Night of the Assassin

Campy, clumsy, bad acting, silly Go-Pro cuts, looney-toons sound effects, no emotion, moldy peas, forgettable villains, Shaw Bros style production without the aesthetic or soul. It's a movie. The overall ramping of this film takes on so many curves. It feels like 3-4 different films in one while never making anything cohesive. Twists? You bet. Turns? Okay. A villain that is so stereotypically boring? How about three or four. The protagonist plays an assassin turned server but still never seems to bring anything of substance to the proverbial table. His palms are sweaty, hearts weak, face is steady, he'd like to catch a chicken but keeps on forgetting, how to walk around, cause he obviously has never done that before and he likes soup, blah blah blah. Ninjas.

Directed by Kwak Jeong-deok, Night of the Assassin is the story of a killing machine named Lee Nan (Shin Hyeon-jun), who discovers that he has a deadly, long-dormant health condition. As he goes into hiding to seek the magical herb that can heal him - mahwangcho - he learns that he can't stay hidden for long, as the restaurant owner Seon-hong and her son Chil-bok who took him in are under threat. Now that Lee Nan is sick, it's easy for the women and her son to only see him as a beggar. But to the other killers, he's now a target, as they may finally have an advantage against him. Well, his doctor said he can never fight again. Or be with a woman. He better find that healing herb soon, right? Just a simple waiter at Seon-hong's cafe, Lee Nan must eventually battle gang boss Ibang (Lee Moon-sik), who has the locals all hooked on opium and whose bandits are keeping him from seeking his cure. All the while, Lee Nan is going through a crisis of the soul, wondering if this is his punishment for a life spent killing others. I really enjoy this movie. It feels kind of like a fairy tale and does a great job of presenting the emotional toll that being a bad ass action hero must put on your soul.