The Assassin(s)

OVERVIEW

Fans of Oliver Stone’s JFK, Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men and Steven Spielberg’s The Post will find plenty to love in The Assassin(s), a confident and ambitious historical thriller that, at its best, feels like a combination of all three, told with the pace and tension of an extremely engaging thriller. Directed by Hur Jin-ho, the film revisits the events of August 15, 1974, when Korean Japanese gunman Moon Se-kwang entered the National Theater of Korea during a televised Liberation Day ceremony and attempted to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee. Park survived, but his wife, First Lady Yuk Young-soo, was fatally shot. The official investigation identified Moon as the sole assassin, but questions surrounding the number of shots fired and other inconsistencies provide the starting point for a story following detective Park Cheol-gu (Yoo Hae-jin), newspaper editor Kim Jae-hwan (Park Hae-il), and rookie reporter Han Young-il (Lee Min-ho) as they begin looking more closely at what happened inside that theater.

BACKGROUND

The real assassination attempt took place during one of the most turbulent periods in modern South Korean history. Park Chung-hee had ruled under the Yushin system since 1972, greatly expanding his presidential powers, while emergency decrees introduced in 1974 further restricted political opposition and the press. Hur Jin-ho spent more than a decade turning these events into The Assassin(s), researching the case and interviewing people while remaining careful not to present his version of events as the truth. Instead, the film combines documented inconsistencies surrounding the shooting with fictional characters and scenarios, including the journalists, who were added by Hur as a way of depicting the broader atmosphere of South Korea in 1974 and the growing fight for press freedom.

THE REVIEW

The Assassin(s) covers several events and characters remarkably well without becoming confusing or losing the momentum of a thriller. Not every character receives particularly complex characterization, with a few actually bordering on stereotypes, but most are effective at guiding us through an increasingly intriguing series of events. And it is the gradual uncovering of those events that becomes the film’s greatest strength, as we slowly discover more about what may actually have happened that day, who else could have been involved, and the political reasons and implications behind it.

Four scenes in particular stand out. The first is the assassination attempt itself, which creates considerable tension from the moment we see the possible assassin enter the room. Then comes the reconstruction of the shooting, where the simple question of where each bullet came from begins suggesting that more guns may have been involved. Later, an intense chase through the shadows provides the film with perhaps its purest thriller sequence, finally arriving at the striking and chill-inducing climactic image of people literally standing up to protect the press.

Between those moments, there are occasional small annoyances, particularly attempts at humor that do not quite fit the material, like the awkward moment where security guards fall over one another like dominoes. The screenplay can also become unnecessarily repetitive, occasionally having characters explain information that we have quite literally just watched unfold. The characters are well-acted and achieve the necessary emotional investment, but can feel a little one-note and stereotypical. None of this damages the investigation too much, but it does make some of the connective material considerably less elegant than the film’s best sequences.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Assassin(s) may not become a classic on the level of the American films it so clearly recalls, particularly because its characters mostly serve their roles in the investigation without leaving equally strong impressions of their own. Still, Hur Jin-ho has made a highly engaging and confidently directed political thriller, one that handles a complicated collection of events without losing its momentum and, for most of its running time, keeps you sitting right on the edge of your seat.

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