Sightlines · a viewing thread

Stillness, Then the Blade

Watch these back to back for the way each one holds its breath — painterly stillness, coiled calm, and violence that lands like a single brushstroke.

Revered film-school wuxia and its kin, gorgeous but demanding; Shadow is the easiest door in and The Assassin the most patient test of your attention.

• A Touch of Zen (1970)
• The Assassin (2015)
• Shadow (2018)
• Lady Snowblood (1973)
• Fireworks (1997)
• Ashes of Time (1994) — The overlooked Wong Kar-wai wuxia that rhymes with these on painterly desolation and elegiac, held-breath swordplay — if The Assassin and A Touch of Zen landed, this is the ravishing, oblique one to finally pull down.