Rewind, Review, and Re-Rate: ‘The Assassin’: A CCP Poisoned Apple

Go there to meditate and contemplate. Don’t go to be entertained. If you meditate, you'll be entertained royally. If you go expecting “Kung Pow!” chop-socky entertainment, you may doze off.
Mark Jackson
Updated:

Two donkeys. That’s the opening shot. You’ve never seen such artistically rendered cinematic donkeys. Shot in black and white, the framing, the geometry, the rhythm of swaying branches, morphing abstract shapes suddenly recognizable; the image absolutely sings.

Nie Yinniang, an apprentice assassin (Shu Qi, L) and her Taoist martial arts teacher Princess Jiaxin (Fang-yi Sheu), in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Nie Yinniang, an apprentice assassin (Shu Qi, L) and her Taoist martial arts teacher Princess Jiaxin (Fang-yi Sheu), in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

Then we have a slow segue to two female figures, standing in the forest shadows, alongside their furry transportation. Taoist martial artists. Assassins. A master (a nun) and her student; like two exotic lynxes, stalking prey. Stunning.

Shu Qi as Nie Yinniang, the assassin, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Shu Qi as Nie Yinniang, the assassin, in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

Then the screen comes to life with color, and one feels instantaneously smacked in the face from all this cinematic artistry, the degree of which is rarely seen in film these days.

Which, upon first review, felt like a genuine aesthetic nugget of gold. After discovering that the majority of the film’s financial backing came compliments of the Chinese government, the situation needed to be re-framed. Every country is guilty of cultural enhancement and whitewashing, and America is particularly good at cloaking blatant military recruitment ads as movie blockbusters, such as “T0p Gun.”

And there’s not really anything wrong with that, but when it’s the Chinese Communist Party that’s supplying the cash, you have to take a closer look. Because anything artistic, sponsored by the CCP is the equivalent of Snow White’s poisoned apple; the apple sure looks good (and it’s communist red, too) but just like that poisoned apple, the number one intent of communism is to kill humans. And so here we have a film about an assassin. A female assassin, to boot. More on this later.

Anti-‘Kill Bill’

In 2015, Taiwanese master filmmaker Hsiao-Hsien Hou made a wuxia film. What’s wuxia? Bruce Lee is wuxia. Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” too, but “Kill Bill” is entertainment and “The Assassin” is art, which is why it was selected by Taiwan as the official entry to the 2016 Academy Awards.
It doesn’t have the flashy, bamboo-hopping and roof-flying acrobatics of arguably the most influential, aesthetically beautiful of all wuxia films, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” It’s more like a walking meditation through a Tang Dynasty museum, each frame a lush, detailed painting, and yet paradoxically spare and subtle and altogether arresting.

Seventh Century China

It came to pass that a child of royalty, a general’s daughter, Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi), had been abducted at age 10. She was then raised and instructed by the above-mentioned princess-turned-Taoist-nun Fang-yi Sheu to be a legendary fighter.
Taoist martial arts master Princess Nun Jiaxin (also her twin sister Princess Jiacheng, both played by<span style="color: #000000;"> Fang-yi Sheu </span>with her Taoist whisk, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Taoist martial arts master Princess Nun Jiaxin also her twin sister Princess Jiacheng, both played by Fang-yi Sheu with her Taoist whisk, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA

By the time Nie Yinniang had mastered her art, the Tang emperor’s outlying garrisons had become rebellious. One source of rebellion, Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), the military governor of the province of Weibo, became a man marked for death.

Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

As a penance for refusing to kill a man because his  young son was present, as well as to divest the not-quite-a-master assassin Nie of her remaining human feelings, her nun master sends her to kill this governor Tian Ji‘an. The problem is, he’s Nie Yinniang’s cousin. And she’d been betrothed to marry him.

Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." Well Go USA
If she fails, she'll be shunned by the Order of the Assassins, the “family” who’ve provided her with home and sanctuary during her original years of exile from her true, royal family. Will she really be capable of living the Way of the Sword?

The Beauty

Actress Shu Qi is highly charismatic; she makes the conflict between her lingering vulnerability to human emotion and the demands of the merciless, un-swayable emotional state of her profession tangible.
Nie Yinniang the assassin (Shu Qi), in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Nie Yinniang the assassin (Shu Qi), in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

“Assassin” has military planning, politics, power plays, and personalities, and is thus complex on one level, but the complexity is balanced by the sparseness, and the meditative pace is not boring but rejuvenating in its attention to detail. The soundtrack consists largely of birdsong and drumbeat. And the wind.

More impressions: wooden pagodas, rock gardens, moss-roofed abodes that blend with the landscape, glowing candles, an ancient story of a bluebird that refused to sing until placed before a mirror, as bluebirds only sing to their own kind.

A moss-covered house blends into the landscape, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
A moss-covered house blends into the landscape, in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

An otherworldly tableau of a woman in silk strumming a zither, sounding curiously musically current. A fight in a white-birch-tree forest between two female warriors—primal, like wild birds of prey. It ends only when Nie splits the golden face-mask of her opponent with one dagger swipe that bespeaks a supernormal level of accuracy, leaving her opponent unscathed.

Two assassins (Ti-Ying Hsueh and Shu Qi) fight in a white birch forest, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Two assassins (Ti-Ying Hsueh and Shu Qi) fight in a white birch forest, in "The Assassin." Well Go USA

The Ultimate Fight

The challenge of relinquishing human love is daunting. The dedication to completely transcending all human emotion and moving toward a divine state is the basis of all serious spiritual paths, but rarely does such a daunting test such as Nie’s choice of deciding whether the man she once loved, lives or dies, come about. It’s an extreme enough example that it could almost be considered the pinnacle and archetype of the sacrifice of emotion. It remains to be seen if Nie is ready yet.
Two assassins (Ti-Ying Hsueh and Shu Qi) fight, in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Two assassins (Ti-Ying Hsueh and Shu Qi) fight, in "The Assassin." Well Go USA
In the case of Buddhist enlightenment, the sacrificing of human emotion is considered necessary to attain the grand, burning, divine compassion behind the Buddhist mission to save all sentient beings. But these are Taoists. For the Taoists, devotion to truth was all-encompassing, and so the notion of a “righteous assassin,” who ends evil deeds by ending the evil people who do them, in service of the truth, is plausible.
Nie Yinniang the assassin (Shu Qi) fights Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." (Well Go USA)
Nie Yinniang the assassin (Shu Qi) fights Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen), in "The Assassin." Well Go USA
This theme can also be found in modern literature: “The Gray Man” series features Court Gentry, a CIA-trained assassin and mercenary who only takes “righteous” kills to end the bad deeds of bad people. He’s similarly emotionally shut down, but more due to years of plying  a dark trade and creeping PTSD—no quest for enlightenment there. Everything was enlightenment-oriented in the Tang Dynasty.

Overall, while the pace moves like slow waters running deep, the visuals are arresting, even if you’re not crazy for that sort of thing. But the art-house crowd will be over the moon.

Ultimately though, other than Mulan, female warriors and assassins weren’t actually a thing in traditional China. In the time that this film is set, China was at the height of it’s cultural refinement, beauty, tradition, order, high moral elevation, and spirituality. The extremes of Yin and Yang were healthy and had their own cultures and traditions. Males were hard men; powerful warriors of great courage who'd lay down their lives for their women and children in a heartbeat. Female was synonymous with qualities of softness, nurturing, yielding, quiet, and harmonious. The two extremes balanced exquisitely, and there was no such thing as a divorce rate. It didn’t exist. It wasn’t needed.

Movie poster for "The Assassin." (Go Well USA)
Movie poster for "The Assassin." Go Well USA
‘The Assassin’ Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou Starring: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Yun Zhou, Mei Yong MPAA Rating: Not Rated Running Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes Release Date: May 21, 2015 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars for promoting the communist agenda, 4 stars for spiritual themes and visual artistry
Mark Jackson
Mark Jackson
Film Critic
Mark Jackson is the chief film critic for The Epoch Times. In addition to the world’s number-one storytelling vehicle—film, he enjoys martial arts, weightlifting, motorcycles, vision questing, rock-climbing, qigong, oil painting, and human rights activism. Jackson earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Williams College, followed by a classical theater training, and has 20 years’ experience as a New York professional actor, working in theater, commercials, and television daytime dramas. He narrated The Epoch Times audiobook “How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World,” which is available on iTunes and Audible. Jackson is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic.
Related Topics