Ilmmaking Is an Art Where the Filmmaker Is the Artist and Hisher Imagination Has No Bounds

Hou's Flight From Politics Into Aesthetics

past Brian Hioe

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P hoto Credit: The Assassin

The Aspiration of "Chinese" Filmmaking Towards Art Film

HOU HSIAO-HSIEN'South  The Assassin has been hailed in predictably familiar terms to those who have been circumspect to the reception of Sinophone movie for past years. Certainly, the moving-picture show is beautifully shot. And this would exist what reviews take largely praised; that is, the beautiful and "lavish" nature of the picture show'due south visuals.

If critics have pointed to how The Assassin is decidedly a very slow flick, therein lay the motion picture'south aspiration towards the fine art picture.The Assassin is not an easy film to enter into. That may exist the point. The film is almost designed to be viewed every bit an art motion-picture show. But if the film is also hailed equally a martial arts film in the "Chinese" mold, we might annotation how the film partakes of the "low culture" of the "Chinese" martial arts film—perhaps all the better to find commercial success.

For some time at present has China desired to win the status of "loftier culture" in order to mark that with its political and economic rise, so, as well, has China been able to lucifer the standards of western artistic production. So would it exist that a Chinese winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was long desired. It was disappointing to China that Chinese novelist Gao Xingjian, who had led a life in voluntary exile after the Tiananmen Square Massacre and naturalized to French citizenship, would in fact become the get-go "Chinese" to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000. Every bit a result, China would be more than unequivocal in celebrating Mo Yan'south winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012.

Hou at the Cannes Film Festival. Photo credit: Yahoo

It would be such that in the domain of pic, the "5th Generation Filmmakers," including Zhang Yimou (who adapted Mo Yan's Red Sorghum to film), Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang, have produced film virtually deliberately aimed at garnering awards on the flick festival circuit—as "art films." The work of Zhang, Chen, and Tian akin for the most part share the characteristics of beingness slow-paced and aesthetically opulent. Through the awards garnered on the pic festival circuit past the fifth-generation filmmakers would Communist china show that its film belongs non solely to the realm of "low culture," as in the martial arts film which are quite often thought of equally traditional Chinese filmmaking. The reception of "fifth-generation filmmakers" would, too, be along the lines of western auteur theory, with the notion that a director is the "author" of a film. We can generally see an analogous phenomenon with the reception of The Assassin and its beingness fêted on the international film festival circuit, winning no less than the All-time Director Award for Hou at the Cannes Movie Festival, and winning the awards for Best Director and Best Feature Movie at the Golden Horse Awards.

But we might question, is The Assassin really a Chinese motion picture? The pic was Taiwan'due south submission to the Academy Awards for the category of Best Foreign Picture, not China's. Although about definitely set in and filmed in China, the film'due south managing director, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, is Taiwanese. All the same, whatsoever western viewers probably will perceive the film equally quintessentially Chinese in nature. And information technology would be that the bulk of the movie's funding seems to have come up from Chinese sources. If critics to appointment accept been besides willing to take the film at confront value, as but art for information technology's own sake, we might point to these geopolitical, socioeconomic, and ideological elements undergirding the film.

A "Chinese" Film or "Taiwanese" Film?: "Sinophone" Movie Taken Only Every bit "Chinese" Picture show

FOR ALL THE perceptions about Chinese film, is it really that such moving picture is actually Sinophone film and non actually Chinese, per se? To begin with, much of what is viewed as "Chinese" film actually falls under questionable bounds. If directors like Hou or Wong Kar-Wai are hailed by western audiences every bit "Chinese" filmmakers, as hailing from Taiwan and Hong Kong respectively, nosotros might question how much they are truly Chinese when they are from territories which have been cut off from mainland China for much of or all of the 20th century.

Both filmmakers have with their international success, ventured into film that partakes what is thought of equally quintessentially Chinese filmmaking—the wuxia martial arts moving picture. Wong Kar-Wai would, for instance, brand the wuxia epic Ashes of Time and more than contempo endeavor The Grandmaster.The Assassin is Hou'southward similar foray.  Only Hou and Wong have thus ventured from Taiwanese and Hong Kong filmmaking into the terrain of what is idea of every bit traditionally Chinese moving picture, with their art film spins on the Chinese martial arts film.

This they share with their mainland Chinese counterparts. With success, Zhang Yimou of the "5th Generation" would, as well, venture into creating art pic spins on the Chinese martial arts movie with Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004). It is ironic that the next step of those Chinese art film directors who would have apparently proved that Chinese filmmaking is more than just martial arts pic, just art film, would next venture into creating flick aimed at making film which partakes of the Chinese martial arts film in order to describe international attention, yet all the same also aspires to the exciting artistic merit of the fine art film. Zhang'southward Hero is in fact a strikingly similar film with non only like Fifth-Generation aesthetics, but a similar plot and similar political vision undergirding it.

English language picture show poster for The Assassin

Actually, we might note that the supposedly "Chinese" martial arts film was quite often actually produced in Hong Kong, for instance, which was a British possession for about of the 20th century and not part of the territory of the PRC. Hence "Sinophone" may be a better rubric in which to evaluate much of the film which is filmed in a Chinese dialect, keeping in mind that even Mandarin is i of many Chinese dialects, simply the hegemonic dialect and the lingua franca of the PRC.

And if critics of the film have largely only taken the motion picture every bit is, can we point to to the significance of the movie's ideological underpinnings? Information technology is interesting to note that Hou Hsiao-Hsien showtime came to international attention as a quintessentially "Taiwanese" film director, as the manager of the commencement depiction of Taiwan's White Terror in City of Sadness. In this way, ironically plenty, Hou has been idea of equally a "quintessentially Taiwanese" director in the international sphere. Only we might reconsider subsequently The Assassin.

Indeed, in contempo years, with Taiwanese film production being overshadowed by Chinese film product past virtue of the latter's vast resources compared to the former, Taiwanese film has increasingly become funded past Chinese money. Attendantly, as influenced by the influx of Chinese capital, Taiwanese film have drifted towards plots concerning the question of unification, more ofttimes ruling in favor of unification than not.The Assassin is no exception. If personal feel is whatever measure, it would seem to exist that in the weeks prior to the movie's release, there was more than advertisement for the film in Beijing than in Taipei.

From Resisting the KMT to Becoming a Voice of the Pro-Unification Left

HOU HIMSELF CAME to be thought of equally "quintessentially Taiwanese" inside international evaluations of Sinophone film because of City of Sadness being the commencement pic to criticize the KMT on the footing of the White Terror. But, actually, Hou'southward political reviews are actually more reflective of his affiliation to the pro-unification Left, which was persecuted nether the KMT, and participated in the dangwai motility to class a second political party outside of the KMT but later carve up from pro-independence forces. Given that the dangwai movement was largely a united forepart whose sole footing of consensus was opposition to the KMT, with the question of independence and unification being sidelined on the footing of shared opposition to the KMT, it would be that after the rise of Taiwanese identity afterward democratization that the pro-unification Left and pro-independence Left would split.

Particularly divisive was DPP president Chen Shui-Bian's emphasis on benshengren Taiwanese nationalism during his administration.Benshengren are, of course, "native Taiwanese" descended from earlier Han settlers in Taiwan previous to 1949 and institute some 86% of the population. Hou, himself a waishengren, descended of the x% of the Taiwanese population which came over from the mainland later on 1945, would be a critic of Chen's benshengren nationalism.

In that location is very much a point to critiques of the benshengren ethno-nationalism which were leveraged on during the Chen Shui-Bian era as a mode of consolidating Taiwanese identity. But given that it is the waishengren equanimous a socially and economically privileged ruling class during the decades of KMT rule, Hou would find himself complaining about waishengren being disprivileged and deprived of the opportunities with the ascension of benshengren to positions of power during the Chen era. Hou would complain nigh those with different ethnic identifications existence shut out of funding where filmmaking is concerned. Notwithstanding even if it is true that ethno-nationalism during the Chen era led to the persecution of waidue southhengren, Hou sounds somewhat like white people in the United States whining virtually loss of privilege being displaced by blacks afterward the Ceremonious Rights Motility.

Motion-picture show poster for City of Sadness

In this lite, Hou would in this mode double dorsum on where he had been perceived as "quintessentially Taiwanese" by international observers, or fifty-fifty his film seen every bit marking the beginnings of incipient Taiwanese identity. Hou would claim that his concern with the 228 incident or the Japanese colonial menses was not to affirm the 228 incident or Japanese colonial period confronting the KMT's state-mandated Han-axial version of history, only rather that Hou was simply reflecting on the feel of his generation. Hou has also downplayed the differences between waishengren and benshengren, challenge that given the shared ability of the two sub-ethnicities to communicate in Mandarin and shared ethnic make-upwardly, differences between the 2 were largely fictitious and but being leveraged on for the sake of identity politics.

And, unfortunately, where Hou had get representative of Taiwan in the international sphere, Hou's statements along these lines would be taken up as representative of the Taiwanese Left! Given the international globe is largely unaware of Taiwan's complex ethnic and sub-indigenous politics, Hou's statements were at times taken to be reflective of an unbiased viewpoint. Hou'south almost damning statements in this vein may come from an interview in the New Left Review, the "flagship journal of the Anglophone Left", which plain saw Hou'due south statements every bit sufficiently representative of the Taiwanese Left that it would take his words at face up value.

Indeed, Anglophone scholarship about Taiwanese motion-picture show, lagging as it is behind what is actually discussed inside Taiwanese academia and intellectual circles, remains largely convinced that Hou is a quintessentially Taiwanese filmmaker. Never mind that Hou remains in favor of unification and is probably convinced of its inevitability—a view which may exist accentuated on the footing of his working in the film industry—in which the influx of Chinese upper-case letter in by years may give rise to the view that, in light of economic integration, unification is more than inevitable than ever.

The Aesthetics of the Assassin

IF INDUBITABLY a beautiful film, as has been noted by many Chinese and Taiwanese commentators alike, beneath the fine artful gloss of the film is the question of unification/independence politics about Taiwan.The Assassin is loosely based on a classical Chinese tale originating from the Tang dynasty short story collection, the Legend of Pei Qing. Although not really a very famous tale of Tang short stories (傳奇), it is this properties which provides the imaginary mural for Hou's fable.

And this is a landscape birthday imaginary. Although Hou himself insists that the pic aims to be authentic to its Tang dynasty backdrop, the most visible characteristic of the film'southward constructedness in spite of its aspiration to historical accurateness may be its dialogue. The film'south dialogue takes place in a strange combination of classical and gimmicky Chinese, besides every bit mainland Chinese and Taiwanese Standard mandarin and many actors have strong Taiwanese accents.

In that location are times at which characters affect voice communication in classical Chinese as spoken in Standard mandarin, unremarkably in more formal occasions, and and then switch to speech more resembling contemporary Mandarin. Indeed, "classical Chinese", which might exist improve translated as "literary Chinese" (文言), was not truly a spoken colloquial, merely used for literary writing only. It took years of training to be able to read and write the highly elevated writing of classical Chinese.

However from The Assassin

And though in the picture, classical Chinese is spoken in Mandarin, that is, read with Mandarin pronunciations, Mandarin is a modern natural language based on northern Chinese dialects. Those alive during the Tang dynasty would non accept spoken in Mandarin but rather "Centre Chinese"—a language lost to usa which is approximated simply through linguistic reconstruction and which forms the basis of many of today's dialects, including Cantonese and Hokkien. This seems indicative of that Hou yearns for a lost historical totality—except what is lost tin can never be fully recovered. When classical Chinese as read with Standard mandarin pronunciations is used in the flick, nonetheless, even then is grammar and word usage sometimes off cardinal.

More than disruptive still are several scenes when a character speaks in the classical Chinese recitational cadence (抑揚頓挫) and some other graphic symbol responds to him in classical Chinese are spoken in contemporary Mandarin. The upshot is almost like a Shakespearean thespian reciting his lines with authentic Elizabethan pronunciation and another actor reading Shakespearean lines with contemporary English pronunciation in response—although to be certain, recitational Chinese was never a real way of speaking and only used in recitational settings, as in reciting poetry.

Such disjunctures are striking. That The Assassin's strange use of pseudo-classical Chinese is haphazard and inconsistent would point to the picture show being Hou's mythicized epitome of Chinese history, rather than anything actually resembling historical accurateness, regardless of any of Hou's claims to the contrary. Along such lines, probably it is that the setting of the Tang dynasty is chosen because of the view of the Tang dynasty equally a quintessentially Chinese dynasty, representing one of the high points of Chinese civilization. Just these discrepancies almost language points towards the constructed nature of the history inside the film. What nosotros would see is more something like the simulacra of history; the acting of what seems to be authentic at get-go glance, simply which more than closely corresponds to history in the popular imagination than actual historical accuracy.

Moreover, with the Taiwanese director, Taiwanese scriptwriter, and the use of Taiwanese actors within the pic, the moving picture'south dialogue thus introduces a large caste of Taiwanese Mandarin. In fact, dialogue is so far removed from Chinese Standard mandarin that Chinese audiences sometimes had difficulty understanding it. Indeed, whatever language programs in Taiwan seeking to attract students away from Cathay merits, Chinese and Taiwanese Mandarin can differ quite substantially at times considering of their linguistic separation of some seventy years and the generation which grew up during the Japanese colonial catamenia speaking Japanese, not but in regards to vocabulary but also in regards to grammar.

This is quite ironic where the script is concerned, given that the pic'due south script was written by Hou's close collaborator Chu Tian-wen. Though certainly one of the greats of contemporary Taiwanese literature, Chu is well-known for her pro-unification stance regarding Taiwan and China, being a Hakka, waishengren descendent of members of the KMT military that came over the mainland, much like Hou himself. Certainly, sometimes wonders if the vision of "Mainland china" constructed by such individuals as Hou or Chu is not in fact imaginary, a project or longed for, aestheticized utopia onto reality. Nevertheless, as the unconscious traces of language goes to evidence, in that location is no avoiding the fact that Hou and Chu are non mainland Chinese, regardless of their cocky-claimed political or cultural identification.

Still from The Assassin

And it would seem that the construction of an aestheticized, imaginary landscape is quite crucial for the figuration of Prc in Hou's imagination. If the film's landscapes are "lavish," we might point to the figuration of Prc as a space of vast natural beauty in Hou'southward imagination. It may exist that the countryside areas of Hubei and inner Mongolia, where The Assassinator seems to accept been largely filmed, are in fact so beautiful. But we might point also towards the crucial role of the "landscape" in the nationalist imagination, whether in European cases, the Chinese example, or the Japanese one, that the landscape looms big in the nationalist imaginary of the nation-country as aestheticizing the territory of a nation as an object of romantic idealization. So the visual dazzler of The Assassin—every bit is as well the case with Chinese Fifth-Generation Film— ultimately may take nationalist underpinnings, cogitating of a broader sense of aesthetic projection onto China.

An Emblematic Tale of Taiwan and Cathay?

BUT IT IS in the plot of The Assassin in which individuals have largely pointed to its political content regarding Taiwan and China.The Assassin concerns the breakaway province of Weibo. The eponymous assassin, Yingniang, is dispatched to assassinate the lord of Weibo on behalf of the emperor because the mode of the emperor is synonymous with the rule of sky. It is mentioned that Weibo has the pop support of the people, hence why it was able to break away from the central say-so of the Tang court without collapsing.

Shades of Taiwan, anyone? It is, of grade, that the PRC views Taiwan as a renegade, breakaway province, whose ability to prop itself upwards as an independent nation-land has been on the basis of the pop back up of the Taiwanese people.

Although probably a disruptive element for western viewers, who are not familiar with the literary and historical tropes drawn on past the movie or adopted from the source text, Yingniang's acting every bit an assassinator is on the footing of her membership of an lodge of nun-assassins who carry out assassinations in the name of the emperor. Though probably western audiences will run into this in line with martial arts films, this is a wuxia (武俠) trope, insofar as the genre of wuxia is the origin of many of the tropes we have come to know equally part of Chinese martial arts film.

Still from The Assassinator

Yingniang is properly a wuxia protagonist, a xia "knight-errant" (俠), who carries out the path of justice, righting wrongs through biggy martial arts skills, and and so disappears. Specifically, Yingniang is a female xia, or nuxia (女俠).Within the tradition of wuxia fiction, xia knight-errants were wanderers who prioritized the path of justice to a higher place all else, going against the rules of established authorization. To provide a sense of comparison for those unfamiliar with wuxia fiction, we might compare xia knight-errants with the tradition of drifting gunslingers in spaghetti westerns as Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name." The "Homo with No Name" is, of course, based on the eponymous character in Akira Kurosawa'due south Yojimbo, a figure that draws from Japanese transculturations originally derived from Chinese xia fiction.

It was always a tension within wuxia tales every bit to the relation of xia to established dominance, in that Confucian soapbox would have it every bit that righteous lay with governmental authority. Nevertheless, xia values prioritized justice above rules and authorities ran contrary to Confucian morality. Merely in some stories, xia are depicted every bit operating in service of the emperor, or with Confucian scholar-officials themselves acting in xia-like roles. The character of Yingniang, an assassin in service of the emperor, would point to many of these tensions between xia values and Confucian values which prioritize loyalty to the emperor.

What is it then that Hou would seem to be signal to through the graphic symbol of Yingniang? Though herself a woman of Weibo and the one-time betrothed to the lord of Weibo, it is that Yingniang does not assassinate him in the end, and decides to flee with some of her relatives from Weibo. Is it that Yingniang chooses beloved in the cease? Or that the values of xia ultimately triumph over Confucian loyalty to the emperor? More than precisely, it would seem to exist that Yingniang just does not brand any concrete decision and instead chooses to flee. The fate of Yingniang and of Weibo would seem to suggest Hou's own views on the fate of Taiwan where China is concerned—and his ain role.

All the same from The Assassin

Information technology is ironic to note that Hou's nickname, as derived from the title of 1 of his films, is "The Puppetmaster." Perhaps we should outset calling him "The Assassin" now.

Actually, for those who are familiar with the history of the story upon which The Assassin is based, information technology is that Yingniang does not impale her former matrimonial and disappears, never to exist seen again. In the end, equally corresponds to historical reality, Weibo becomes conquered by the cardinal government, regardless of Yingniang's actions. Perhaps this is how Hou sees himself in regards to Taiwan and China.

If some have sought to absolve Hou's film from political subtext, challenge that Hou was merely following the text upon which The Assassinator is based and that in this mode the film is merely fine art for art'southward sake, this is inappreciably so. Hou could have called any number of stories with similar themes, just he chose The Assassin instead. If those who claim that Hou is an "creative person" above all else, and in this way rises in a higher place worldly political concerns, we might also point out that the story upon which The Assassin is based is actually not very famous.

Only it was this one which Hou chose, as respective most closely to his political ideals as he would exist able to represent them in moving-picture show. And for all Hou'southward insistence on his fidelity to the source text, it is that the tale of The Assassin is not so well known that Hou would be limited in needing to conform to the audience'south expectations of what a proper adaptation of a famous story must entail in terms of plot. So could Hou, and so, mold the text according to his political vision.

Decision: A Flight From Politics and Into Aesthetics; Attempting to Abscond The Political Game By Not Playing

HOU IS ULTIMATELY a filmmaker of the pro-unification Left. In this way, Hou was a part of the resistance against the KMT'due south authoritarian rule, as seen in Metropolis of Sadness's incisive critique of the KMT—and Hou's heroic function as the first filmmaker who dared to describe the White Terror on motion picture, risking the possibility of actions by the KMT against him only two years after the end of martial law and one year before the outbreak of the Wild Lily movement.

But it is that Hou'due south ultimate political identification with China has led him to have an ambivalent relation to Taiwan and rather reprehensible views almost waishengren and benshengren identity. This was the split between the pro-unification and pro-independence Left which occurred after the end of authoritarian rule in Taiwan, when the two had previously existed in alliance on the basis of shared opposition to the KMT, particularly after the flaring upward of Taiwanese identity and the questions of identity raised during the Chen Shui-Bian administration. We can see the reflection of this by history in The Assassin.

Notwithstanding from The Assassin

It would exist mistaken to run across Hou equally a quintessentially Taiwanese filmmaker, as much Anglophone scholarship continues to do so. However, neither does it do to attempt to crucify Hou solely on the issue of his political identification with Communist china.

Ultimately, it may be that caught between these opposing imperatives, caught betwixt Cathay and Taiwan, between the xia affinity for the oppressed which led him to attack the KMT in the past and Confucian morality which would mandate his allegiance to China, Hou merely wishes to run away. And The Assassin may be Hou's effort to flee into an artful wonderland as a way of avoiding confronting political reality. Hou's The Assassinator thus ends with the eponymous character fleeing into the aesthetically beautiful landscape which has been depicted throughout the film, symbolic of Hou's flight into aesthetics to avoid politics.

But reality is not and then easy to avoid. Hou no uncertainty is cognizant of the realities of economic and political ability betwixt Taiwan and China. With the production of The Assassinator itself, Hou would accept seem to have had Red china in mind as a major marketplace for the motion-picture show. And so, Hou himself has to own up to his role equally an histrion within the complex geopolitical and socioeconomic field between Taiwan and China. Moreover, by fleeing, Hou's Assassin only avoids personal confrontation with the reality of that Weibo will eventually fall to the Tang—but this does non foreclose her from political responsibility either, in choosing to run from this situation. And so, besides, with Hou.

Nevertheless from The Assassinator

There is no not-political artful infinite into which Hou tin can abscond. Merely by creating the film, which volition of course be read purely equally "Chinese" and not "Sinophone" or "Taiwanese", Hou is already caught up within political entanglements betwixt Taiwan and China. Hou's try to evade the entrapment of the political game would be to not play. But it is that all art is political. For though he may try to claim otherwise, Hou has already been drawn into the game.

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Source: https://newbloommag.net/2015/11/28/the-assassin-pro-unification-left/

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