I have no trouble understanding why this esoteric movie gets such an underrated score here on IMDb. The film is not for a lay Western audience.
To fully appreciate it you need some background in Tao and in martial arts, and you need to crack some codes. Once you have done that, the film opens up its delicious flavor.
I have seen dozens of martial arts films, and some of them are quite good. I'm referring notably to the Zhang Yimou movies and to the long version of "Red cliff". But none of these great productions capture the mood and the inner core of Tao and the path of martial arts quite like this movie. This movie is a character study of finalizing Tao or the way of nature.
It is essential to understand a couple of things when viewing this film: (1) the camera takes the view of the assassin's inner state. So, when you see her fighting guards filmed from afar, it is because the heroine is engaged in a fight which is not important to her. She prefers to remain immersed in nature. Fighting the guards is something far off. When she's engaged in a fight with emotional importance, the fight is filmed up close. If you hear natural sounds all the time, even during inside scenes, it's because Nie Yinniang melted so much with nature and the natural state, that even when inside her razor sharp ears keep on detecting all what is real beyond human affairs. When you see things through a screen, that's how Nie Yinniang sees them. That she is at one with and no longer separate from nature is nicely depicted by her absolute stillness, her silence and the way she melts naturally with her environment. (2) the story is about how Nie Yinniang is almost a Tao master, but she still hasn't transcended the wounds of her youth, when she was of royal descent and scheduled to play a primary role in Weido. But because of reasons discussed by the film, when she was still small she was taken to a nunnery. For this reason, even if she comes out of school very advanced in the Tao, she didn't really have to confront her past yet. That's by and large where the movie starts. Nie Yinniang is also still struggling to transcend her own master, the nun abbot who taught her everything...except the way of the heart as integrated with the way of the sword.
As the movie progresses, we see how Nie Yinniang transcends the last remnants of her old self, symbolized by two pivotal fights: first she transcends her old royal self by winning from the royally-clad assassin, her duplicate and old self, in the woods, then she transcends the shortcomings of her own teacher symbolized by a short fight with the nun at the very end. And so Nie Yinniang has finally fully merged with Tao and she is now free to lead an anonymous but, in all silence, an intensely vibratory life with common folks of good heart. The moment she lets all the fuss of common humanity go is nicely photographed, when at the end you see how the court in Weibo is engaged in still novel intrigues, but as the camera takes the perspective of Nie Yinniang's deeper feelings, we see how, bored and disinterested, the camera drifts away from the whole show. Nie Yinniang is no longer intrigued by all this political fuss.
Much more can be written about the movie, but I don't want to make this review too long. For me, this movie is the best character study of the spiritual way of martial arts I have seen to date.
To fully appreciate it you need some background in Tao and in martial arts, and you need to crack some codes. Once you have done that, the film opens up its delicious flavor.
I have seen dozens of martial arts films, and some of them are quite good. I'm referring notably to the Zhang Yimou movies and to the long version of "Red cliff". But none of these great productions capture the mood and the inner core of Tao and the path of martial arts quite like this movie. This movie is a character study of finalizing Tao or the way of nature.
It is essential to understand a couple of things when viewing this film: (1) the camera takes the view of the assassin's inner state. So, when you see her fighting guards filmed from afar, it is because the heroine is engaged in a fight which is not important to her. She prefers to remain immersed in nature. Fighting the guards is something far off. When she's engaged in a fight with emotional importance, the fight is filmed up close. If you hear natural sounds all the time, even during inside scenes, it's because Nie Yinniang melted so much with nature and the natural state, that even when inside her razor sharp ears keep on detecting all what is real beyond human affairs. When you see things through a screen, that's how Nie Yinniang sees them. That she is at one with and no longer separate from nature is nicely depicted by her absolute stillness, her silence and the way she melts naturally with her environment. (2) the story is about how Nie Yinniang is almost a Tao master, but she still hasn't transcended the wounds of her youth, when she was of royal descent and scheduled to play a primary role in Weido. But because of reasons discussed by the film, when she was still small she was taken to a nunnery. For this reason, even if she comes out of school very advanced in the Tao, she didn't really have to confront her past yet. That's by and large where the movie starts. Nie Yinniang is also still struggling to transcend her own master, the nun abbot who taught her everything...except the way of the heart as integrated with the way of the sword.
As the movie progresses, we see how Nie Yinniang transcends the last remnants of her old self, symbolized by two pivotal fights: first she transcends her old royal self by winning from the royally-clad assassin, her duplicate and old self, in the woods, then she transcends the shortcomings of her own teacher symbolized by a short fight with the nun at the very end. And so Nie Yinniang has finally fully merged with Tao and she is now free to lead an anonymous but, in all silence, an intensely vibratory life with common folks of good heart. The moment she lets all the fuss of common humanity go is nicely photographed, when at the end you see how the court in Weibo is engaged in still novel intrigues, but as the camera takes the perspective of Nie Yinniang's deeper feelings, we see how, bored and disinterested, the camera drifts away from the whole show. Nie Yinniang is no longer intrigued by all this political fuss.
Much more can be written about the movie, but I don't want to make this review too long. For me, this movie is the best character study of the spiritual way of martial arts I have seen to date.