Assembly

Assembly is set during the Chinese Civil War and follows Captain Gu Zidi, commander of the Ninth Company of the People's Liberation Army. Ordered to hold a position against Kuomintang forces until a signal horn sounds the retreat, Gu Zidi and his men fight on through a battle that leaves almost none of them alive. Because no horn was heard, the company's sacrifice goes unrecognized, and Gu Zidi spends the following years seeking acknowledgment for his fallen comrades against a military bureaucracy that questions whether they died as heroes at all. Directed by Feng Xiaogang from a screenplay by Liu Heng, the film is the fourth of the thirteen features he has directed in chronological order, arriving between The Banquet and If You Are the One. Zhang Hanyu leads the cast as Gu Zidi, with Deng Chao, Yuan Wenkang, Tang Yan, Liao Fan and Baoqiang Wang among the twenty-four credited performers. Produced by John Chong, Ren Zhonglun and Wang Zhongjun across companies in Hong Kong, mainland China and Korea, Assembly was made for about 16 million US dollars and took roughly 35 million worldwide, a strong multiple of its cost. On TMDB it holds a 6.9 rating from 153 votes, indicating a generally favorable but not unanimous response from viewers.