Cìkè Niè Yinniáng (2015) Reviews

• if you're only interested in fighting and killing, this might not be the film for you

  itsuki042015-07-31

  I'm surprised by the bad reviews on IMDb. I think the problem is that a film titled "The Assassin" happens to attract a certain type of audience--people who are only interested in martial arts flicks, or who walk in expecting an action-packed adrenaline ride. You might be disappointed in this film, but I don't think this movie was meant for you. A previous review mentioned the "depressed, stilted tones" of the actors. I don't know what you were expecting ... an assassin during the Tang Dynasty to burst out into song about her inner anguish and emotional turmoil? I watched an interview with Hou Hsiao-hsien, the director who won the prestigious Best Director award at Cannes for this very film. He used a tennis analogy to explain it perfectly, so I'm just going to paraphrase below: "If you watch the tennis greats like Federer or Nadal battling it out, there's not much expression on their faces. The speed that they're going at, the power in each exchange, there's no room for emotions." The director, Hou, actually instructed Shu Qi (The Assassin) to tone down her expressions. The crew filmed the fight sequences again, and again, and again, until the actors were all bruised up and the fight flowed naturally, by instinct. By this point, there was really no need for dialogue or excessive expressions. If you're an assassin fighting for your life, kill or be killed, are you really going to be thinking "let me get my blue steel pout ready for the camera"? If you can get over the need for overly dramatic expositions and go into a film knowing the main character only has approximately nine spoken lines, and if you can enjoy a film for how starkly beautiful it is.... this might be the film for you.

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• unique and breath-taking

  tianwaifeizhu90909602015-08-28

  Many of the audience will not find this movie to be much flattering. Even in China, where the cultural barriers are not supposed to be a big problem, lots of people fall into sleep in the cinema. But there are still some fans of this movie, just like me. 1). Actually it has a quite complete story, which is about politics. In history of China, the tension between the central control and the local force has always been a problem for thousands of years. Weibo, the place where the story happens, has witnessed two different political forces fighting with each other. One group, inclined to make peace with the central court, includes Nie Yinniang and her family. The other group, inclined to the strengthening of local power, includes the wife of the lord (their marriage is a political alliance at the beginning, the same with the marriage of the lord's princess mother). As a fan who always love dramas of political fights, I quite fancy this story. 2). Tang Dynasty has always been a fantasy to most Chinese people. With a frequent communication with different ethics and civilizations, Tang's culture was quite inclusive, and even a little bit exotic for Chinese people. While most shoddy TV plays and films fail to represent Tang's lifestyle, this film presents not only the dazzling costumes and dances, but also original Tang Style's architecture. All those elements make the film attractive. 3). The film's pacing is very slow, and the actions of characters are very simple. The dominance in the shots is shared by natural elements, such as wind, smoke, fog, etc. The way how natural scenes are unfolded, as well as how people are embedded in the space, follows a pattern of classical Chinese poetries and paintings. People who love Chinese poetries and paintings would certainly like this film.

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• Beautiful movie but no so viewer-friendly

  alianiara2016-01-03

  The first impression of this movie was nothing but viewer-friendly; they tried to present the beauty of the ancient Chinese language and made it intelligible to modern day Chinese people, but I don't think they managed either of these. I could still go on until I realized more than three names were used simultaneously for some of the main characters, which might be historically accurate but could not be more improper in a movie that would end within two hours. That is when I, a great fan of traditional Chinese culture, stopped to download an English subtitle, in which at least only one name was used for each character. Then the beauty of the movie unfolded. People of the Tang Dynasty were much less introverted than modern day Chinese, which the movie did well to capture. It was not a time that the Confucius or other ethics prevailed; people were much more conscious about themselves rather than play their part in the social machine, of which the heroine was certainly a representative. She was rebellious all along, though at first we seldom saw her speak; others spoke for her. She remained silent while we looked from her perspective and guessed her feelings. Then at last she broke away from the people, the land, once and for all. It was also the time when the Tang Chinese were heavily influenced by their Persian and Turkic neighbors. One of the dance scene where the Lord and his concubine danced in partly Turko-Persian styled dancing(which was all the fashion at that time) was particularly delicate, because they did not go too far as to make it too Turkic, which would seem odd in this film. Also I am grateful that they did not use a Turkic costume in the dance; even the turks at that time were much Sincised and preferred Chinese dressing on many occasions. Though it might be too subtle for I don't see any other viewer noticing that.

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• exploring spirituality

  kazanipouvrazei2015-12-29

  Almost eight years after his last film, acclaimed auteur Hou Hsiao- Hsien was named best director in the last Cannes festival. This is a Tang Dynasty-inspired historical drama, taking place in the ninth- century China, with a woman called Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi) acting as the called Assassin. She is very capable with martial arts and knives and her last mission (ordered by her nun mentor) is to kill her beloved cousin. To be honest, I couldn't exactly follow the story, as the script was empty of meaning and character development. Hou is an absolute minimalist and fond of repeating patterns, giving its film a poetic premise. The cinematography is great (Ping Bin Lee/ In the Mood for Love) and only the visuals represent the bitter emotional complexes of the movie. The pace is sleepy, the actors do not have much to do and the director describes the whole story as if he was in a dreamy delirium: presenting to us multiple versions of the same scene, that seem to happen with no logic and in undefined time.

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• Someone must have disliked it too!

  carlos_kagemane2015-12-10

  i'll start off by saying I like slow movies. I like movies that tell stories through cinematography, editing, sound design. I like to watch movie and feast in the details and bits that the movie carefully exposes. But this movie... I mean, I know there was a history in there, in the middle of the odd editing and weird characters and dialog. But did I care at all? Did I, at any point, looked for the meaning, the motivations? Well... I tried too. I started the movie with a piece of paper and a pen, taking notes, writing the names of characters, trying to make sense of this good- looking mess. But at 30 minutes, I just gave up. It's not the Mallick type of movie, where you don't know exactly what's going on, but you feel that it's okay, it's a subjective experience. The Assassin is like that pretentious friend that uses a colorful, bright, beautiful prose to talk about something you don't get it, and you don't want to get it. You admire its beauty, but... you just don't care. It's not a beauty that touches, it's a beauty that dares, but you just don't get anything. I don't like to say something is pretentious, but I wouldn't be able do find another word. The Assassin is neither style or substance. I don't see a reason to watch it again, or recommend it.

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