女俠 聶隱娘을 바라보는 두 시선 - 唐傳奇 <聶隱娘>과 허우샤오시엔(侯孝賢)의 영화 ‘자객 섭은낭(The Assasin)’의 비교

Abstract

In this paper, I focused on analyzing different perspectives reflected on a novel, Nieyinniang of Tang Chuan-qi, and ‘The Assassin’ by Houxiaoxian’s movie. Both works based on the story of a woman knighterrant Nieyinniang in Tang dynasty in the 8th century and described Nieyinniang as a great heroine in political chaos, when Tang dynasty experienced a decentralized administration. Taiwanese movie director Houxiaoxian adapted T‘ang Chuan-qi ‘Nieyinniang’ for his movie ‘the Assassin’, and, compared to Nieyinniang in novel, Houxiaoxian showed a different lead character of Nieyinniang. I found three distinct features reflected on Nieyinniang of Tang Chuan-qi and the Assassin by Houxiaoxian’s movie as follow. First of all, the basic personality of Nieyinniang was differently described in Houxiaoxian’s Movie ‘The Assassin’. In a novel, Nieyinniang was depicted as a cruel assassin, who pledged absolute loyalty to her master and just completed her duty as a killer. On the contrary, Houxiaoxian emphasized humanistic side of Nieyinniang, so Nieyinniang in movie was an emotional killer, who engaged inner conflicts between her job as a murderer and great humanity as a woman. In addition, the political state represented by the movie ‘The Assassin’ showed a slight difference in comparison with T‘ang Chuan-qi ’Nieyinniang’. The background of the novel was set during the 8th century in Tang Dynasty, and political conflicts among local governments was generally described. However, Houxiaoxian elaborated on political situation in Tang Dynasty where the warlike party clashed with the party members who avoided war. It is assumed that in his movie Houxiaoxian wanted to reflect current political situation of Taiwan closely related to China. Furthermore, the Taoistic elements that was broadly reflected on T‘ang Chuan-qi ’Nieyinniang’ was missing in a movie ‘The Assasin’. In a novel, Taoism thought was presented as a significant device to make a character ‘Nieyinniang’ ; ‘Nieyinniang’ put efforts into prcaticing and performing Taoist martial arts and this special skill plays an important role for her to accomplish a task as a liller. However, Houxiaoxian in his movie excluded Taoistic sentiment and highlighted fundamental emotions as a human-being and a vulnerable woman. For instance, although ‘Nieyinniang’ was an expert at Taoist magic and martial arts just like T’ang Chuan-qi ‘Nieyinniang’, she betrayed master’s confidence and secluded herself from the world. Also, in the movie ‘The Assassin’, ‘Nieyinniang’ sought to overcome inner conflicts as relying on Boy ‘Mojing’ rather than fulfilling a required duty as a killer. To sum up, there must be distinct features between chinese classical narratives and modern movie in terms of time period, format, and style used to create each work. It turned out that different perspectives were represented on T‘ang Chuan-qi ’Nieyinniang’ and Houxiaoxian’s movie ‘The Assassin’. As considering these factors, Houxiaoxian might want to mirror the glorious period of T’ang Dynastv in the Chinese history and reproduce cultural legacy and assets in his movie ‘The Assassin.