Review of The Assassin (2015) by Maksim B — 05 Feb 2016

Visually dazzling, but unbearably pretentious, slow and boring, The Assassin is almost a painful to see Chinese art-house movie. The outstanding visual and camera-work could hardly compensate for the fact that with almost no pacing, no dialogues, no music and no acting this could barely be considered a movie.

The story is very simple: a female assassin is ordered to take out a noble man who previously was her fiancé. It is surprising, if not shocking, how is it possible such a simple plotline to be totally unfocused and boring. In the beginning, you will spend half of your time enjoying the beautiful visuals and camera-work concept and the rest you will be trying to find out what is actually going on with the story. Toward the second half of the movie you will be completely bored of this fact and even the exotic presence of Qi Shu as the assassin will not be enough to save this Chinese extravaganza from being a total flop.

In conclusion, if you are a die-hard art house movie fan you could potentially give it a try, but bear in mind that even you might be completely disappointed with it.