Silent and with deadly accuracy the camera glides through the trees of a small grove on the edge of a troop has camped soldiers. It follows the movements of a young woman in black. Ansatzlos increase this pace, is getting ready to jump and before you realize what has just happened, already a sharp hiss has cut the silence. The dagger has not missed its target, the man dies so fast that he can not even respond. Nowhere is as elegant as died in Chinese martial arts films.
The Wuxia, the genre of swordsmen, historical estates feuds and political intrigue, is considered supreme discipline of Chinese cinema. No director of Rank, who has not even tried on the folkloric form: Chen Kaige ( “Wu Ji – The Promise”), Zhang Yimou ( “Hero”), Wong Kar-wai ( “Ashes of Time”) and course Ang Lee, whose “Tiger & amp; Dragon” the Wuxia international auteur cinema established
in this respect was Hou Hsiao-Hsien, co-founder of the Taiwanese New Wave, long overdue, though his preferred style means (a still life-like. Mise-en-scène, long takes) rather antithetic to the populist wuxia stories. His radical minimalism offers little room for pathos and action. These relevant characteristics of Chinese martial arts movie theaters since the two ingredients of the genre, the Hsiao-Hsien in his acclaimed film “The Assassin” (2015 in Cannes awarded the Director’s Award and the British film magazine “Sight & amp; Sound” voted the best film of the year) the least interested.
A magician as Strippenzieher
In the 9th century the kingdom of the Tang Dynasty threatened by its edges forth to break. The outer bases are revolting, especially the province of Weibo in northern China under the leadership of Tian Jian (Chen Chang) challenges the power of the central government. This will respond with the 23-year-old Nie Yin Niang (Shu Qi), which was introduced by a Taoist nun in the martial arts, in their old home, to turn the adversary. The contract has a piquant note: Tian Jian was the ten-year Nie Yin Niang once promised as a husband, but a political business prevented the marriage, and the girl was sent for their own safety into exile. Now she returns and is confronted with her past.
Never yin Niangs family is also involved in the political intrigue (her father, a general, is subordinate to the commander in chief Tian Jian) that are difficult to see for outsiders. In the German press release is a graph place after all the family relationships of the characters. but in the film the short Places help only marginally for orientation in the highly complex dramaturgy that is consciously working with jumps and narrative ellipses. For example, is the mysterious figure of the magician who is relatively abruptly introduced as puppet masters, not further explained in the course of the plot.
Hsiao-Hsien is therefore less at the past wuxia story interesting (his film is loosely based on a short story from the Tang period) than to the narrative conventions of the genre itself. “The Assassin” missed a admirable patience dominion rooms where overlap private and political spheres. In most cases the camera by Mark Lee Ping Bin filming by veil of textiles and curtains, giving the rooms an almost palpable plasticity.
The fiefdoms of Women
The Women (Nie Yin Niang, their teacher, Tian Jian’s wife, who leads a double life as a masked fighter) secured in these spheres their fiefdoms without the feminist emancipation history in “the Assassin” – unlike “Tiger & amp; Dragon” – is too explicit. Just to Hsiao-Hsien denied with its rigorous staging the increasingly reactionary tendencies in wuxia, which now has to fulfill the role of the Chinese national cinema as a historical genre (see Zhang Yimou’s “Hero”).
But even if “The Assassin “playing with allusions and omissions, Hsiao-Hsiens images remain always concrete. Almost reminiscent of the film to a material study of the genre, experimenting virtuoso with colors, sounds, movements and historical forms. The narrow, nowadays used only for aesthetic reasons Academy format of 1: 1:37 under plays classical Cinemascope epic of Wuxia with an architectural flair for economy of space. Decorated in dark colors, red and gold interiors established Hsiao-Hsien with few cuts, on the other hand develop the lush landscapes (filmed among others in Mongolia) without physical periphery a majestic expanse. In close-ups omitted Hsiao-Hsien entirely, a formal corrective to melodramatic temperament of the genre.
That “The Assassin” despite its formal rigor is not a purely intellectual pleasure remains, not least due to the sensuality of Hsiao-Hsiens staging that down to the smallest movements (as in the realistic battle scenes) from the legendary control of the director of his material evidence. Here the noise sensitive soundtrack proves prägnantestes stylistic device – from the meditative drumming at night to the clinical battle noise. When Hsiao-Hsien says you even earlier to hear the hiss of the blade for the fraction of a second, as one perceives the movement. With “The Assassin” the great formalist of Chinese cinema itself seems to defy the laws of physics
In the video. The trailer for the movie “The Assassin”
“The Assassin”
CHN, TWN, FRA 2015
original Title: Never Yinniang
director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
script : Tianwen Zhu
Cast: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Yun Zhou
rental: Delphi Filmverleih
length: 105 minutes
Rated: from 12 released
Start: 30 June 2016
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