'The Assassin(s)' draws backlash for allegedly revisiting conspiracies about 1974 first lady shooting
The People Power Party has argued that the film is based on a conspiracy theory suggesting that then-President Park Chung Hee himself was behind his wife's death.
A still from the Korean film "The Assassin(s)"HIVE MEDIA CORP
“The Assassin(s),” a film about the 1974 failed assassination attempt on then-President Park Chung Hee that killed his wife, Yuk Young-soo, has drawn backlash from the opposition over its implication that the truth may differ from the government’s official account at the time.
The film centers on the shooting of the then-first lady during a Liberation Day ceremony on Aug. 15, 1974. A special investigation team at the time concluded that Mun Se-gwang — acting under orders from Pyongyang and the pro-North Korea General Association of Korean Residents in Japan — tried to shoot Park as he delivered a Liberation Day address but missed; instead, he fatally shot Yuk, who was seated beside her husband. Mun was executed at the Seoul Detention Center on Dec. 20 that year.
Claims that Yuk was struck by a bullet fired by a member of the presidential security detail rather than by Mun had been raised in the past, but public attention toward the incident intensified in early 2005, when diplomatic documents about the shooting were released, and the SBS investigative program “Unanswered Questions” (1992–) examined the case.
The plot of “The Assassin(s)” revolves around a journalist and detective who investigate the case but are obstructed by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), a powerful body under Park’s authoritarian government.
“The film ‘The Assassin(s)’ distorts the assassination of [Yuk] to make it appear as if [Park], rather than North Korea, was behind it,” Rep. Joo Jin-woo of the People Power Party (PPP) wrote on Facebook on Sunday. “This isn’t creative liberty. It’s a morally reprehensible offense that causes immense pain to the bereaved family.”
He then asked, “If a film came out claiming that [former] first lady Kwon Yang-sook ordered the death of former President Roh Moo-hyun, would that also be freedom of expression?”
The opposition party argues that the film is based on a conspiracy theory suggesting that Park himself was behind his wife’s death. Although the film has an open ending, critics within the PPP say that it still leaves enough room for viewers to interpret the shooting as being staged by Park, following mounting political opposition.
A still from the Korean film “The Assassin(s)”HIVE MEDIA CORP
“This film is the [South] Korean version of a North Korean movie claiming that the KCIA carried out [Yuk’s] assassination on [the president’s] orders,” Rep. Park Choong-kwon, a North Korean defector and fellow PPP lawmaker, said.
Rep. Kim Sang-hoon, a four-term PPP lawmaker, called the movie “an extremely biased act that twists perceptions of history.”
“The Assassin(s)” — directed by Hur Jin-ho, known for films such as “Christmas in August” (1998) and “The Last Princess” (2016) — was released on Wednesday and has performed relatively well at the box office, drawing more than 1.3 million moviegoers during the Chuseok holiday period, which ran until Sunday.
But as of Sunday, the film had an online user rating of 2.6 on a platform open to reviews from anyone. However, its rating among verified moviegoers stood at 8.6, suggesting that online sentiment was much more negative than among those who had seen the film.
Comments about the film include, “Even fiction shouldn’t cross the line this far,” and “Does the left think that people can kill even their own family for political gain?”
A still from the Korean film “The Assassin(s)”HIVE MEDIA CORP
Remarks by figures in the film industry have also contributed to the negative reaction, some observers say.
“When you consider that something similar could have happened today had [the martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024] not been suppressed, the film is well worth watching for young people,” director Park Chan-wook said during a discussion with moviegoers at CGV Wangsimni in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul, on Saturday.
Film critic Lee Dong-jin was criticized for blurring the line between fact and fiction after pointing to a discrepancy between the gunshots heard in the film and the number of bullets cited in the authorities’ official account.
“Where did the rest [of the gunshots] come from?” Lee asked in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on Friday.
“The controversy might not have grown this much if people had simply said that film should be viewed as a film,” a PPP source said. “The problem is that it blends historical fact with a political message in a way that makes it feel more like propaganda than a film.”
A still from the Korean film “The Assassin(s)”HIVE MEDIA CORP
The party also raised broader concerns about the industry.
“Isn’t the structure of the film industry itself dominated by left-wing forces and capital that has no choice but to cooperate with them?” PPP Rep. Na Kyung-won said. “There has been unspoken pressure from left-wing forces on the film market.”
Rep. Na’s comments were directed at Hive Media Corp, the production company behind “The Assassin(s)” and other historical box-office hits including “The Man Standing Next” (2020) and “12.12: The Day” (2023).
“In a society as ideologically divided as ours, creators have a responsibility to consider what kind of reaction content based on conspiracy theories could trigger,” Koo Jeong-woo, a sociology professor at Sungkyunkwan University, said. “There is a need to clearly explain the limits of creative liberties.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
