That Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien is preparing his first ever wuxia picture is fairly old new at this point. The English title of the film is rumored to be Assassin - which hopefully will change before release as there are multiple similarly titled films either coming down the line or recently released - and Shu Qi and Chang Chen have been tapped to star. Hou doing wuxia at all is certainly big news, Hou doing wuxia with a cast like that is even bigger news but it just got a whole lot larger with MonkeyPeaches reporting that the director has also approached Tadanobu Asano and Takeshi Kaneshiro to join the cast. Yes, please.
As much as I am getting sick of wuxia/period action flicks, I think this could be interesting.
Hou could end up doing something unique in the genre akin to what Wong Kar Wai did with Ashes of Time.
How could you possibly get sick of Wuxia flicks? There awesome. Im pumped about this one. Hou Hsiao Hsien is an ace director and arthouse directors have had a pretty good track record with their first Wuxia flicks so far.(Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee, Wong Kar Wai anyone?) If he does get Tadanobu Asano and Takeshi Kaneshiro then that would be amazing. Chang Chen, Kaneshiro, and Asano is a damn strong male cast. I think his movie will definitely be something special. We will probably see alot more story and character building then we see action - much like Ashes of Time....and I am perfectly fine with that if it's good.
Why am I sick of wuxia films? 1) Because I've now seen enough old Shaw Brothers flicks with Cheng Pei Pei and Jimmy Wang Yu to realize how weak today's films are when compared to those (or compared to Tsui Hark's older films, or compared to King Hu's A Touch of Zen); 2) Curse of the Golden Flower was horrible despite the presence of Gong Li and a director I used to admire -- How can the same guy who made Hero and Red Sorghum and To Live make something that vapid? 3) The Promise was incoherent -- I did like parts of it and I still like Cecilia Cheung in just about any film -- but art direction alone cannot save a film; 4) An Empress and the Warriors looks ridiculous; 5) The Banquet was a letdown -- neither a good wuxia film nor a good court intrigue film nor a good version of Hamlet.
That said, if Hou goes the Ashes of Time route, I'll be very happy indeed.
But I still say that directors like he and Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige really don't need to make these kinds of films anymore.
Arg, Shu Qi again.
don't you mean "whew! no zhang ziyi"?
Thanks for posting that again. Shu Qi's always easy on the eyes.
don’t you mean “whew! no zhang ziyi”?
Exactly, Shu Qi doesnt look to be 12 years old.
I've always thought Hero was the most vapid (and my least favorite) out of Zhang Yimou's three wuxia films. Curse of the Golden Flower at least was an excellent critique of Chinese institutions, values, and rituals. House of Flying Daggers had the best use of formal elements and pure action. Hero was just derivative cinema. A subpar version of the Rashomon template with silly nationalist overtones. Curse of the Golden Flower at least rectified the rah-rah-China of Hero.
Obviously, a lot of people haven't seen Shu Qi in Hou's OTHER films. Millennium Mambo and Three Times. She is exquisite in both.
And for anyone who says Zhang Ziyi looks like a 12 year old, well, I guess they have no idea what a lot of Asian women look like (or, if you they do live in Asia, are somehow living in some parallel universe of their own making). Zhang Ziyi looks like many many many Asian women her age.