After drawing 12 million moviegoers in Korea, “Assassin” is reaping quite a success in North America. According to Showbox on the 15th, “Assassination” (director Choi Dong-hoon, production Caper Film) was released on August 7 in 25 regions in North America, including New York, L.A., and Washington, and became the 4th highest-grossing Korean film in North America. It will stay in the US theaters for an extended time. The US box office statistics website Box Office Mojo calculated that “Assassination” drew in a total of US$ 1.8 million as of September 10 (6th week of release). This record follows behind “Roaring Current” (US$ 2.58 million), “International Market” (US$ 2.3 million), and “The Host” (US$ 2.2 million), ranking 4th in all-time box office records for Korean movies released in North America. 
 

The movie’s North American distributor Well Go USA explained, “There’s an 80% reservation rate for even weekday daytime and late night screenings. The tickets are still selling out. Major North American cinemas are extending the screening of ‘Assassination,’ so we are in for a long-term race.” The question now is whether “Assassination” can surpass “The Host” and take the third place in the ranking. “Assassination” has an 83% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and received positive reviews from various media channels. “Variety” wrote, “Helmer Choi artfully spices the tasty mix with a few welcome comic moments” and “L.A. Times” praised the director who “nimbly orchestrates to entertaining effects this mass game of cat-and-mouse.” 

“Assassination” is a suspense film set in Shanghai and Seoul in 1933. It draws the fates of a contract killer, independence fighters and a provincial government agent surrounding the plot to assassinate a pro-Japanese commander. The movie became the first Korean film released this year to reach the 10 million admission mark and rewrote the box office charts for 2015.