The Assassin

The Assassin is a 2015 wuxia film directed by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, his final film before his retirement in 2023. The film stars Shu Qi and Chang Chen. A Taiwan/China/Hong Kong co-production, it was an official selection in the main competition section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, Hou won the award for Best Director. It was released in China and Hong Kong on 27 August, and a day later in Taiwan on 28 August 2015. It was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but it was not nominated. The international film magazine Sight & Sound named it the best film of 2015. Plot The Assassin is loosely based on the late seventh-century martial arts story "Nie Yinniang" by Pei Xing, a core text in Chinese swordsmanship and wuxia fiction. The film is set in seventh-century China during the last years of the Tang dynasty following the Lushan Rebellion. The circuit of Weibo, though nominally a part of the Tang Empire, is de facto ruled independently by military governor Tian Ji'an. The film centers on Nie Yinniang (played by Shu Qi), an assassin who is directed to slay corrupt government officials by her master, Jiaxin, a nun who raised her from the age of ten. When Yinniang displays mercy by failing to kill during her duties, Jiaxin punishes her with a ruthless assignment designed to test Yinniang's resolve: she is sent to the distant province/circuit of Weibo in northern China to kill its military governor, her cousin Tian Ji'an, to whom she was betrothed as a child. As Princess Jiacheng recounts to her when she arrives, the betrothal was a consequence of Jiacheng's own marriage. Jiacheng was married off an official of Weibo to quell unrest in Weibo, whereupon she adopted her husband's son, Tian Ji'an as her own. At her request, Tian Ji'an was betrothed to Yinniang at the age of fifteen. However, the betrothal was canceled in favor of a politically pressing marriage, and Yinniang was sent off to live with Princess Jiacheng's sister the nun Jiaxin. Yinniang wrestles with her mission to kill Tian Ji'an for much of the film.