THE STORY – Set in 1974, a news editor investigates unanswered questions surrounding the attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee on August 15, while a police inspector and journalist witness the incident.
THE CAST – Yoo Hai-jin, Park Hae-il, Lee Min-ho & Ryu Hye-young
THE TEAM– Hur Jin-ho (Director) & Gwon Gi-jun and Lee Ji-min (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 131 Minutes
The 1970s proved to be a tumultuous period for international relations between Korea and Japan. The countries’ fraught history spans decades and still inspires many Korean filmmakers today. The past couple of years alone have shown this, with films depicting various moments in Korean-Japanese history at the Toronto International Film Festival. Filmmaker Hur Jin-ho’s “The Assassin(s),” which follows the aftermath of the infamous assassination attempt on South Korean President Park Chung-hee, aims to shed light on a travesty that even its own government wasn’t keen on exposing. Director Hur clearly wants to energize audiences, creating a pressure-cooker scenario where the aftermath stays as tense as the moment it happened. For the most part, Hur does in fact achieve this, as “The Assassin(s) is an entertaining procedural that keeps viewers rapt even when its narrative deviations prove to wear thin.
As soon as the film opens, Hur builds suspense toward the moments leading up to that fateful shooting on August 15th, 1974. The 29th Liberation Day ceremony, a momentous day for the country, was supposed to be a special event with an audience filled with children, the press, and more than enough security to ensure everything would go smoothly. Something begins to add up: deviations in the security protocol and the mysterious presence of an individual catch the attention of Cheol-Goo, played by Yoo Hai-jin, a veteran police officer from the Chungbu station assigned to the event. This individual, who was admitted into the ceremony, was Mun Se-gwang, the inevitable shooter, who would be responsible for the death of an innocent schoolgirl and the First Lady of South Korea.
As the KCIA swarms the scene, the investigation into this tragedy leads to a conflict of interest that runs counter to everything Cheol-Goo witnessed. The facts are misaligned, and the possibility of another shooter could be information that the people deserve to know. Luckily for Cheol-Goo, he wasn’t the only witness to the shooting who is desperate to find the truth. Lee Min-ho’s Young-Il, a hotshot young journalist looking to make a name for himself, is ready to tackle this story along with his editor at the Dong-Sung Daily, Jae-Hwan, played by Park Hae-il. Together, the three fight a multinational conspiracy to get to the heart of what really happened that day and stand against the institutions that deem their voices so deadly.
Screenwriters Gwon Gi-jun and Lee Ji-min astutely dissect the plotting between these three perspectives. It’s an ever-evolving web of journalistic discoveries, interwoven as these men pursue different facets of the investigation. Audiences witness Cheol-Goo roaming the streets of his home, tracing everything back to that shooting. At the same time, Young-Il eventually makes his way into Japan to corroborate facts and to learn more about the life of the Korean-Japanese man deemed a radical in the eyes of the KCIA. Hur molds these storylines with tight direction in the vein of a stylish conspiracy thriller, where each revelation keeps audiences on the edge of their seats. He never relents as each deviation that comes toward these characters makes their – and the audience’s – desire to see them solve the investigation only grow.
For a historical drama, Hur isn’t bogged down by the complacency often found in retellings of true events, maintaining a cinematic flair that is common in much of Korean cinema. Kim Hana and Kim Woo-hyun’s editing keeps the film from dragging, though it does its best to keep “The Assassin(s)” on track during prolonged sequences where the characters are in the midst of their process. Hur also creates a plausible recreation of the 70s with Kim Byung-han’s effective production design.
Where “The Assassin(s)” falters is in trying to conjure an emotional response in audiences that matches the excitement of the actual investigation. Our protagonists are constantly kept at bay throughout the film, whether it’s claims of ties to the communist party or having loved ones stripped away by suited government agents who come at any time they want to flaunt their power. Whenever the screenplay delves into Cheol-Goo’s familial drama, or even Jae-Hwan’s journey of inspiring a free press, while those elements are core to the narrative, it feels like a deviation that slightly pulls away from the moment Hur wants to keep flowing. He overcomes this for the most part because this trio of performers is so effective, especially Park Hae-il and Yoo Hai-jin, whose combined veteran presence lends a dramatic heft that sells the stakes every time they’re on screen. Whether he sticks the landing is another question, as the film’s resolution abruptly leaves audiences to piece together the rest with an end credits scroll to fill in the blanks. “The Assassin(s)” is far from a perfect drama about the power journalism can bring, but Hur’s direction, amid all the genre flourishes on clear display, leads to a more than enjoyable viewing experience.
