The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

[Trees]

From the director of "The Canyons".....

If we're judging people's opinions based on the films they have made, what is your contribution to back up your opinion?

I am not a famous film director publicly talking trash about someone else's work and attacking the motivations of people who like it.

[barryconvex]

Tears of laughter reading these: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3508840/reviews?filter=hate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

i now know what is going to be inscribed on my tombstone thanks to imdb user bachphi:

"It get so boring that I fall into the sleep."

thank you bach!!! i'm not picking on you-you've honestly made my day...

[Raymond Marble]

It bears mentioning that I like and have a lot of respect for both Paul Schrader and Richard Brody, and in general value their opinions and criticisms. However, neither is particularly known for having a keen aesthetic eye (both lean much heavier toward the theoretical/historical approach, which I also admire), and it isn't hard to argue that said keen aesthetic eye is one of the more vital things to be in possession of if you're going to appreciate The Assassin as much as some do.

And not really related to Schrader and Brody, another thing to consider is that if Hou were interested in The Assassin telling a lucid, well-unified story, he would have gone about making this movie in an entirely different way. Clearly he has other things on his mind.

[zedz]

It bears mentioning that I like and have a lot of respect for both Paul Schrader and Richard Brody, and in general value their opinions and criticisms. However, neither is particularly known for having a keen aesthetic eye (both lean much heavier toward the theoretical/historical approach, which I also admire), and it isn't hard to argue that said keen aesthetic eye is one of the more vital things to be in possession of if you're going to appreciate The Assassin as much as some do.

And "you actually didn't really like this film that I didn't like / couldn't understand" is one of the most intellectually bankrupt critical arguments ever conceived, and it's been applied by bad critics and bad viewers to every vaguely 'difficult' film ever made at some point.

[zedz]

The BluRay (HK, as I didn't see the US one was also imminent) arrived this evening, so I had to watch it. The film was at least as great (and easier to follow) the second time around.

I ordered the Taiwanese disc, because it included as an extra the additional scenes from the Japanese cut. I couldn't find confirmation that these were included on any other English-subbed release.

[cdnchris]

Schrader's interview on the Tiny Furniture disc featured him basically doing the same thing in the other direction: people that didn't like the movie were stupid and/or jealous and couldn't have any real reason for not liking it. So I think that's just how he rolls.

[Michael Kerpan]

"Hiseau Hisean Ho"???

Not a transliteration I've ever seen.

Has he never watched/listened to/read something by someone whose work he previously liked and said -- holy cow, whagt a stinker, I sure wouldn't have expected a fail by XXX?

[zedz]

"Hiseau Hisean Ho"???

Not a transliteration I've ever seen.

Has he never watched/listened to/read something by someone whose work he previously liked and said -- holy cow, whagt a stinker, I sure wouldn't have expected a fail by XXX?

Hou is now only one word golf move away from Tommy Wiseau. He's that bad.

[chetienne]

Zedz, I read about this purported extra footage of Tsumabuki's character on an imdb forum of all places. It was definitely the Taiwanese release you got? Because I see that there's also an HK release listed on Yesasia. And can you tell me if the extra footage is incorporated into the film or is just an extra?

[zedz]

Zedz, I read about this purported extra footage of Tsumabuki's character on an imdb forum of all places. It was definitely the Taiwanese release you got? Because I see that there's also an HK release listed on Yesasia. And can you tell me if the extra footage is incorporated into the film or is just an extra?

I haven't received it yet, but it's listed as an extra on Yesasia's website. I got the Taiwanese release because this wasn't listed as an extra on any of the other ones.

[htom]

"Hiseau Hisean Ho"???

Not a transliteration I've ever seen.

Not even possible, since his transliteration doubles the number of syllables in the given names. Even the family name is wrongly done...

[matrixschmatrix]

This was the first Hou Hsiao-hsien movie I saw, and admittedly I only pieced together the plot in discussing it with the people with whom I saw it afterwards, but I did like it quite a bit- it felt like sort of a throwback to the arthouse cinema of the 80s, in a weird way, with the slowness of a Wings of Desire and the presentational quality of like a Babette's Feast (though aesthetically it worked better than that for me.) I'm not great on film terminology, so apologies if I misuse it, but it felt like a movie of images more than of movement- not static, nor sort of proscenium bound, but where I remember a movie like Drive primarily in terms of movement, I remember this one in terms of stillness. i certainly felt like I got a reasonable idea of the mindset of a few of the characters, given that I didn't really have a clear idea of what they were up to or why; it felt like what would happen if you wandered into Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 20 minutes in and left twenty minutes before it ended. Shraeder is right that Pauline Kael would have hated it, I think- it's not really a visceral movie, nor is it something like Tree of Life where it pulls your emotions out through your intellect. It felt like kind of a cold thing, but one I both like and admire quite a lot.

[Michael Kerpan]

I think Assassin transforms from cold to warm(-ish) as it progresses.

[chetienne]

Just got the Well Go blu-ray of this. It looks... fine, in the sense that it looks about the same as the DCP. Unfortunately, that DCP is definitely one of the worst I've ever seen for a commercially released 35mm film.

That more global issue aside though, I've noticed some pretty egregious artifacting occur intermittently throughout the film, especially whenever there's a fade-in or fade-out. Has anyone else noticed this with their copy? I'm holding out hope that it's my player (using a PS3 as I don't have access to my usual, which is an OPPO).

Zedz, please write in to tell us all how the Taiwanese blu looks. I'm especially curious because Well Go cheaped out with a single-layered disc and Yesasia lists that one as dual-layered.

[hearthesilence]

Jim Hoberman has a short write-up in the New York Times.

An excerpt:

Steeped in period detail, it is opaque yet lucid. Seldom has a movie been so easy to watch and so difficult to follow (at least on first viewing). The disconnect is part of the fascination. Writing in Sight and Sound, the British critic Tony Rayns noted that Mr. Hou’s movie presents “the ancient past as a world that we can observe but never fully comprehend.”

The same might be said of Mr. Hou’s formal strategy, based on the use of controlled improvisation staged amid a rigorously worked-out, museum-quality mise-en-scène. After the press screening at the 2015 New York Film Festival, Mr. Hou explained through an interpreter that in his desire for realism, he preferred to shoot without rehearsing his actors, while giving the director of photography carte blanche in framing the action.

The artist’s method is as mysterious as his material is familiar — another word for it might be “genius.”

[Trees]

After the press screening at the 2015 New York Film Festival, Mr. Hou explained through an interpreter that in his desire for realism, he preferred to shoot without rehearsing his actors, while giving the director of photography carte blanche in framing the action.

Very interesting. I was not aware that Lee had carte blanche control over framing? I imagine that this is not entirely the case (Hou has no hand in framing?), but anyway, it's a clear indication that Lee played a huge role in the creation of "The Assassin". Lee's talents are on a level similar to Lubezki and Deakins at this point, though he does not have as much range, experience or skill as those two, who have worked on a wider variety of projects internationally with a more diverse cast of directors.



Mark Lee Ping Bin

[wattsup32]

Please pardon what I'm sure will sound like a very stupid question: are his films in Mandarin, Cantonese, or sometimes one and sometimes the other. When I check online I see them listed as Cantonese or Chinese. I can't tell if Chinese is being used synonymously with Cantonese or if it is meant to denote Mandarin (as is most often the case in everyday life).

It wouldn't matter to me, but I plan to purchase these for a Mandarin speaker (at least the ones in Mandarin, if any) and don't want to spring for them only to discover she can't actually understand them.

[jindianajonz]

The Assassin is in an old style of Mandarin, but should be understandable by your friend. His other films typically feature both Mandarin and Taiwanese

[wattsup32]

The Assassin is in an old style of Mandarin, but should be understandable by your friend. His other films typically feature both Mandarin and Taiwanese

Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to explain that.

[zedz]

The Sight & Sound review is fine, but there's a bit of a gaffe in the opening paragraph when the film is described as "one of [Hou's] rare forays into the past." Rare, apart from A Time to Live, A Time to Die, A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster, Good Men, Good Women, Flowers of Shanghai and Three Times - i.e. six out of his fifteen mature features! That's about as rare as a John Ford western.

[Michael Kerpan]

zedz -- to be fair there IS a big difference between the recent past (last 100 years or so) and the Tang era (even if it was near the END of the Tang era).

[zedz]

Sure, but if you're going to define it that way, then none of his other films set in the (comparatively recent) past are remotely comparable to the period of this one, so "one of his rare forays" would no longer be appropriate either, if it's his only one. At any rate, of those films, only A Time to Live, A Time to Die and A City of Sadness (barely!) covers a period within Hou's lifetime, so I think they're as firmly period films as The Master, The Grandmaster or Wagon Master. For me, Hou stands out among the Taiwanese New Wave directors as the one most engaged with period subjects, so it seems perverse to suggest that The Assassin is unusual in that regard.

(Heck, even Millennium Mambo is set in the past, though that past was our present at the time of release.)

[Michael Kerpan]

"Period" subjects that are _very_ engaged with the present.

[SilverBlueSnow]

The BluRay (HK, as I didn't see the US one was also imminent) arrived this evening, so I had to watch it. The film was at least as great (and easier to follow) the second time around.

I ordered the Taiwanese disc, because it included as an extra the additional scenes from the Japanese cut. I couldn't find confirmation that these were included on any other English-subbed release.

Hi! Can any of you two comment on the quality of the Tiawanese Bluray. I understand that it is Dual Layered so it should be a better quality than the US Well Go version. Any comment on how deep/rich the black levels are?

Is the only extra the added Japanese footage?

If there are other extras are they Englisg subbed?

Many thanks!

[zedz]

I wish I could enlighten everybody, but mine's still in transit.