The Assassin

[Drunk Monk]

This film will be Taiwan's submission for Foreign at the Oscars. It stars 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 from acclaimed 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 filmmaking perspective, it's just exquisite filmmaking, 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 sublimeness.

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.

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.

[cranefly]

The camera lingers on landscapes that could be gallery masterpieces, with humans thrown in as miniscule elements.  My gosh, so many beautiful locations.

As for the story, I really wish there'd been subtitles.  No, wait.  There were subtitles.  The plot was way too complicated for me to follow, and the artsiness of the filming further obscured what was going on.

Again, what DM said.

Oh, this won Best Director at Cannes.  I can see that, if it means shot choices.  Then again, the action sequences were so brief and ended so ambiguously that it got very frustrating.  So maybe not so deserved.

And yes, Shu Qi is a feast for the eyes, even when she's not doing much of anything.