Assassin Nie Yinniang. Creative Writing Movie Review

Movie Review
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Movie Review
Women have long been misrepresented in literature and works of art. In some works, their depiction is limited to their feminine nature while in others, they are simply seen or made to appear as distractions to men. Some works also depict them as objects that were placed on this earth to please men. All these are depictions of women that have been in the past and in current works. However, there are others that also showcase women as heroines. These works showcase women being superior to or matching the skills of men. One such work is the movie The Assassin or Nie Yinniang. This 2015 martial arts film depicts a woman, Shu Qi, as a heroine with skills that are unmatched by anyone in the film. Her movement and stealth appear perfect for her role as an assassin in the movie. In the dead of the night, Nie Yinniang disappears does her work with utmost secrecy. However, it should be noted that not all works exalt women as much as this movie which is an adaptation of a short story by the same name.
One difference between Nie Yinniang and other women in other martial arts works is the fact that she is painted as a heroine. According to Huang (2018), Chinese martial arts fiction is known to reject women and to trivialize their roles. Men are exalted while women are simply made to appear as distractions. He writes that “some hold that martial arts fiction is supposed to portray the hero’s masculine beauty, thus there exists no space for a woman.” Such rhetoric is mirrored in works such as Outlaws of the Marsh or Shui Hu Zhuan. In this particular work, women are mostly viewed as troublemakers and nothing more. When compared to Nie Yinniang, this work could be said to be selling women short. Nie Yinniang paints the perfect picture of what a heroine can do given the same attention and training. Having been trained from a young age, she develops to become a ruthless assassin whose skill level is way above that of the men characters in the movie. Seeing what Nie Yinniang does with her sword after the intense training she had gone through makes one question the idea of there being no space for women in martial arts fiction.
One similarity between Nie Yinniang and other martial arts works is the fact that she appears to be str...