Sadly Over-hyped

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Although fast-paced and well-photographed, this film is incredibly childish. Exaggerated acting, over-the-top patriotism and really silly dialogs!Still could be enjoyable if it had good acrobatic stunts, some swordplay and so on, but no such luck -- action means only lots of fake shooting. The sets and costumes are often anachronistic, what certainly could be put to good use, but in this case seems unintentional, and so does the humor in most cases.Overall I found this a big waste of time. I can understand the Koreans who liked an improved version of their history, but I suspect the Western fans of this flick must have grown up on Disney Zorro... (And even that had better dialogs.)

"Assassination" or "Amsal" is an engaging and epic mixture of an espionage action film and a historically inspired drama. Both genre parts are equally balanced and the modern special effects aren't so overloaded that they feel out of context in a movie set more than eighty years ago. The film convinces with an intellectually appealing script, diversified and great characters and acting performances and a solid mixture of historically inspired storytelling, personal drama parts and tense action scenes. There is no doubt that this is one of the best movies of the year.Over the course of almost two and a half hours, the film tells the story of an assassination attempt on a Japanese governor and a pro-Japanese Korean business tycoon by Korean resistance activists during Japan's colonial rule of Korea. The movie is set at different times and even the perspectives slightly change which makes the movie a little bit hard to follow in the beginning. The film takes all the time it needs to introduce the different characters and the historical settings which adds a lot of depth to the characters, details to the historic elements and emotions to the story. These are the reasons why the slightly long introduction that might be hard to sit through for wider audiences is absolutely essential to the rest of the movie.The first slow-paced hour builds up to the furious last ninety minutes of the film. The final two thirds of the film feature a stellar acting performance, a smart use of camera angles, costumes, locations, soundtrack and special effects by the director and a clever story with many predictable but also unpredictable twists and turns in form of different conspiracies.Especially the fate of female sniper Ahn OK-yun who is portrayed by an absolutely stunning Jun Ji-hyun in the best performance of her career is a key element of the movie. Most viewers will probably care a lot about the twisted ups and downs of this engaging character.The showdown of the movie is one of the best directed action scenes in world cinema this year and in the history of Korean cinema in general. It's not as memorable as the fighting scenes in "Oldboy", "The Man from Nowhere" or "The Admiral: Roaring Currents" but it gets quite close and has a breathtaking choreography. The coda of the movie which takes place almost two decades after the actions of the main plot is an excellent way to end a great movie on a high note.Due to it's complex story and high number of directional ideas, I would recommend watching this movie several times. This emotional action-drama is definitely worth your attention and one of the cinematic highlights of the year. I can't wait to revisit this great film and buy this movie on DVD or Blu-ray next year.

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

This is a marvelous film about the Japanese oppression suffered by the Koreans over 4 decades. Most of the film is set in 1933 during an assassination attempt on a Korean collaborator and a Japanese official responsible for horrors inflicted on the Koreans in Manchuria in 1931. The central character is a sniper for the Korean Independence Army (Jun Ji-hyun) who takes on the assignment. The film is filled with all sorts of interesting characters, with names like "Hawaii Pistol" and "Big Gun", and there are double crosses and even triple crosses along the way.The photography is terrific, the atmosphere is nostalgic, and even the music adds to the film's value. Writer-Director Choi Dong hoon keeps the acting moving right along.Rather than merely an assassination film, this is more of a story of relationships, and at the core is one family's journey through the tumultuous times, although you may not recognize this at first.The subtitles are a little hard to read, and some of the characters are hard to tell apart, but otherwise this is an excellent film. I was particularly taken with the acting of Jun Ji-hyun and Ha Jung- woo