''Assassins'' is a 2020 American

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

film, directed and produced by

Ryan White Ryan Wayne White (December 6, 1971 – April 8, 1990) was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States after his school barred him from attending classes following a diagn ...

. It talks about the assassination of Kim Jong-nam and the two assassins who were tricked. The film had its world premiere at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

on January 26, 2020. It was released on December 11, 2020, by Greenwich Entertainment.

Synopsis

The film follows the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, as he is assassinated by two young women who were tricked and thought they were participating in a prank show.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

on January 26, 2020. Shortly after,

Magnolia Pictures Magnolia Pictures LLC is an American independent film distributor and production company, and is a subsidiary of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in ...

acquired distribution rights to the film. Due to the subject matter, the film struggled to find distribution, with Magnolia opting to release the film internationally instead, and

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

acquiring rights to the film before dropping it. In September 2020, Greenwich Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It was released on December 11, 2020. In June 2021, ''Assassins'' was granted art movie status following an initial rejection by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) in May 2021.

Reception

Critical reception

''Assassins'' received positive reviews from film critics. It holds approval rating on the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "A deft and illuminating journalistic investigation, ''Assassins'' depicts the mechanics of North Korean politics to a chilling effect." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film holds a rating of 74 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

References

External links

* * * {{Ryan White 2020 films 2020 documentary films American documentary films Films scored by Blake Neely Documentary films about nuclear war and weapons Documentary films about law Documentary films about organized crime Documentary films about North Korea Documentary films about death 2020s American films