'Is the National Assembly a film censorship unit?' she asks on Facebook
Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Choi Min-hee has drawn a line against calls to summon the director of "The Assassin," a film embroiled in a historical distortion controversy, to a national audit.
Choi posted on Facebook on Tuesday saying she opposed summoning director Heo Jin-ho of "The Assassin" to the national audit. "Is the National Assembly a film censorship unit?" she wrote, noting that the People Power Party wanted to scrutinize the film's content.
On Monday, Choi had also taken aim at PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok on Facebook. "Has Jang fought and fought until he's now fighting a movie?" she wrote. "The Assassin is fiction. What good does it do to stir up trouble?"
She added that she planned to go see the film herself.
In a separate post, she briefly noted that "The Assassin" had surpassed 1.5 million admissions.
"The Assassin" is based on the shooting of first lady Yuk Young-soo at a Liberation Day ceremony on Aug. 15, 1974. In the film, detectives and journalists grow suspicious when what they witnessed or reported contradicts the official account released by the investigation headquarters, and they set out to uncover the truth behind the incident.
The PPP has criticized the film as a distortion of history, arguing it implies that former President Park Chung-hee or the Korean Central Intelligence Agency at the time may have been behind the shooting. The party has also signaled its intention to summon director Heo to the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee national audit to question the film's content and the circumstances of its production.
Meanwhile, last year's national audit of the same committee saw director Kim Deok-young of "The Birth of Korea" series — which sparked debate over its portrayal of South Korea's first president Syngman Rhee — appear as a reference witness. However, Kim was called to testify not over historical distortion or freedom of expression, but in connection with whether the Korean Film Council had recognized the film as an independent production.
jshan@heraldcorp.com
