This film no doubt should have been shown at last year’s Shaw Brothers retrospective. The only reason The Assassin is being shown this year is because of its re-distribution schedule. This film directed by CHANG Cheh and starring WANG Yu is closer to a historical film than a martial arts film. With the age of civil wars as its background, it is a story about Nieh Cheng (Wang Yu), the martial arts expert, whose master gets involved in a conspiracy, and who now has to run away from Wei to Qi. In Qi, he spends his days working as a peddler in a market. One day, Yen Chung-tzu from the Han comes to visit him. He asks Nieh Cheng to kill an evil bureaucrat Han Kwei. After much contemplation Nieh Cheng accepts the offer. He sets out to kill Han Kwei with only a sword by his side, and fights a great number of soldiers by himself. After many ordeals, he finally kills Han Kwei, and he too dies. This film opened right after The One-Armed Swordsman, and the Korean audience, who expected another martial arts film, was not pleased. The story was too complicated, and the Korean audience had a hard time understanding the historical background. However, the film is filled with extraordinary sets, and the climatic final 30 minutes showcase director Chang Cheh’s talents at building psychological tensions in a film. And when Nieh Cheng puts on a white robe and rides horseback for the final battle, the viewers know that they are in for something wonderful and devastating. And in fact, this last sequence belongs among the finest moments Chang Cheh ever directed. Especially in Hong Kong, this film caused a great commotion. The film opened in 1966, when Hong Kong witnessed the Kowloon riots - which called for independence from Great Britain - and something similar to the suicidal patriotism witnessed in CHANG Cheh’s film occurred in real life. (CHUNG Sung-ill)