Taiwan’s Film Culture, Past and Present

Taiwan cinema has once again been honored at the Cannes Film Festival! Siegfried Forster of Radio France Internationale called The Assassin—the film for which Taiwanese filmmaker Hou ­Hsiao-­hsien was named “best director”—a work of “perfection.” With The Assassin Hou has created an entirely new model for martial arts films, pushing them to a whole new level. In order to recreate the splendor of the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the period in which the film is set, art director ­Hwarng Wern-ying spent 12 years in planning and drew over 10,000 design sketches. The result is an extraordinarily beautiful aesthetic that permeates the entire 105-minute motion picture.