The Oscars have warped my brain on international cinema. Here I am mocking some of the drivel the US is making, totally forgetting other countries are doing the same thing. My Dearest Assassin gets the added benefit of being a double palate cleanser, both on great international cinema and martial arts movies, two things I love. Hey, at least there isn’t soulless live action Disney cash grab behind this one: and for that, I’m always gonna give films like this one a shot.
The world of My Dearest Assassin is built around O Negative blood types, the universal donor. Here it’s called Aurum blood, and the rare humans that have it are commodities for the ultra rich. One employer of a dying rich person sends a Hunter, Phruek (Toni Rakkaen), to track down a believe Aurum person in Vietnam, Lhan (Baifern Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul). As Phruek is about to capture her, Po (Chai Chartayodom Hiranyasthiti) and his assassin army arrives, saving Lhan by hiding her in Thailand. Lhan is hidden inside Po’s house of hitmen; he puts the young Pran (Tor Thanapob Leeratanakachorn) and M (Porsche Sivakorn Adulsuttikul) in charge of Lhan’s safety. As the trio grow up together, Phruek’s debts to the ultra rich send him back on the hunt for the “Vietnamese” girl with the golden ticket blood.
My Dearest Assassin does the best with what it can. It’s basically two locations, and two giant setpieces. For the CGI explosives fans, this film goes all in on fireballs as punctuation marks to fights, as the stunt performers really selling out trying to convince you what’s happening isn’t just special effects. The two big action sequences are solid enough, with a few cool maneuvers that’ll rise you out of the Netflix and chill. The commitment to real gross blood spurts gives a nice bit of shock as well when the movie needs to hammer home a point. As far as story goes, the lack of IP means we get real stakes for once: characters actually die, and it actually means something. A low bar for sure, but without it, I think My Dearest Assassin would have been much worse. The end credits are stupid though, and just make things more confusing.
The screenplay ultimately betrays this movie most of all. My Dearest Assassin tries to walk the line between romantic soap opera and gritty action movie it can’t quite wrangle. After just gruesome blood letting during a visceral action sequence, for example, we cut to a “sex” scene, prudish even by American standards that makes it feel more like a dream than any sort of emotional connection between the leads. The seasoned TV and music video leads try the best they can, but there’s a lot of playing up at a 10 or down to a 1, with not a lot of time for any nuance whatsoever. I was hoping the plot would help manufacture some drama, but it doesn’t. There’s a built in twist I kept waiting to happen, that the story doesn’t have the balls to write, undercutting a more emotional climax for a clean ending. I can forgive a couple of these things, but the combination of serviceable action with actively poor storytelling means My Dearest Assassin falls into forgettable land.
But that’s fine. I’ve reset my expectations for international filmmakers, lowering the bar for you to surprise me again with your amazing stuff. And, more importantly, I know what a mediocre action movie is again, so when The Furious comes out this summer, I’m gonna stand up and applaud the unholy supernatural violence ballet I’m going to witness in that film.