Hou Hsiao-Hsien

all you really need to know is that the assassin and the person she's assigned to kill are related. that's the driver!

you aren't even told that in the titlecard. it's repeated throughout the first half!

Is The Puppetmaster perplexing? I was following it ok..

The one that I felt was pretty convuluted was City of Sadness but there is so much else to Hou there are other things to follow if you are weighed down by narrative.

i saw a really bad 35mm print (touted as one of the last in existence) so maybe that was why

and yeah exactly, i think with hou so rarely is the payoff in the narrative denoument

i still think most critics were sold on this as being a sort of spiritial sequel to crouching tiger i.e. high class wuxia with lots of fights

the critical response has been excellent though; I think the poor suckers were the theater owners.

i saw a really bad 35mm print (touted as one of the last in existence)

I saw a rough print, someone needs to restore this - one of the best screenings this year.

http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2015/10/talks-legendary-filmmaker-hou-hsiao-hsien-his-latest-film-assassin

Assassin Blu/DVD tomorrow

Watched it yesterday - thought the knife fights had that clean clinical look of scenes from Kobayashi's Harakiri.

Seeing it tonight, excited. GFT are doing it justice by showing it on their smallest screen :-(

Its great - had to wait 3/4 months for it.

Now to decide where it places on the best films of 2015 ballot. (I suppose ppl will vote for this as a 2015 film so if I'll join in)

I won't get to see it until may/june, so it'll wait til next years ballot for me :(

Rewatched Flowers of Shanghai yesterday afternoon. The last scene killed me.

I won't get to see it until may/june, so it'll wait til next years ballot for me :(

― Frederik B, Monday, 25 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL how come? You watch everything :-)

Danish release dates. It's incredible that it even gets released here, and I'm giving major kudos to the distributors, but they keep it until june, out of the prolonged oscar-season. Amour Fou, for instance, suffered the same fate. But Amour Fou I managed to see at both Gothenburg at CPH:PIX before, but it isn't at Gothenburg, and PIX is moving to the fall this year. So no luck at all, I have to wait until june. :(

And thanks :) But I don't watch everything, not at all. I'm just lucky enough to live within distance of a bunch of festivals, and spend my vacations that way. Cannes films are pretty much always delayed for me.

I'd get a DVD but its not the same - watched at the biggest screen at the NFT

Well, yeah, I could probably do that. But I know I'll see it this summer, probably a couple of times, so I might prioritize all the other stuff I want to see.

Needless to say this was ravishing, and demands to be seen on a big screen.

Really felt like there was a lot of self-identification between Hou and the Assassin - both of them creep up on things (narrative/victims) and both of them refuse the expected or demanded (exposition/the killing stroke). Seemed very significant that a lot of the action moments took place just off-screen, or are seen from a distance - the film simultaneously polishes myth and views it sideways.

Scrolled up and the talk upthread re: plot gets funnier.

seeing it tonight. half wary, half excited. the interviews he has given about the film make me go for the former. like 'i just cut out everything that might tell you anything just for the hell of it'.

i watched this not caring about the plot beyond the basics. i gave up trying to follow it. but i found this enjoyable. and surprisingly light in how it feels as i was expecting it to be austere and heavy going. but it was sort of mythic and almost fairy tale-like. but i still didnt pay much attention to the narrative - it seemed inconsequential and pointless task. but also as i read so much about how ravishing it was to look at. which is actually where i found the film a let down. it looks like HD TV really. compositionally, i think the appeal was more to do with the set design than the cinematography, which seemed adequate but lacking in his usual control/deliberation. the crystalline, ultra high def images lacked anything interesting texturally. it looked like a quality TV mini series, the black and white sequence at the start even more so. a lot of the fights were presented as awkwardly as the grandmaster, though i appreciate the attempt to do something new there. its enigmatic, enjoyably light-footed, and strangely intriguing, but something i would file as a modest, low budget, late period addition to someones filmography rather than one of the great films of recent memory. i cant help thinking a lot of the praise poured onto it is a kind of compensation for his older/better films not being shown/known more.

Best bit was the panning revealing and hiding again the assassin listening through the curtains. I almost fell asleep several times but in sort of a nice way and wasn't helped by having to travel across to Edinburgh and back before work having missed it at the GFT last week.

it looks like HD TV really.

The gap between film and TV look has narrowed considerably over the last 15 years. Hou has probably gone with the times, or the tech. Its hard to know how well it might look compared as the older films (as I saw in the BFI retro) aren't in as good a condition. But for what it is I think decisions as to what is shot (and what is kept out too), angles of light etc. and mixed shooting settings - not only B&W but also that scene where the image is made grainier. That was all well-handled. I think the guy is in control of his materials.

The appeal - well you'd expect a Hou film to be well shot (its done in a way you don't like), to have as few a cliche's as poss (compared to other wuxia). Its just a very good film that had an award - which is wider recognition for a director that is pretty much well-known already in art house circles. I wouldn't call it overcompensation. Its top 10 stuff in most years.

youre right about the decreased gap between film and tv. but it made me think a bit in terms of the look of something like raul ruiz' mysteries of lisbon. the production values felt more tv something like say, house of flying daggers. i kept thinking someone should tap HHH to do a long form series, like a wuxia twin peaks. im surprised that it was shot on 35mm (suppose it shows that you can make film look like digital tv and vice versa). but there was def something slight about this compared to what else ive seen of his - it def had that stillness, and moments of opaqueness, but it didnt seem to come with as much meaning. that might come if i watch it again maybe, not sure.

im glad hes getting accolades. obv if youre 'into film', you will prob know of him, but hes not nearly as famous as other east asian auteurs.

i think im thinking texturally, or in terms of the grain, as well as attention to lighting, and atmosphere, etc.

compare this still from city of sadness to the assassin -

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/City-of-Sadness-400.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5f7BVKfXipQ/Vciw4l4gJDI/AAAAAAAE8qc/x3ru511ewII/s1600/assassin7.jpg

Anybody seen the wuxia tv shows? I seen some trailers and was amazed because the movie-like quality of them seems far beyond even American tv shows.

I haven't seen Mysteries of Lisbon but he is so diff to HHH. 'TV production values' vs film - again, I wonder how much of a gap there is in the first place between either of them.

From the two screenshots I take your point but City of Sadness does, iirc, evoke a very different mood in its intentions and its a very different story - which I think why at least trying to follow some of the story's strands (and I didn't follow all of them) might be worthwhile.

It's posit StillAdvance means that MOL has the leisurely pace of, say, Berlin Alexanderplatz.

posit = possible

i only mentioned MOL as it was also a tv project IIRC but i think the thing with the assassin is that the image is very naked. or made to seem very naked (ive read some reviews since seeing it comment on it being like a painting come to life but i would say its more just like a digital photograph come to life, which im not sure really suits it as its meant to be a period piece). made me think of inland empire actually. i know the lighting was all natural, but idk, i like a bit of artifice, so maybe its just personal preference (i feel a bit like QT complaining about digital projection being TV, but i think its about the choices made in the shooting and the lighting, not the projection).

i still need to watch berlin alexanderplatz.

its more just like a digital photograph come to life, which im not sure really suits it as its meant to be a period piece

Period piece needn't mean you sould exclude digital.

Some of the colours felt oversaturated.

I think this film's status as a 'period film' is quite complex (especially when there are fantasy elements in play) - it has the feel of a retold childhood fable, a remembrance of a story rather than the story itself, and so the brightness of the colours seems an appropriate way of expressing memory, and wonderment.

So, this is a masterpiece! Reminded me a lot of Amour Fou in it's depiction of a rotten, codified, millieu. Also, reading up on the history behind it, the whole thin is based on fact, it seems. It's really not that complicated.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2016/06/06/hou-hsiao-hsien-film-culture-finally-comes-through/

Daughter of the Nile has a 30th anniversary 4K restoration opening in NY this week

https://quadcinema.com/film/daughter-of-the-nile/

watched tai pei story last week; every shot is gorgeous

I really liked The Puppetmaster. It was definitely made more interesting for me by the mixing of casual narration in voice-over and interview scenes with the historical storytelling. The “almost like life” puppet show scenes and opera scenes were also mesmerizing. Didn’t think the narrative was confusing at all (unlike The Assassin). Can relate to what was said above about his films being delicate/miniaturized, the preference for mid- and long-range shots really add emotional distance to the events of the stories

enjoyed reading this thread

I used the search function to find this thread, was disappointed to realize I posted this to ILF. surprising to me that there's no Hou Hsiao-Hsien thread on ILE

I've seen The Assassin twice now, I'm still not sure I really understand it, but it is a beautiful film

Only saw the one time when it came out but would like to see again. Where is it streaming? Only thing I see available is Daughter of the Nile on Kanopy. Actually just watched Three Times about a week ago on Mubi and it was incredible.

Seems like I missed whole Metrograph retro and don’t think I can get there tomorrow for the last day.

I want to see Three Times again, I remember liking it the first time, especially the 1966 sequence. haven't seen Daughter of the Nile yet. The Assassin is available on netflix dvd. the quality of the dvd I rented this time was superior (I thought) to that I saw initially

I know dvds are not something most people consider watching today, but without them, at least for the moment, I think viewers are missing out on a lot of great classic films

Yeah, I know I am.

The Assassin seems like a very different film to me this time. wondering what it will feel like again in 5 years

I can recommend googling the names of characters in The Assassin. Some of them are historical characters, whose stories don't end there.

Figuring out subs for French restoration of the 'HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien' documentary. Love this segement: pic.twitter.com/bd5f13eZOk

— mmcc (@mattmccrac) August 17, 2022

Having completed the subtitle project and working now on packaging them and the video together properly, please enjoy Hou Hsiao-hsien's magnificent singing at KTV.

"Cheers friends, let it all out!"https://t.co/6rqqjCGJuc pic.twitter.com/tBrtsxr2LM

— mmcc (@mattmccrac) August 2, 2023

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/hou-hsiao-hsien-taiwan-director-retirement-1235768092/

that's a loss but he seems to be doing what's best for his health and i hope he has a long happy retirement