THE ASSASSIN (2015)
Directed by: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Starring: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Zhou Yun

Watch the trailer.

No one saw this coming. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan’s great arthouse director and master of the long take, decided he wanted to make his very own wuxia movie to pay tribute to the ones he saw growing up in Taiwan (just like the ones featured in this retrospective). The movie he delivers fits comfortably in this line-up, but the way he tells it makes it feel unlike anything else we’re screening. It won “Best Director” at Cannes, “Best Film” and “Best Director” at the Golden Horse Awards, and it stands as a labor of love that’s deeply respectful of the genre’s conventions even as it deconstructs them.

Shu Qi, a Taiwanese actress and longtime veteran of the Hong Kong film industry, plays a veteran assassin towards the end of the Tang Dynasty, less than a single human lifetime away from when the grandeur of that dynasty would disappear, taking all its elegant refinements with it. She’s been trained from birth to kill for her masters, but now a sense of justice and mercy is beginning to compromise her kill count, making her wonder if the people who polish mirrors and repair robes might be more deserving of justice and mercy than the rich people who order her around. Made with meticulous attention to realism in its combat, clothes, and furniture, this is a gem of a movie, crafted, refined, and polished until it gleams.