The film centres on Nie Yinniang, an assassin who is directed to slay corrupt government officials by her master, Jiaxin, a nun who raised her from the age of ten. When Yinniang displays mercy by failing to kill during her duties, Jiaxin punishes her with a ruthless assignment designed to test Yinniang’s resolve: she is sent to the distant province of Weibo in northern China to kill its military governor, her cousin Tian Ji’an, to whom she was betrothed as a child.

Sight & Sound magazine ranked The Assassin as the best film of 2015 based on a poll of 168 critics from around the world.

“Shooting in glorious 35mm, Hou and cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bing have come up with the most stylistically fascinating and visually striking work of their numerous collaborations—there is not a single uninteresting shot that I can recall and many are so beautiful that one looks at them as they might observe a painting in a museum.” Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com