SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Vonia Assassin (Mandarin Chinese: Niè Yinniáng) (2002) Fluttering, crackling, Bubbling, glowing, sashaying, Resplendent costumes, Cinematography and Set design are breathtaking. Auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien Made a visual masterpiece, Sadly, not much else. Painfully slow, confusing. Felt nothing for characters. Somonka is a form of poetry that is essentially two tanka poems, the second stanza a response to the first. Each stanza follows a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern. Traditionally, each is a love letter. This form usually demands two authors, but it is possible to have a poet take on two personas. My somonka will be a love/hate letter to a film? #Somonka #PoemReview

GwydionMW Long stretches of the cast looking at you in some way that must be seen as significant.I saw no significant.I wasn't sure what was happening, and soon did not care.Very long stretches of people doing nothing much.A lot of conversations that had no life in them.

Derek Childs (totalovrdose) Typically I've found, when a lot of critics praise a film, it often isn't that good. I'm however glad to say that is not the case with The Assassin, a film I was looking forward to watching. Despite been classified as an 'action' film, the feature often works best as a political period piece, anyone looking for a martial-arts epic perhaps wanting to focus their attention elsewhere. That being said, the fight scenes, though usually short lived, are beautifully choreographed, occasionally appearing more like a dance, sweeping you away with their gracefulness.The film centres around our self-titled assassin, Yinniang (Shu Qi), who is hailed as been 'unmatched' by her teacher, Jiacheng (Sheu Fang-yi), who took her away when she was a child and trained her in the arts of fighting. From her piercing, thousand yard stare, her straight posture and deft touch, there is never a moment when you don't believe Yinniang to be who she is, her calculated movements making her appear like water on screen. For someone who is so lovely (and tiny), Ms. Qi is phenomenal, there been moments when you can't help but shiver as she stares into the camera and right into you, eliciting the same fear her victims no doubt feel.Though Yinniang says barely a syllable throughout the film, on the rare occasion when she does speak, you are given the rarest glimpse of her compassion and humanity. Her sympathetic heart is the reason her master gives her the mission of assassinating Weibo's governor, Tian (Chang Chen), who was once her former intended husband when Yinniang was a child, Jiacheng believing the completion of this task will make Yinniang undefeatable in battle.The environments and set pieces are vivid and gorgeous, showing a delicate, flourishing world of colour and tranquillity, while the costumes are as elegant as they are majestic. Despite the film centring on a professional killer, the film does not rely on any blood, nor is there any sexual content of any kind.Moreover, the music accompanies the scenes well, though does not appear to centre around any characters or themes. The Assassin however is more a visual spectacle than anything else, one of those rare films you may need to watch more than once, in order to truly see all that the director intended, even the subtlest of images having a great impact, while the occasional use of black and white helps depict the different seasons in Yinniang's career.Themes of honour, jealousy and family occasionally feed into the narrative, and though these required more depth, there is no denying their importance during certain scenes, though the concept of black magic seemed unusually out of place. The same level of depth could have additionally been applied to some of the feature's secondary characters, whose intentions we only begin to briefly understand.Towards the end, an anti-climatic resolution presents itself to the audience, the story continuing long after the credits role, enabling the viewer to create their own particular ending to fit the leads. Considering the exactness of much of the feature, it is a little disappointing that we are provided an end that is, although conclusive, far from definitive.

Leofwine_draca One of my pet peeves in cinema is when a director makes a film in a genre they're not interested in. It happened with Marc Foster when he made QUANTUM OF SOLACE and look how that film ended up. The same happens with THE ASSASSIN, a gorgeously shot period martial arts movie from Taiwan, which is directed by art-house film-maker Hsiao-Hsien Hou, a man who has said he doesn't like lengthy martial arts scenes. In THE ASSASSIN, you find out what a martial arts movie looks like when it has very little action in it.The result? It's a pretentious bore of a film. Oh yes, I know it looks wonderful. I wish Hou had shot in widescreen like every other director, as to say fullscreen looks better is just nonsense - and smacks of pretentiousness again. The countryside setting is vibrant and I did really enjoy the fight scenes when they do occur. They're over very fast, like in an old samurai movie, and they have a snappiness and aggression that the more elaborate wuxia movies lack. What a pity, then, that the rest of the film outside of the fights is so dull and lacking in basic film-making abilities. There's no characterisation outside of Shu Qi's lead, and the back story is needlessly complex as it jumps through time and fails to adequate introduce supporting players. The result is that THE ASSASSIN is a fine-looking but ultimately hollow viewing experience.