The Assassin

Chang Cheh’s film for Shaw Brothers follows a swordsman betrayed by a jealous rival who first tries to build a plain life for himself, and is then set back on a bloody road by a chance meeting with a fellow patriot. He goes knowing he will not come back, and the weight of the film sits in that knowledge. The source is the Biographies of Assassins in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian; the deeds recorded there were driven by personal loyalty, but on screen they are usually rebuilt as noble revolt against a tyrant, and this film follows that line. Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai arranged the fights, and Jimmy Wang Yu takes the lead. The record’s summary calls the swordsman Yu, which reads like the actor’s name rather than the character’s. The sources I found also disagree about the period, so I have named no dynasty.