The Assembly

One of the software applications I installed on my Dell 1705 is VeohTV, which is similar to YouTube but is much smaller. However, unlike YouTube where uploads are limited to 10 minutes, Veoh allows unlimited length uploads and you can also download the original video file in its original format; YouTube and Google Video converts the files to Flash (.flv). Anyway, since my parents are taking the computer back with them to Canada, I was showing them how to use Veoh to search for movies. My dad put in "chinese movies" and among the search results were The Three Kingdoms and The Assembly.



I've seen The Three Kingdoms starring Andy Lau and Maggie Q, but I've never heard of The Assembly. It turns out to be a war film, similar to Saving Private Ryan, but telling a story from the Chinese Communist POV. Surprisingly, it was pretty apolitical and really focused on the story of one man during and after wars. The movie starts out strong with lots of gory battle scenes between the Communists and the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War, then follows one of the characters, Captain Gu, to the Korean War then his life afterwards. It was pretty enjoyable overall but the plot becomes pretty predictable during the latter half of the film. Here is a longer review from Love HK Film.com.