Assassination (2015)

I remember that a few years ago I loved 'Jeon Woo-Chi' from this same director. It was so awesome, the mix between the modern world and ancient myth with the usual Korean style presentation, a little different from other similar western films due to the cultural difference. After that, this the second movie of his I am watching and I had two opposite thoughts in the two halves of the movie.Initially, I felt I chose a wrong movie. One of the reason was, I could not get the film characters right due to complicated introductions. Too many main characters and that's a too much to recognise if you're not a Korean or not familiar with the Korean faces/actors. Somewhat I was confused, at least in the first quarter. In the second half, especially after the story moved to Korean, I get used to it and afterwards it was very smooth.The other reason was obviously the length of the movie. Only because of the puzzled opening order. Later the story development was so good, I began to feel comfortable with the narration and after that I did not notice the runtime at all. I have no source to confirm whether it was based on the real or simply a cinematic fiction, but it was very interesting as it progress. So don't force yourself to watch the movie, but it you do, then give it a time in the beginning and be focused, later definitely you will be in a position to get through as easily as I did."Damn, we could all die tomorrow. Let's dance."Actually, it all began in the year 1911, and moved to 20 years later during the Japan's occupation of Korea. The resistance freedom fighters plan a series of assassination of the Japanese leaders in the nation's different regions. One such man was a powerful native business tycoon. When everything goes wrong, the story begins to take a turn, complicates further by revealing the old secret. How much it affects and to whom, followed by the final battle sequence.Obviously everyone interesting in this film for Jeon Ji-Hyun's presence. Of course, as usual she was very impressive, but her so- star, Ha Jung-Woo with his weird screen name 'Hawaii Pistol' was also equally good. When I first heard Hawaii Pistol is coming, I thought it was the arms supply from Hawaii. Anyway, it was a grand intro, after his entry the movie was set to explore the rest of the story in a style. The other actors like his hilarious partner and the main villain set the tone for the movie.Certainly it is a movie to pick if you want an historic subject other than your regular Korean themes. Beautifully written for the screen, except like I said the editing was confusing for the lack of proper inception. Don't think it's simply about the brave freedom fighters; betrayal, revenge, family, third person caught in, like that it had many stuffs. It is also very rare to see a woman fighter among them. All the action scenes were really well made, because that's the title isn't. The terrific settings of the 30s as well. I can't say about it is a must see or not, but surely a fine historic movie that I am pleased with.8/10

This film is exactly like those ridiculous Chinese TV dramas, trying so hard to portray the struggles of the Korean colonized era by the Japanese. Those stupid and ridiculous Chinese TV dramas telling how the Chinese Communist Party fighting against the Japanese were often so stupid and ridiculous since the Chinese Communist Party and its guerrilla army controlled by the Soviet Communist Sovereign Party never fought the Japanese but their own Chinese National Party armies, stabbing them from behind and using the opportunity to strengthen themselves. Likewise, this film about the Korean people trying to fight against the Japanese is also a very badly scripted, very poorly directed film. There were too many jerk and clown-like characters in it. The plot was absurd, the costumes looked too modern, the dialog lame and most of the actors acted pretentious and one-dimensional.If you want to make a film in such genre, you must have a serious screenplay with believable plots and scenarios, you cannot insert some funny guys like clowns or jerks and put them between or among the other serious characters, making this film turn into a ridiculous farce. Korean films used to be good or even fantastic, but this one is definitely not one of them. This is a very ridiculous film, trying to be serious, trying to tell a serious story, but due to the lack of a serious screenplay and a moronic production team led by a stupid director, signed up too many light weight bad clown-like actors, has completely ruined some of the best actors and the leading actress. I don't know how some of the viewers would consider this film great, but to me, it's just like a childish play written and directed by couple of high school drop-outs. A total waste of the Korean Yuens$$.Just can't believe a supposed-to-be-serious film full of so many clown-like characters. What a bomb.

Watching this movie was like watching another Korean movie called "Anarchists". Which is another fictitious movie with few real historical figures that takes place during a time where Korea was dominated by another country. The story in this however just wasn't all that gripping or memorable despite some twist and turns and some betrayals. Mainly because there just wasn't enough development for the audiences to care. I really wanted to like this movie but was sort of bored with it most of the way through. Other fictitious movies like "Bodyguards and Assassins", is at least more entertaining to watch than this. The direction in this just wasn't as fluid and even the action sequences are very easily forgettable. A movie such as this that revolve around freedom fighters should have more of an impact. The acting is okay, but doesn't stand out because of the poorly written characters. They just don't seem to have that interesting factor or much depth. I was focused more on when this movie would end while sitting through it over how exciting it was. It just didn't have elements that really made you want to care about the cause or the characters. Since it didn't really show the darkside of the situations nor did it have good chemistry between the characters. There is also quite a bit of ridiculous plot holes and scenarios that just doesn't make much sense at all. I am not a fan of Jun Ji-hyun or anything like that, but she was alright in this though. This movie is driven more by patriotism and the cause over anything else to get the audiences attention, but the execution was childish for all the wrong reasons.5/10

It's another amazing film from Korea. There was a lot of stuff to take in, that could be overwhelming for someone like me who has to use subtitles to keep up. A lot of sub stories were going on around the main story of Japanese occupation of Korea.Lucky for me the film making was very visual, the best way to weave a movie so it was not hard to understand everything that was going on and there was a lot, but it all fit together beautifully. The cinematography was well done as well as the costumes designs and I loved the action sequences. There was scenes that used CGI, but they did not over use it which is done too much in pictures.Very impressive.