'The Assassin' stirs political firestorm, defamation complaint as Park Chan-wook praises film

"The Assassin," embroiled in a historical distortion controversy and facing calls from conservative politicians to pull it from theaters, slipped to second place at the box office on its sixth day of release.

According to the Korean Film Council's integrated ticketing system KOBIS, the film drew about 67,000 admissions nationwide Monday, capturing a 26.8 percent revenue share, narrowly losing the top spot to "Tazza: Song of Beelzebub" — the fourth installment in the Tazza franchise — which drew about 68,000 viewers. The film crossed the 1 million admissions mark in just four days and drew about 1.4 million viewers over the Chuseok holiday alone, bringing its cumulative audience to about 1.56 million. The margin between the two films was roughly 1,000 admissions, a gap shaped by the post-holiday drop in overall attendance and screen allocation, suggesting the film's box-office momentum has not stalled.

More combustible than the rankings battle, however, is the historical controversy the film has ignited. The film uses as its narrative engine a hypothetical scenario — beyond the official conclusion that North Korea and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan acted alone — suggesting possible involvement by figures at the heart of the then-ruling government or the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in the Aug. 15, 1974 shooting of first lady Yuk Young-soo.

Conservative politicians and the Park Chung-hee Presidential Memorial Foundation launched an immediate offensive, demanding the film be withdrawn from theaters. People Power Party floor leader Jang Dong-hyeok said, "When someone touches former President Roh Moo-hyun, they get sued — but insulting former President Park Chung-hee is freedom of expression?" He added, "Is freedom of expression the exclusive property of the left?" Lawmaker Joo Jin-woo called the film "an immoral crime that breaks the hearts of the bereaved family and a matter for strict punishment." Lawmaker Yoo Young-ha and PPP chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon also sharpened their criticism, calling it "blatant political propaganda and incitement." The Park Chung-hee Presidential Memorial Foundation issued a statement saying the film "degraded a national tragedy into entertainment and distorted the facts," and demanded a public apology from the production company and the immediate halt of all screenings nationwide.

Despite the political pressure, director Park Chan-wook, who joined director Heo Jin-ho on a special post-screening stage event, made no effort to hide his admiration for the film. "When I saw the result, I was genuinely amazed at how brilliantly it was conceived — I marveled at how clever and smart it was, more than once," Park said. "I was truly astonished watching it. It was like watching scenes from a Brian De Palma film."

As the controversy spread, production company Hive Mediacorp and the filmmakers said "The Assassin" is "a dramatic feature film that adds cinematic imagination to publicly available records, inspired by a historical event of 1974," and that there was "no intention to establish any particular conclusion or distort the facts." They added that "nowhere in the film is any specific individual identified as the mastermind behind the incident, nor are hypotheses presented as facts," and asked audiences to "view it as a work of pure creative expression with no political purpose."

Online opinion, however, has fractured sharply along ideological lines. The film holds a 91 percent approval rating on CGV's verified-viewer Golden Egg Index and an 8.3 out of 10 on Naver's verified-viewer score, reflecting solid support for its artistic merit. At the same time, its general portal rating has fallen to 2.2 out of 10, the result of what many observers have described as an organized review-bombing campaign.

Adding to the pressure, former Seoul city council member Lee Jong-bae of the People Power Party filed a criminal complaint Tuesday with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, accusing director Heo and the production team of defamation through the publication of false facts under the Criminal Act. Lee argued that "even the film's title — not 'Assassin' but the plural 'Assassins' — implies the existence of another perpetrator beyond Moon Se-gwang," and that the film leads audiences "to perceive that former President Park Chung-hee may have been behind or involved in the assassination."

Meanwhile, as of Tuesday morning, the Japanese animated film "Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island" led real-time advance ticket sales with a 40.8 percent share, while "The Assassin" held second place at 11.3 percent.