The Assassins
铜雀台
China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.
Director: Zhao Linshan 赵林山.
Rating: 7/10.
Actor Zhou Runfa [Chow Yun-fat] gives impressive weight to an ambitious but uneven costume drama.
STORY
China, Eastern Han Dynasty, early 3rd century AD. As a young girl, Lingju (Zhang Zimu) is captured by mysterious forces and, along with other children, forced to undergo brutal training to be an assassin; over the years she forms a close friendship with fellow trainee Mu Shun (Liu Jieyi), which develops into an idealised love as they grow older. In 219 the adult Lingju (Liu Yifei) is finally sent on her mission – to be a concubine to the powerful warlord-cum-chancellor Cao Cao (Zhou Runfa) at his estate in Yecheng with a view to eventually assassinating him. The adult Mu Shun (Tamaki Hiroshi) has meanwhile been sent to the nearby royal capital of Xudu, as a court eunuch to Emperor Xian of Han (Su Youpeng), as part of the same mission. In 219, as the Eastern Han Dynasty crumbles, Cao Cao appears at court to report the death of one of its enemies, Guan Yu, and then settles down with Lingju at his estate. Meanwhile, his son, Cao Pi (Qiu Xinzhi) has been having an affaire with the emperor’s wife, Fu Shou (Yi Nengjing), who’s trying to force him to take over the throne from her weakling husband. Fu Shou’s father, Fu Wan (Ni Dahong), pressurises the emperor into sending troops to Cao Cao’s estate to kill him, on the grounds that Cao Cao is too powerful. The assassination attempt fails and Cao Cao subsequently has Fu Shou killed by his son and Fu Wan publicly dismembered. Mu Shun tells Lingju, who has developed a liking for Cao Cao, that they have been ordered to bide their time on their mission, as events are too turbulent at present. Then, Cao Cao, learning of another attempt on his life, hatches a plan, telling his son to invite the emperor over for a hunting expedition at his estate.
REVIEW
Despite being given real weight by a commanding performance from Zhou Runfa 周润发 [Chow Yun-fat] and a script that contains several powerful sequences, The Assassins 铜雀台 is one of those films that is more impressive for its ambitions and individual moments than as a totality. This first feature by Changchun Film Studio employee and commercials director Zhao Linshan 赵林山 (a distant relative of China Film boss Han Sanping 韩三平) is an initially unfocused and somewhat confusing costume drama – set shortly after the events of Red Cliff 赤壁 (2008) – that starts to gain traction and a sense of dramatic direction as Zhou’s character, the famous Han Dynasty general Cao Cao, takes over centre stage from the younger characters who initially appear to be its main protagonists.
The script by Wang Hailin 汪海林, which shows his origins as a TV drama writer in its episodic construction, never resolves this basic structural problem, trying to keep alive the idealistic love story between the two young assassins sent to kill Cao Cao as Cao Cao himself and the political shenanigans surrounding him come to dominate the movie. Despite a powerful opening, which shows the killers undergoing rigorous training, neither Mainland actress Liu Yifei 刘亦菲 (Love in Disguise 恋爱通告, 2010; A Chinese Ghost Story 倩女幽魂, 2011) nor Japanese actor-singer-model Tamaki Hiroshi 玉木宏 (Waterboys ウォーターボーイズ, 2001; MW ムウ, 2009) convince as a pair of lovestruck assassins, despite poetic voiceovers by Liu’s character and much visual play with her red dress in the latter stages. Liu’s dreamy qualities play off quite well against Zhou’s tough, taciturn general but the assassination sub-plot is left to wither as the main story progresses, with no sense of threat in the relationship between the two.
It’s Zhou’s movie through and through, and the veteran Hong Kong actor, now in his late 50s, has developed a mature screen presence that’s particularly effective in costume roles (Curse of the Golden Flower 满城尽带黄金甲, 2006; Confucius 孔子, 2010; Let the Bullets Fly 让子弹飞, 2010) and period dress (Shanghai 谍海风云, 2010). His Cao Cao, though very different from the icily ruthless turn by Zhang Fengyi 张丰毅 in Red Cliff, is a fully drawn character, exactly catching his enigmatic qualities as well as his misplaced loyalties to a crumbling dynasty now led by a weak and feckless emperor (nicely played by Taiwan’s Su Youpeng 苏有朋 [Alec Su]). In two beautifully written and played sequences – Cao Cao exposing the plotters behind a failed assassination attempt, and later confronting his own son’s weakness – Zhou is aces, and the film likewise.
Aside from such sequences (which earn the film an extra point), The Assassins keeps slipping out of focus, and its strands only start to come together in the final half-hour, as the dynasty’s foretold demise (“When the four stars align”) approaches. Even here, Wang’s script still has problems staying on course, with an unnecessary flashback in which Liu also plays the legendary lover (Diaochan) of one of Cao Cao’s enemies and the lover-assassins finally resolve their plot strand. Basically, the main political story centred on Cao Cao himself and the collapsing Han Dynasty is much more interesting.
The supporting cast features some strong playing, notably from Mainlanders Ni Dahong 倪大红, as an anti-Cao Cao plotter, and Yao Lu 姚橹 as Cao Cao’s suspicious doctor. From Taiwan, Qiu Xinzhi 邱心志 grows into his role as Cao Cao’s overshadowed son and Yi Nengjing 伊能静 [Annie Yi] is surprisingly animated in a few scenes as his ambitious mistress.
For his first feature, director Zhao has marshalled an experienced technical crew (many of whom worked on Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 movies) that ensure the movie looks and sounds handsome, in particular Mainland d.p. Zhao Xiaoding 赵小丁, who also takes a producer credit, and versatile Japanese p.d. Taneda Yohei 种田阳平, both of whom worked on The Flowers of War 金陵十三钗 (2011). Much of the atmosphere and emotional flow is thanks to the combination of music by Umebayashi Shigeru 梅林茂 and fluid editing by Liu Wei 刘卫 and Cheng Long 程珑 (both Umebayashi and Cheng worked on Golden Flower). Costumes and armour by Hong Kong’s Xi Zhongwen 奚仲文 [Yee Chung-man] have a suitably Han Dynasty bulk and clankiness.
The original Chinese title means “Bronze Sparrow Tower”, an edifice on Cao Cao’s estate that hardly figures in the finished movie.
CREDITS
Presented by Changchun Film Studio (CN), Xi’an Co-Creative Film (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Guangdong TV (CN). Produced by Xi’an Co-Creative Film (CN).
Script: Wang Hailin. Photography: Zhao Xiaoding. Editing: Liu Wei, Cheng Long. Music: Umebayashi Shigeru. Production design: Taneda Yohei. Art direction: Li Miao. Costume design: Xi Zhongwen [Yee Chung-man], Yu Lulu. Sound: Tao Jing, Liu Jia, Steve Burgess, Huang Zheng. Action: Li Donghao. Visual effects: Peng Ke (Technicolor [Beijing] Visual Technology).
Cast: Zhou Runfa [Chow Yun-fat] (Cao Cao, chancellor, Lord of Wei), Liu Yifei (Lingju; Diaochan), Tamaki Hiroshi (Mu Shun), Su Youpeng [Alec Su] (Emperor Xian of Han), Yi Nengjing [Annie Yi] (Fu Shou, empress), Qiu Xinzhi (Cao Pi, Cao Cao’s son), Yao Lu (Ji Ben, doctor), Ni Dahong (Fu Wan, lord), Bao Jianfeng (Lv Bu), Chi Cheng (Xu Chu), Qu Quancheng (Cao Zhi, Cao Cao’s son), Peng Jingci (Cao Xiu), Zhang Zimu (young Lingju), Liu Jieyi (young Mu Shun), Guo Jinfei (Chen Meng), Tian Ruihui (Mu Yan).
Release: China, 26 Sep 2012.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 16 Oct 2012.)