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Korea · 2015
2h 20m
Director Choi Dong-hoon
Starring Jun Ji-hyun, Ha Jung-woo, Lee Jung-jae, Oh Dal-su
Genre Action, Drama
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Assassination is set during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 1930s. The Korean resistance plans to assassinate the Japanese commander, but the only sniper skilled enough to do it, Ahn Ok-yun, is serving time in a Shanghai prison. As a resistance agent heads to China to break her out, the carefully-laid plan is threatened by a traitor.
With so much focus on spectacle, the film fails to explore this part of Korean history in any meaningful way. Assassination plays more to Choi’s strengths - witty dialogue and entertaining storytelling accompanied by strong visuals and cast.
The Hollywood Reporter by Clarence Tsui
While the director unleashes his taut action sequences like clockwork, he's less deft in handling the characterizations and the decade-leaping plot, which seems designed to provide the film with some historical weight.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Assassination has sprinkles of wit and a nicely restrained anchor in Lee Jung-jae.
A sensationally entertaining mash-up of historical drama, “Dirty Dozen” style shoot-‘em-up, spaghetti Western-flavored flamboyance, and extended action setpieces that suggest a dream-team collaboration of Sergio Leone, John Woo and Steven Spielberg.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
The director nimbly orchestrates to entertaining effect this mass game of cat-and-mouse populated by paid and unpaid assassins, double agents and even the proverbial twins separated at birth.
Assassination is a blast whenever the director doesn't take his melodramatic plot too seriously.
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