Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: after witnessing the senseless slaughter of her parents, a young woman barely escapes with her life and trains to become a professional assassin in order to exact vengeance on her family’s killers. It’s a tried and true recipe that has formed the foundation for hundreds of revenge pictures, ranging from Hollywood fare to Z-grade exploitation flicks, but Thai director Taweewat Wantha and screenwriter Wattana Weerayawattana attempt to put their own spin on the subgenre with My Dearest Assassin. Unique to this narrative is that the targeted heroine also possesses an extremely rare blood type, one that less than one ten-thousandth of the population possesses and which makes her a prime target to offer regenerative capabilities to an elite class that would pay good money to suck the proletariat dry. But while this setup has apt potential for potent social commentary, and action sequences are certainly aplenty, Wantha’s film often misses more than it hits, going through the motions in largely uninspired fashion, and leaving the finished product devoid of any sense of style or distinct skill. A film with as much action as My Dearest Assassin should not leave one feel like they are waging a war with the Sandman while watching.
The aforementioned young woman is Lahn (eventually played by Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul), who resides in Vietnam and is a carrier of an exceptionally rare “aurum blood” that would make her a valuable commodity on the black market. Tragedy strikes immediately when Lahn is tracked down by a gang of hunters, led by petulant killer Pruek (Theerachai Wimolchaireuk), who guns down Lahn’s parents and leaves the young girl scarred, both physically and emotionally. (How the hunters seemed to have tracked down this individual based on a rare blood type is never made clear). Coming to Lahn’s resuce is House 89, an inexplicable group of friendly assassins, saving the freshly-orphaned girl from capture and welcoming her into their surrogate family. Training under the tutelage of leader Poh (Chartayodom Hiranyatithi) and bonding with similarly-aged members M (Sivakorn Adulsuttikul) and Pran (Thanapob Leeratanakachorn), the latter of whom forms a romantic interest, Lahn acquits herself well into this network of contract killers. But her thirst for vengeance knows no bounds, and she remains discontent to carry on while Pruek roams free.
Disappointingly, the aurum blood setup goes basically nowhere, merely established as an excuse to keep Lahn alive while everyone around her is murdered, but hastily forgotten by the time the second half of the film rolls around. It seems like a missed opportunity given the hubbub of My Dearest Assassin’s opening text crawl, but Wantha opts to shift focus to life in House 89, finding the heart of the picture with the trio of young killers trapped in deadly circumstances. House 89 operates as a cohesive unit, and one extended sequence in an art gallery that demonstrates their proficiency with eliminating a target in public completely undetected should be a film highlight. Unfortunately, Wantha’s film lacks any excitement or atmosphere, rotely playing out events on screen but leaving them entirely lifeless, helped in no part by the digital sheen of Netflix’s house style. Wantha keeps the action steady — other notable sequences include a lengthy raid on House 89’s base of operations and an extended showdown in an apartment complex — but there are no thrills to be found, just lurches from one set piece to the next. A film of this ilk need not rise to the level of rocket science, but neither should it amount to anything less than your standard boilerplate streaming service actioner, one that occasionally goes *boom* to snap the audience’s attention awake. In short: there is an exceptional Southeast Asian-set action film about a young woman in trouble arriving in 2026, which is why you should prioritize seeing The Furious when it hits a cinema near you soon.
DIRECTOR: Taweewat Wantha; CAST: Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul, Thanapob Leeratanakachorn, Sivakorn Adulsuttikul, Chartayodom Hiranyatithi; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: May 7; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 7 min.
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