Sydney Film Festival (7) - The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan,2015)

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's blog  has just published this terrific piece by Jim Udden on the new Hou Hsiao-hsien film, The Assassin. The film has been lately added to the SFF roster to screen during the final weekend so if you haven’t looked beyond the program guide then be informed by a scholar who has devoted a lot of his life to studying Hou’s work.

Here’s a small para from Jim’s piece to set you slavering and help you decide to buy a ticket or not. In the end, The Assassin is a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien, and yet it is unlike any film he has made before. It has the signature long takes, yet he seemingly has reinvented them. The fight scenes do have a great deal of editing, yet they remain oblique through both staging and montage, and strangely beautiful.

There’s much more about the film and the director. I will have to wait to see the movie wherever else it may screen.

UPDATE: If you do get to see The Assassin at the SFF next weeknd and want to know even more than Jim Udden tells, then you can go to Bordwell's website and find a video essay on the great HHH. The links are here.  http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/06/06/hou-hsiao-hsien-a-new-video-lecture/

https://vimeo.com/129943635. I have been told not to watch this while driving.