Review: The Assassin (2015)

I heard a lot of good things about this film before I watched it. Now that I've seen it, I can only assume the people who praised it expected a very different sort of film to the one I expected to see.

The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘/Cì Kè Niè Yǐn Niáng, "The Assassin Niè Yǐn Niáng") is a 2015 Chinese film. It's (apparently loosely) based on Nie Yin Niang, a ninth-century martial arts story.

I didn't recognise any of the actors, so let's go straight to the plot. (Or lack thereof.)

The Wikipedia summary of this film made it sound full of drama. An assassin is ordered to kill her cousin, but instead she decides to protect him. Bound to be an exciting story, wouldn't you think? Well, that is the film's plot. But all the drama is conspicuous by its absence.

The film starts with a black-and-white prologue. Nie Yin Niang, the title character, goes to kill a government official. She decides to spare his life because his son is there, and as punishment she's ordered to kill her cousin Tian Ji'an. It's a lot more boring than it sounds. And it just gets worse.

Now, maybe I have unrealistic expectations, but when I watch a film I want to see the plot develop and get to know the characters. This film does neither. Nie Yin Niang has virtually no personality beyond "not willing to kill a guy in front of a child". Her decision not to kill Tian Ji'an makes very little sense because the viewer has no idea what she's like or what her thought process is (beyond "don't plunge the kingdom into even more chaos"). As for Tian Ji'an, the only thing I remember about him is his rooftop fight with Nie Yin Niang. Nothing else was memorable enough to stick with me.

Said rooftop fight is one of the few dramatic scenes in the film. The rest is just loooooong shots of scenery, or people talking about things (talking but not doing anything 😑), or Nie Yin Niang spying on people. Actually, one thing this film is really good at is creating a feeling of paranoia in the viewer. Nie Yin Niang's spying is pretty creepy. Just as eerie are those scenes where the camera focuses on one thing for ages, as if something's about to jump out and attack.

I felt like I was watching a horror film that forgot the horror. For several minutes the focus is on a curtain or something equally mundane. It doesn't move. It doesn't show the rest of the set. Surely there's some reason for making the viewer stare at that curtain? Surely someone's hiding behind it? Surely something's about to happen? Then the camera moves away and nothing happens. Again and again the film does this. Again and again I was sure there was a reason for it. Again and again it was a complete anticlimax. This was the second most frustrating thing about the film.

The first most frustrating thing was the plot. It had the potential to be exciting. Instead it moves at the speed of a snail that's got stuck in glue. It goes on and on and on yet nothing happens. From beginning to end I was thoroughly bored.

Really, the best that can be said of this film is that the scenery is pretty. I felt like I was watching an extended mood-board instead of a film. Unfortunately that's the only thing I liked about it. Goodness knows why it got so many good reviews.

Is it available online?: I don't know.

Rating: 2/10.