problem. I have a way of making a movie like I'm making a music video — it's abstract."

He added: "There are clues in the movie, details that you can pick up. But it's true, you need to see it more than once."

david.ng@latimes.com

[GeneChing]

http://fgmxi4acxur9qbg31y9s3a15.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/FC_Sept-Oct15-400x0-c-default.png

Current Issue
September/October 2015 (http://www.filmcomment.com/issue/september-october-2015/)

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin, Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room, Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days, Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter, Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, Douglas Fairbanks, Paul Schrader on widescreen, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, the Nitrate Picture Show

If you've never read filmcomment, you can't really call yourself a connoisseur of film. ;)


Like I said:
From a film-making perspective, it's just exquisite film-making, the kind that film students will gush over for years.

[GeneChing]

This should do well at the various film awards. It's that kind of gorgeous film.


The Assassin leads APSA nominees (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/the-assassin-leads-apsa-nominees)

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By Kevin Ma

Fri, 30 October 2015, 13:35 PM (HKT)
Awards News

HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢's The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 has secured the most nominations at this year's Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA).

The Taiwan wuxia drama is nominated for Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, and Achievement in Cinematography.

South Korea's End of Winter 철원기행 and Alive 산다 each took two nominations. In addition to Best Feature Film for both films, Winter has nominations for Best Performance by an Actress (LEE Yeong-ran 이영란) whilst Alive is nominated for Achievement in Directing.

Thailand's Cemetery of Splendour รักที่ขอนแก่น is the only other film nominated for two awards: Best Feature Film and Achievement in Directing for Apichatpong "Joe" WEERASETHAKUL อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล.

KUROSAWA Kiyoshi 黒沢清's Journey to the Shore 岸辺の旅 rounds out the Best Feature Film category.

In addition to Hou, Weerasethakul and Alive's PARK Jung-bum 박정범, Stranger Zhat's Ermek TURSUNOV and Under Electric Cloud's Alexey German Jr. are also nominated for the Achievement in Directing award.

Turkey's Motherland, Turkey's Frenzy, China's The Coffin in the Mountain 殯棺, Kazakhstan's Tent and Sri Lanka's Dark in the White Light Sulanga gini aran are nominated for Best Screenplay.

The Find's Aleksei Guskov, Right Now, Wrong Then 지금은맞고그때는틀리다's JEONG Jae-yeong 정재영 | 鄭在詠, Downriver's Reef Ireland, The President's Misha Gomiashvili and Tharlo ཐར་ལོ | 塔洛's Shide Nyima 西德尼瑪 are nominated for Best Performance by an Actor.

An あん's KIKI Kirin 樹木希林, Lorna's Shamaine BUENCAMINO, Avalanche's Fatemeh Motamed Arya and The Gulls' Evgeniya Mandzhieva join Lee in the Best Performance by an Actress race.

As announced earlier, the awards will be decided by a jury led by South Korea's KIM Dong-ho 김동호 | 金東虎. The winners will be announced in Brisbane on 26 Nov 2015

[GeneChing]

This film figures prominently in Craig Reid's annual SDAFF review: San Diego Asian Film Festival 2015: Assassins, Zombies and the Next Ronda Rousey (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1263)

[GeneChing]

5 out of 11. Assassin (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48362-The-Assassin) did show at my neighborhood theater, but only for a week and I didn't get out to it. :(


Taiwan takes back spotlight at Golden Horse (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/taiwan-takes-back-spotlight-at-golden-horse)

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By Kevin Ma
Sun, 22 November 2015, 10:00 AM (HKT)

After being dominated by films from China last year, Taiwan took back the spotlight at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards 金馬獎 last night as local titles The Assassin 刺客聶隱娘 and Thanatos, Drunk 醉・生夢死 were the top winners at Taipei's Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall.

Receiving 11 nominations, The Assassin took home five awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Makeup & Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Effects. The wuxia drama is the first film by HOU Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 to win the top prize at the Awards, for whom he served as the committee chairman between 2009 and 2014.

However, The Assassin's fate seemed unsure throughout the night as the awards' final round jury – led by CHEN Kuo-fu 陳國富 – didn't show clear preference for any film.

CHANG Tso-chi 張作驥's Thanatos, Drunk was also a major winner with four awards: Best Supporting Actress (LÜ Hsueh-feng 呂雪鳳), Best New Performer (LEE Hong-chi 李鴻其), Best Original Music and Best Film Editing.

Among the other films that shared the spotlight, Pema Tseden 萬瑪才旦 won Best Adapted Screenplay for Tharlo ཐར་ལོ | 塔洛; JIA Zhangke 賈樟柯 won Best Original Screenplay for Mountains May Depart 山河故人; the giant indoor sets of Johnnie TO 杜琪峯's Office 華麗上班族 was recognised with Best Art Direction; Michael NING 白只 won Best Supporting Actor for Port of Call 踏雪尋梅; and XU Haofeng 徐浩峰 won Best Action Choreography for his forthcoming The Master 師父.

Mountains May Depart also won the festival's Audience Award.

Frankie CHEN 陳玉珊 , who was a favourite to win Best New Director for youth romance Our Times 我的少女時代, lost the category to BI Gan 畢贛's Kaili Blues 路邊野餐. The local blockbuster was nominated for three awards, but did not win any.

FENG Xiaogang 馮小剛 – who did not attend the ceremony — won Best Actor for GUAN Hu 管虎's Mr. Six 老炮兒. In one of the night's most competitive categories, Zinnia Flower 百日告別's Karena LAM 林嘉欣 beat out Mountains May Depart's ZHAO Tao 趙濤 and The Assassin's SHU Qi 舒淇 for the Best Actress Award.

Veteran actress LI Lihua 李麗華 made a brief appearance on stage to accept her Lifetime Achievement Award from Jackie CHAN 成龍 (who played her son in Big and Little Wong Tin Bar 大小黄天霸 (1962)), but the 91-year-old was not able to give a speech.


52ND GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS WINNERS

Best Feature Film: The Assassin
Best Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien for The Assassin
Best Actor: Feng Xiaogang for Mr. Six
Best Actress: Karena Lam for Zinnia Flower
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Ning for Port of Call
Best Supporting Actress: Lü Hsueh-feng for Thanatos, Drunk
Best New Director: Bi Gan for Kaili Blues
Best New Performer: Lee Hong-chi for Thanatos, Drunk
Best Original Screenplay: Jia Zhangke for Mountains May Depart
Best Adapted Screenplay: Pema Tseden for Tharlo
Best Cinematography: Mark LEE 李屏賓 for The Assassin
Best Visual Effects: KIM Uk 김욱 | 金旭 for The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D 智取威虎山
Best Art Direction: William CHANG 張叔平, Alfred YAU 邱偉明 for Office
Best Makeup & Costume Design: HWARNG Wern-ying 黃文英 for The Assassin
Best Action Choreography: Xu Haofeng for The Master
Original Music Award for Best Film: LIN Shang-te 林尚德, TSENG Yun-fang 曾韻方 for Thanatos, Drunk
Best Original Film Song: Panay 太陽的孩子
Best Film Editing: Chang Tso-chi for Thanatos, Drunk
Best Sound Effects: TU Duu-chih 杜篤之, CHU Shih-yi 朱仕宜, WU Shu-yao 吳書瑤 for The Assassin
Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Audience Choice Award: Mountains May Depart
Lifetime Achievement Award: Li Lihua

[GeneChing]

In Pictures: Golden Horse Awards 2015 (http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/in-pictures-golden-horse-awards-2015)
PUBLISHEDNOV 22, 2015, 4:20 PM SGT

Some of the biggest names in Asian cinema gathered in Taiwan for the 52nd Golden Horse Film Awards on Saturday (Nov 21). Despite the rainy weather, hundreds of excited fans turned up to see their idols arriving on the red carpet at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei.

http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/articles/2015/11/22/gh1.jpg
http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/gh2.jpg
http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/gh4.jpg

Always stunning. :)

[GeneChing]

Selected by BFI critics.


The 20 best films of 2015 (http://www.bfi.org.uk/best-films-2015?utm_content=buffereec33&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer)
The top movies of the year, as chosen by 168 critics from around the world. (http://www.bfi.org.uk/best-films-2015?utm_content=buffereec33&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer)
Sight & Sound contributors
27 November 2015

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/styles/full/public/image/assassin-the-2015-005-yinniang-close-up-fending-off-sword-with-dagger-ORIGINAL.JPG?itok=BaabijoL
1. The Assassin
UK festival release 11 October 2014 (London Film Festival) / UK cinema release 22 January 2016
(Nie Yinniang) Hou Hsiao-Hsien, France/Hong Kong/Taiwan

Carol (2015)
2. Carol
UK release date 27 November 2015
Todd Haynes, United Kingdom/USA

3. Mad Max Fury Road
UK cinema release date 15 May 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 5 October 2015
George Miller, Australia/USA

4. Arabian Nights
UK festival release 11 October 2015 (London Film Festival) / UK cinemas and VoD release Spring 2016
(As mil e uma noites) Miguel Gomes, Switzerland/France/Germany/Portugal

5. Cemetery of Splendour
UK festival release 13 October 2015 (London Film Festival) / UK cinemas Spring 2016
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/United Kingdom / Germany/Malaysia/Thailand

6. No Home Movie
UK preview screening 30 October 2015 / no known further distribution plans
Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France

7. 45 Years
UK cinema and VoD release 28 August 2015 / DVD & Blu-ray 11 January 2016
Andrew Haigh, UK

8. Son of Saul
UK festival release 10 October 2014 (London Film Festival) / UK cinema release 1 April 2016 tbc
Laszlo Nemes, Hungary

=9. Amy
UK cinema release date 3 July 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 2 November 2015
Asif Kapadia, UK

=9. Inherent Vice
UK cinema release 30 January 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 8 June 2015
Paul Thomas Anderson, USA

=11. Anomalisa
UK festival release 16 October 2014 (London Film Festival Surprise Film) / UK cinema release 11 March 2016 tbc
Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson, USA

=11. It Follows
UK cinema release 27 February 2014 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 29 June 2015
David Robert Mitchell, USA

13. Phoenix
UK cinema release 8 May 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 31 August 2015
Christian Petzold, Germany/Poland

=14. Girlhood
UK cinema release 8 May 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 7 September 2015
Céline Sciamma, France

=14. Hard to Be a God
UK cinema release 7 August 2015 / DVD and Blu-ray 14 September 2015
Aleksei German, Russia

=14. Inside Out
UK cinema release 24 July 2015 / DVD, Blu-ray and download 23 November 2015
Pete Docter, USA

=14. Tangerine
UK cinema release 13 November 2015 / download 1 February 2016 tbc
Sean Baker, USA

=14. Taxi Tehran
UK cinema release 30 October 2015 / DVD & Blu-ray 22 February 2016
Jafar Panahi, Iran

=19. Horse Money
UK cinema release 18 September 2015 / DVD & Blu-ray 14 March 2016
Pedro Costa, Portugal

=19. The Look of Silence
UK cinema release 12 June 2015 / DVD & Blu-ray 12 October 2015
Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark / Finland / UK / Indonesia / Norway

[GeneChing]

Did NOT make the cut.


Oscar Nominations 2016
(http://oscar.go.com/news/nominations/oscar-nominations-2016-the-complete-list-of-nominees)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Embrace of the Serpent

Mustang

Son of Saul

Theeb

A War

[GeneChing]

The Assassin: Asian Film Awards (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48392-Asian-Film-Festivals-and-Awards&p=1290478#post1290478); Mad Max; Oscars. :cool:

[Jimbo]

I watched the first 45 minutes of it and decided to finish it another time. I can appreciate artistic sense, but this movie is SSLLLOOOOOOOOOWWW. I don't like it when films try too hard to be artistic by moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. It's an overly self-conscious, artsy-f@rtsy style of filmmaking. Long scenes of nothing happening is not an artistic statement, IMO, but a way of drawing out the time. I felt that the 45 minutes I did see could have easily fit into 15 or 20 minutes at the most. It really drags. Then when it seemed like something was about to happen, it cuts back to watching the grass grow.

I wasn't expecting a lot of action, but I do want a movie to move at a reasonable pace. I'm not a film festival critic, so I couldn't find any entertainment value so far. I also didn't care about any of the characters; nobody seems interesting enough to care about. Hopefully when I get back to finishing it, there will be something that redeems it for me. Beautiful scenery alone won't cut it.

[GeneChing]

Still all about the Assassin...


Asian Film Awards: 'The Assassin' Dominates with Eight Awards (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/asian-film-awards-assassin-dominates-876510)
7:30 PM PDT 3/17/2016 by Karen Chu

http://cdn2.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/portrait_300x450/2015/10/the_assassin_still.jpg
'The Assassin'
Courtesy of Wild Bunch

The Hou Hsiao-hsien-directed film won the biggest prizes including best film, best director, best actress for Shu Qi and best supporting actress for Zhou Yun.

Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin dominated the 10th Asian Film Awards on Thursday, winning eight out of 15 categories.

The period thriller took top honors for film, director, actress (Shu Qi), supporting actress (Zhou Yun), cinematography, original music, production design and sound.

Hou was not at the award ceremony to accept the accolades in person; the best film and director awards were accepted by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing on the helmer's behalf.

South Korea's Lee Byung-hun was named best actor for his role of a political henchman in Inside Men, while Japan's Asano Tadanobu took home the best supporting actor prize for his work in Journey to the Shore.

The best newcomer award went to Jessie Li of Port of Call, the Hong Kong film that also earned best editing honors.

The Asian Film Awards, held at the Venetian Macao in Macau, gave out two lifetime achievement awards: one to Japan veteran actress Kiki Kirin (Chronicles of My Mother, An) and another to Hong Kong master of action choreography Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix Trilogy, The Grandmaster).

Full list of winners:

Best film: The Assassin
Best director: Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Assassin
Best actor: Lee Byung-hun, Inside Men
Best actress: Shu Qi, The Assassin
Best supporting actor: Asano Tadanobu, Journey to the Shore
Best supporting actress: Zhou Yun, The Assassin
Best newcomer: Jessie Li, Port of Call
Best screenplay: Jia Zhangke, Mountains May Depart
Best editing: Port of Call
Best cinematography: The Assassin
Best original music: The Assassin
Best costume design: The Throne
Best production design: The Assassin
Best visual effects: Bajirao Mastani
Best sound: The Assassin

[PalmStriker]

:) I watched "The Assassin" a few nights ago as it has been released on Netflix Library. I just finished watching it for a second time tonight and I was able to put the puzzle pieces together as well as spend more time enjoying the movie now that I had acclimated to the formatting and pace of the film. Realism is at the forefront but entertaining the audience with a ChineseHollywood display of choreography is of no concern here. The martial skillsets play well in the film and compliment the intricacy of detail in the story line. I consider this movie to be a Masterpiece and not just in the audio-cinematic sense. It will sit well on the shelf with other film greats such as "The Horde", "The Yearling" , "Moby ****", 2001 "A Space Oddysey" and many others.