Film

The Assassin (2012)

Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Synopsis

Martial arts movies appear to be all the rage at the moment, especially those made by directors who don’t tend to dabble in genre cinema: Wong Kar-Wai’s doing one, Jia Zhang-ke’s doing one, and – perhaps most excitingly – Taiwanese new wave lynchpin Hou-Hsiao Hsien is taking the leap. It’s been a long time coming too, as his last film was 2007’s whimsical Paris-set drama, ‘Flight of the Red Balloon’, though word on the street is that Hou finally started shooting the (what looks to be rather epic) film at the beginning of 2011. Reports suggest that the film is about a shape-shifting female assassin who is steely in her loyalty to family and clients. So those thinking it was a remake of the 1993 Bridget Fonda movie can rest easy. Still, one wonders how a director who made his name with films that were build out of long, slow takes and a fragile aesthetic sensibility will adapt to the tenets of the high-octane chop socky picture.

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