An Assassin (2011)

Despite being obvious and straightforward, An Assassin delivers much more than just some brainless action.

Don’t get the wrong picture, I like brainless action and all but it’s a fact that not every director can make it entertaining. I have my specific short list of directors that I would gladly watch their action productions anytime and Go Ohara doesn’t belong to that list Instead, he made a respectable piece of work that doesn’t wholeheartedly depend on action and guns’ play.

This film has more sides to it than the action part. The story of a cold-hearted assassin thinking twice about his life because of a girl is not original in any way but this isn’t exactly a romance, the core of this film is the friendship. Ryo and Misaki’s bromance is priceless, especially after the revelation of their past relationship and the way they survived together; that was probably my favorite part of the film. The acting may not have been the best, seriously it was unbalanced at many points but the main characters were good enough to make the whole department satisfying and the film watchable.

Action wise, this film is low leveled; it’s not because the lack of action but many moments seemed fake. An action lover doesn’t look for realism when watching the genre but it doesn’t have to be plainly obvious like that. Some fighting scenes were uneven and incoherent but the shooting angles and techniques made it up for the bad guns’ play choreography.

The ending of this film was quite expected; I’ve seen that kind of finale repeating in many similar films that’s why I had some hope that it will end otherwise. This is not a fluffy storyline and I consider that a strength point.

Watch if:
-You’re looking for a decent Japanese action film.
-You’re in the mood for action but not the shallow type.

Do not watch if:
-You’re looking for something fluffy.
-You’re looking for a romantic story.

An Assassin is a good action films that stands out a little from the usual Japanese norm. It’s not a masterpiece but it’s definitely a nice watch.

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An interesting film that doesn't really know what to do with itself.

Short review, it's worth watching if you're there for a specific reason, but I can't see myself recommending it to anyone. It's so non-committal to a lot of what it tries that it leaves you afterwards just thinking about what could have made it better and questioning what it was trying. Try it out if you fancy it, it's got some diamonds in the dirt, but they're small gleams of what could have been great.

Longer review, every bit of it feels as if they just got a slightly better person onto the job, it'd be wholly a very solid movie, but as it stands, it's weak. The premise is interesting, and it's got good foundations, but it tries to layer too many things on at once. The movie would have been so much better if it simply focused on two of the main characters, as it seems to not quite solidify itself into what it wants to be. Does it want to be a romance between an assassin and an innocent girl, or does it want to be a gritty tale about two assassins who worked together since childhood? It tries to burn it at both ends and ends up fizzling out.

The script is just okay, it does the job. It does some lacklustre attempts at being deep in areas, but again, the lack of commitment to what it wants to be doesn't help. It tries a lot, some hits and some misses. The highlight was the actors themselves. Ryoma and Yuki give some great performances, not their best, but if you like either of them, then you'll see them really get into their role here. Even with a slightly poor script, they gave it their all, and you'll get some good moments out of it. It does have some rather good visuals in places, but it's not exactly idealistic to look at half the time, either. It attempted, but didn't quite reach the mark.

The worst part, personally speaking, was the weird unattentiveness to detail with the whole premise of the film, that being the assassination business. The tone the movie sets wants you to think to be realistic and gritty but it takes you back out of that over and over again. Countless times, you see things that would clearly not work, nor be done in the underworld that it tries to portray, and it ends up looking stupid. It takes you seriously out of the moment, and I personally found myself in fits of laughter at the ending sequence. It tried to have a serious moment and yet it turned around into being goofy. After you've stepped back from the film after the fact, you realise half of what was going on wouldn't have worked in almost any situation but the movie. If it set a different tone, then it'd probably work in it's favour, but it just doesn't know what it wants to do.

In conclusion, it's an interesting watch, but that's about it. You won't get anything deeper than that, particularly. One can enjoy it still, but it's really a form of something that could have pulled off something better.

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