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Without a doubt, "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" is one of the worst films of the year. I found the film tonally confusing, stupid and WAY too serious. If this were an over the top comedy, it would be a much different story; however, the film doesn't label itself as that, and claims it's serious. And with a title like that, you're only laughing at it, not with it.

The film tries a deep, dramatic character study, but it's not remotely moving. The first-half of the story is about Sam Elliot's assassination of Adolf Hitler; for no reason, giving it out of order. Then in the second-half, some government agents discover he's immune to bigfoot. They ask him to kill it, and he does with basically effort. Bigfoot is pointless and goes on to be under explained and serve ZERO purpose.

And when he does kill bigfoot, the film goes on for another 20-minutes, providing more pointlessness and one of the dullest resolutions of any film. It's like "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", a film infamous for its long ending. But even though this film is shorter, the ending is more torturous, because there was no way to get invested in anything. Overall, this film remains to leave no impact on me; and in it's attempts to be unique, the film only fell flat.

As my first Hou Hsiao-Hsien movie, "The Assassin" was not a good example of his work; and at first, it gave me the wrong impression of him. And although I don't consider him a great director, Hsien's has made some excellent movies, admittedly more bad than good, but still, "The Puppetmaster", "A City of Sadness", "Three Times" and "Millenium Mambo" prove he has talent. However, "The Assassin" is not in that group of his rare masterpieces.

For one thing: the film is only 1 hour and 45 minutes, but feels stretched out. The film is mostly talking about nothing, the dialogue is terrible and unmemorable, the characters are paper thin, and the film relies on it's beautiful visuals. And while those visuals are astonishing, it doesn't make up for an empty experience.

The film's only saving graces are the performances and visuals; however, they don't save the movie from being a boring mess. The idea's also admittedly interesting, but it's bogged down by repetitive storytelling and long instances of nothing happening for the sake of being "artsy".

This would've worked out a lot better as a short film; but sadly, it had to include many scenes of filler, and Hsien let his style get in the way of the story. If it was 40-minutes or so, it would have turned out a lot more interesting.