This trick on it's own is ok, but can be done with a regular deck. It is nice to have the little smily faces but you are pretty much only confined to this trick. The idea is nice and you might get some good reactions but overall, this trick isn't for me. That is why I gave it thumbs down but that's just me. You may love this trick and if you do then for sure buy it. As for the handling, the trick is pretty simple to do so beginners can do it and it doesn't require a lot of practice.

I brought the Smiling Assassin about two months ago and when it arrived i said "is that it?" as it had one of the simplest secrets behind it. when ever i use this Deck i get awesome Reactions. i would recommend it for any one and everyone as it is a very effective trick and also very easy to use.

TITLE: Smiling Assassin by Meir Yedid

Effect: A spectator picks a card from a deck with smiley faces on it's back. The card is then placed into the center of the deck. The magician then hands a small gun to the spectator and tells them to take aim at the smiley face and pull the trigger. A loud bang goes off. The magician then goes through the cards and it turns out that one card is different...it's no longer smiling, but instead is frowning with "x" marks for it's eyes. It also has what looks like a bloody hole in the center of it's forehead.

Price: $25.00

Teaching: This trick is VERY simple to learn and perform. You could create more advanced handling yourself with different shuffles, cuts, and forces, but the basic version that is taught in the instructions seems to work really well. The instructions that come with the trick are well written and illustrated. I was performing the trick in no time after going through the written instructions. There is also a Penguin learning video that you get access to if you buy it from Penguin. Oz teaches you a slightly different version of the trick that I personally don't like quite as much, but it's still good teaching. Overall, I think the trick is really easy to learn and the teaching aids provided via video and printed material are great.

Quality of materials: The quality of the product is great. The deck looks really cool with the smiley faces, and they fit really well with the patter that they suggest about how some people really just don't like smiley faces. The cards with the hole in them are VERY nice. There are four of them, so you can do the trick a few times without really having to worry about someone possibly seeing the same card again. Not only are the backs perfectly printed, the hole on the card actually has some burn marks around it to make it seem even more like a bullet penetrated the card. The small cap gun that is included is actually pretty nice looking, as well. From reading the PO forum, there are three different versions of the gun that you can get. I got one that looks like an old flintlock pistol from a pirate movie. I think it actually looks pretty good, and it gets good laughs when you pull it out and hand it to someone. The ONLY problem with the overall quality of the product is the caps that are supplied aren't very nice. I couldn't get them to fire on the gun, however, when I purchase some other caps from the store they worked fine....so it's not the gun, just the caps. I even like the box that the cards come in. It has a clear front so you can clearly see the smiley face deck.

Difficulty: As I stated earlier, the trick is EXTREMELY easy to do. With a basic force just about anyone could do it, however, it would also be able to be done with any number of forces, so if you have some false shuffles and some more eye pleasing forces, then you could obviously do those as well. I've performed the trick a few times and I only use the very basic handling given in the written instructions, and it's very easy to do that way. But it still gets good reactions.

Applications: This would be a great trick for most close up work. I think if you modified it slightly it would be good for restaurant work. You wouldn't want to use the caps for restaurant work, but you could just use the gun without the caps, or if you didn't feel comfortable using the gun at all you could always just have the specs use their fingers as a gun. Being a card trick it's obviously not set up well for stage work without some kind of video system, but I would think that it would go over well with a large audience so if you have that type of system so that an audience can watch a card trick, I think it would work well. It's a good trick to put into a routine where you are doing some comedy, because it seems to make people laugh.

In Closing: I really like this trick. It's one of those tricks that when I saw the demo video on Penguin I knew instantly how it was done but I was still really entertained by it. I like performing it because it's a trick that can get your specs involved and it also seems to generate some really good laughs. People seem to really get a kick out of it. Overall, I've been really happy with the effect.

This Trick is awsome
its soooo easy but very effective
its great for people of all ages
The Only problem i had is the caps were not firing
But Still a Great Trick
i cant belive your still reading this
ADD TO CART =)

Great trick! Always gets great reactions. I highly reccomend this for any magicean! But it is a little expensive

I was so excited to get this trick i finally got it, it is so easy to do, even a begennier can do it, but you get a nice effect in the end and alot of the time you will get alot of laughs and people saying What The #*, how did you do that?

This is a great product, but the only downfall is your not allowed to take toy guns to school. But for anywhere else this effect would be great.

The Smiling Assassin is a spectacular trick and I highly recommed it to everyone. There are a couple of reasons that you should add this to your cart immediately: First of all, it is very easy to do. Secondly, people of all ages truly enjoy it. I performed this at a birthday party recently, and the kids who witnessed it were amazed, calling it one of the coolest tricks they had ever seen! You can't go wrong with the Smiling Assassin!

This is one of my favorite tricks. everyone really gets a kick out of it, not to hard to learn either. i advise everyone to get it, the price is a litte high,but if you like to walk around showing magic this is a top choice. enough reading this and put in your cart.

This trick is good for two reasons. It is very very easy to preform and when the spectator finds the hole in the cards head they just are in a state of bewilderment. I love to preform this to get the reactions.