Assassination

Assassination is a 2015 South Korean period action spy film co-written and directed by Choi Dong-hoon. The film, mainly set in 1930s Seoul and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of Korea, depicts a group of Korean resistance fighters' plan to assassinate a highly ranked Japanese officer. The film drew over 12.7 million admissions, and is currently the eighth-highest-grossing movie in Korean film history. Assassination also won Best Film at the 36th Blue Dragon Film Awards and 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards. Plot In 1911, during Japan's rule over Korea, a resistance fighter named Yem Sek-jin tries but fails to murder the governor-general along with a pro-Japanese businessman named Kang In-guk. That evening, Kang discovers that his own wife was helping Yem, and kills her. In response, the wet nurse runs off with one of Kang's twin daughters. By 1933, there are over 30 Korean independence factions operating in Korea, China, and Manchuria. Yem has become a captain in one of these factions, but his colleagues are unaware that he is secretly reporting to the Japanese, since back in 1911 he was tortured by the Japanese into submission. Yem meets with some Korean politicians in Hangzhou, including Kim Koo and Kim Won-bong, and is asked to gather three delinquent resistance members—Big Gun, Duk-sam, and Ahn Okyun—so they can enter Seoul and assassinate Kang, along with a general named Kawaguchi Mamoru. After bringing them to Shanghai, however, Yem sells this information to the Japanese. The Japanese attempt to find Ahn, but a skilled contract-killer named Hawaii Pistol decides, on the spur of the moment, to pretend that Ahn is his wife, allowing her to elude the soldiers. Kim Koo questions Yem's loyalty, and tells two subordinates, Myung-woo and Se-gwang, to follow him around, and to kill him if he is a spy. However, when they follow him to his meeting with Hawaii Pistol, Yem manages to kill them in the ensuing gun fight. Yem meets with Hawaii Pistol and hires him to intercept and kill the three resistance members, lying to Hawaii Pistol by saying that they are Japanese spies. Yem anticipates a great reward from the Japanese. As Hawaii Pistol and his assistant Buddy travel to Seoul, they befriend Kawaguchi's son, who is a lieutenant in the Kwantung Army. In Seoul, Hawaii Pistol locates Big Gun and shoots him as he is running. With Big Gun missing, Duk-sam and Ahn proceed with the operation, hoping to ambush their targets at a gas station.