Is Assassin an intentionally bad piece of propaganda? It might be. Director Lee Mun-hui employs bad dubbing, jerky jumpcuts, strange close-ups, and one gratingly monotonous soundtrack incorporating a single note plunking over and over as if he intended to make a message film nobody would watch. The storyline may be focused on backstabbing Communists but more than critiquing the flawed global politics of South Korea's neighbors to the north, this movie made me me cringe with its winter-summer seduction between a general and a young woman with daddy issues, and the cat-and-mouse game between baby-voiced girl and a sinister guy who's hiding a gun.
Both women end up in bed — one to screw, one to sleep — but neither is safe when that clock strikes twelve. Because Lee's agit-prop, anti-Red world is filled with murderous men with no morals: a hired killer (Jang Dong-hwi), a revolutionary extremist (Nam Kung-mon), a North Korean defector (Park Am), an anonymous truck driver, and likely that guy (Oh Ji-myoung) who's toying with the home-alone kid. An extended scene which involves an apple caressed by a leather glove only furthers the idea that Assassin was meant to be absurd. Will anyone forsake Bolshevism after watching Assassin? Doubtful. Did Lee go on to redeem himself with later films? I'm happy to say he did. (Please watch The Road to Sampo instead.)
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