The recently released South Korean crime political thriller The Assassin(s), have courted controversy over allegations of historical distortion. As a result of it, members of conservative civic groups held a protest near lead actor Yoo Hae-jin’s home in Seoul on Sunday. They demanded an apology from the film’s team and even asked for it to be pulled from theaters. Responding to the protest, Hae-jin’s agency released a statement on his behalf.
“We will take a firm stance against any actions that violate the actor’s privacy, threaten his safety or tarnish his reputation,” the agency said in a statement. They also assured that they were collecting relevant online materials to take necessary measures to protect Hae-jin’s rights and safety against illegal acts. South Korea’s Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young also spoke out against the protesters on Monday. “People are free to judge a film, but threats to the personal safety of its creators destroy democracy. If criticism of a film goes so far as to bring protesters to an actor’s home, intrude on private life and threaten personal safety, it must not be tolerated,” he wrote on social media.
The Assassin(s) revolves around the 1974 assassination attempt on then-President Park Chung-hee, who had survived the attack, but then-first lady Yuk Young-soo was killed. An official investigation in the assassination had concluded that Mun Se-gwang, a Korean resident of Japan, acted alone under instructions linked to North Korea. The film, however, suggests possible complicity by government and intelligence officials, which has been panned by critics as historical distortion and defamation.
{{/usCountry}}The Assassin(s) revolves around the 1974 assassination attempt on then-President Park Chung-hee, who had survived the attack, but then-first lady Yuk Young-soo was killed. An official investigation in the assassination had concluded that Mun Se-gwang, a Korean resident of Japan, acted alone under instructions linked to North Korea. The film, however, suggests possible complicity by government and intelligence officials, which has been panned by critics as historical distortion and defamation.
{{/usCountry}}But the filmmakers have denied the allegations, calling their film a fictionalized reconstruction based on historical records. They have asserted that the film did not identify any particular person for being behind the incident or present its fictional hypotheses as a historical fact.