Review | Film review: Korean spy drama Assassination is entertaining but overcomplicated
Choi Dong-hoon's film is wonderful pop entertainment but the plot has too many twists
A period spy drama that engrosses in bursts, Assassination is so overstuffed with plots that its rousing action results in diminishing returns. Similar to writer-director Choi Dong-hoon’s stylish caper The Thieves (2012), his latest ensemble film features such a broad range of characters that it’s sometimes a chore to keep track of each and everyone’s agenda.
At a palpably overlong 140 minutes, this patriotic epic is perhaps best appreciated outside Korea as an espionage fantasy of clear-cut heroes and villains. Set mainly in Shanghai and Japanese-occupied Seoul during the 1930s, the film depicts a motley crew of Korean resistance fighters as they look to put up a good fight against their colonial aggressors.
After being brought in from the cold by the provisional Korean government operative Yem Sek-jin (Lee Jung-jae), three special agents – led by sniper Ahn Ok-yun (Gianna Jun Ji-hyun) – are given a mission to assassinate the Japanese garrison governor and a pro-Japanese tycoon, Kang In-guk (Lee Kyung-young), whose adult children are set for an imminent marriage.
