The chapter “Biographies of Assassins” in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian is said to be “China’s earliest collection of martial arts stories.” Sima Qian praised these assassins, who used extraordinary means to solve social and political problems, as deserving to be remembered for their integrity and principles.
The original story of the protagonist in the film, a woman named Nie Yinniang, appears in the work Stories of the Strange and Mysterious, by Pei Xing of the late Tang Dynasty, although the film makes quite extensive changes to that tale. For me, rather than being a movie about how awesome assassins were, this film is more about how a woman of predetermined fate tries to find her own path, from fearsome executioner to the wife of an ordinary man with a clean slate for her past. The name Yinniang means “hidden woman,” and has two implications. On the one hand, because she is an assassin, her identity must remain hidden or the consequences could be fatal. On the other, following her wandering husband as he roams the empire, she gradually gives herself an opportunity to be an ordinary woman, and her “hiding” becomes escape from conflict to a peaceful and happy life.
In this issue we have devoted a great deal of space to this film, both in homage to its makers and to help readers better understand it. Besides our interview with director Hou Hsiao-hsien, I especially like the report on Hwarng Wern-ying, the art director for the film, which stands out from the huge amount of media attention devoted to this movie in that it allows us to understand that the success of a film depends not just on the director and actors, but on the meticulously detailed work done behind the scenes that also deserves to be known and appreciated.
The typhoon season of August is past, and with the coming of September we will soon welcome Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the three most important holidays in Chinese culture—and this year all the more delightful for bringing us a three-day weekend!
