Yoo Young-ha, former lawyer for Park Geun-hye, threatens to expose 'cunning lies' behind film 'The Assassins'

Yoo Young-ha, a People Power Party lawmaker and former defense attorney for ex-President Park Geun-hye, warned Thursday the makers of the film "The Assassins" that they would be held accountable, saying they would "slowly but relentlessly face consequences — and come to know how it ends." The controversy surrounding the film has continued to spill into the National Assembly.

In a Facebook post Thursday, Yoo said he was certain the filmmakers would not escape responsibility. "Make no mistake — it is too late, and there is no avoiding this," he wrote.

Yoo challenged the production team to "go ahead and say with an open mouth that this is freedom of expression and the realm of creativity," adding: "Let me be clear. You have touched a nerve that should never have been touched, and you have crossed a line that should never have been crossed." He went on to say that the controversy might briefly boost the film's box office through the noise it generates, telling the filmmakers to "enjoy it while you can — enjoy your last supper." He added, however, that they had "poked the wrong thing," warning that "there are tricks that work and tricks that don't, and you will find out what price you pay for your scheming."

Yoo said he would soon release materials "that will let the whole world see just how absurd your cunning lies are," accusing the filmmakers of having "looked down too much on the world and on the people."

He also warned that the filmmakers would find "not even a square meter of ground in this country to hide in," and added: "You probably didn't know. You didn't know what horrors await when you open Pandora's box."

In an earlier Facebook post, Yoo had called "The Assassins" "blatant political propaganda," saying it "twisted clear facts to distort history and gravely damaged the honor of the late President Park Chung-hee." He described the film as "an act of moral depravity that drove a nail into the hearts of bereaved family members who still carry the raw pain of that wound, and a betrayal of our history."

The People Power Party has been pressing its offensive against the film at the party level as well, pushing for the film's screening to be halted and calling for director Heo Jin-ho and others to appear before a national audit.

Rep. Jo Eun-hee, who leads her party's side on the culture and sports committee, raised the issue at a recent floor strategy meeting, noting that director Kim Deok-young of "The Birth of Korea" had appeared in person as a reference witness at the committee's national audit on Oct. 23 last year. "It would be problematic if the standard changed after just one year," she said, calling for an emergency hearing or the director's appearance at the national audit.

"The Assassins," which opened Monday, is based on the real-life incident of Aug. 15, 1974, when Mun Se-gwang, a second-generation Korean resident of Japan, fired a gun in an attempt to assassinate President Park Chung-hee, killing first lady Yuk Young-soo.

While the film does not explicitly identify who was behind the attack, it includes scenes in which characters raise the hypothesis that Park's own side or the Central Intelligence Agency may have planned the incident — prompting the People Power Party and others to accuse it of distorting history.

Regarding the controversy, the production team said the film "was not made to newly establish a specific historical conclusion or to deny or distort existing facts," according to Yonhap. The team described it as "a dramatic film reconstructed by adding cinematic imagination to various records related to the 1974 historical incident, using that event as its motif."

The filmmakers said the film "does not identify any specific individual as the mastermind behind the incident anywhere, nor does it present the hypotheses and dramatic settings in the film as historical fact." They added: "We wish to make clear that this film was not made with any specific political purpose beyond the work's own creative intent and character. We ask that you view the work purely as a product of creativity."

The production team said they had "conducted broad research into publicly available records, materials, books and documentaries, and completed a single story by using the actual incident and figures as a motif while combining fictional characters and situations."