[E-Daily Starin YUN GI BACK Reporter] Amid controversy over historical distortion, the film “The Assassin(s)” continues to meet with audiences through scheduled stage greetings, even as it faces political and legal battles as well as criticism directed at its cast. Attention is focused on the fact that, rather than scaling back official schedules to avoid the controversy, the lead actors and director have chosen to visit theaters in person.

According to the film industry on the 2nd, Director Heo Jin-ho and actors Yoo Hae-jin, Park Hae-il, and Lee Min-ho will attend stage greetings scheduled for the second week of the film’s release on the 3rd and 4th in the Gyeonggi and Incheon regions. On the 5th, they will also meet with audiences in Busan. Although Ryu Hye-young, Jang Ryul, and Choi Yu-ri—who were originally on the list of attendees—have been excluded from some events, a film official explained that this was due to adjustments in the stage greeting schedule rather than a decision stemming from the recent controversy. More significant than the reduction in the number of attendees is the fact that the three lead actors and the director—who have been at the center of the controversy—will be present as scheduled.
The controversy surrounding the film has spread beyond evaluations of the work itself to the individual actors. In particular, the intensity of attacks directed at Yoo Hae-jin appears to be escalating. Online, comments mocking Yoo Hae-jin’s appearance or calling for his removal from advertising campaigns have been flooding in, and the comment function on Burger King’s official YouTube ads featuring him has been disabled. Furthermore, the controversy has spread to the actor’s private life, as some groups have announced plans to hold protest rallies in front of his home. This has led to concerns that criticism of the film’s historical interpretation is escalating into personal pressure targeting the cast members.
It’s not just Yoo Hae-jin. Criticism has also flooded the social media accounts of other cast members, such as Lee Min-ho and Ryu Hye-young, and the attacks have even spread to fellow actors who watched the film or wrote recommendations for it. With some groups even announcing plans to hold protests in front of Yoo Hae-jin’s home, concerns are growing that the line between criticism of the film and personal attacks on the actors is becoming blurred.
Political and legal battles are also intensifying. “The Assassin(s)” is based on the 1974 assassination of First Lady Yuk Young-soo, using cinematic imagination to reconstruct the mysteries and hypotheses that cannot be fully explained by the official investigation results of that time. Certain figures within the People Power Party and the Park Chung-hee Presidential Memorial Foundation have criticized scenes in the film—such as those where characters mention the possibility of intervention by government agencies at the time—as historical distortion. The Foundation demanded an official apology from the production company and a halt to screenings.

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon argued that while he opposes prior censorship that restricts film production itself, criticizing the historical depictions in a commercially released film is also a form of freedom of expression. In contrast, the production team countered that the film is not intended to reaffirm specific historical conclusions or to deny or distort existing facts, but is a fictional drama that adds cinematic imagination to publicly available records and materials.
The controversy has escalated into legal proceedings. Following the filing of a criminal complaint against Director Heo and the production team for defamation by spreading false information, civic groups—objecting to organized group viewings—filed complaints against officials from the Office of the President, as well as the ministers of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Consequently, the scope of the dispute has expanded beyond the film industry to include the government and public institutions.
Pressure surrounding the film is also evident in the realms of criticism and content creation. The film YouTuber JiMubi, who has 4.17 million subscribers, deleted videos related to *The Assassin(s)*, and film critic Lee Dong-jin’s review video was set to “unlisted.” However, since JiMubi’s team did not specify the reason for the deletion, it has not been confirmed that there is a direct link to the controversy.
Critic Lee Dong-jin has since stated that he has no intention of retracting his assessment or apologizing. He maintains that the controversial remark was not intended to identify former President Park Chung-hee as the mastermind behind the incident, but rather to explain how the film dramatically constructs the questions surrounding the events of that time.
Ultimately, the controversy surrounding *The Assassin(s)* began as a debate over the film’s historical interpretation but escalated into political sparring and legal complaints, as well as malicious comments and advertising attacks targeting individual actors, and even became a matter of freedom of criticism. Even amid this situation, the fact that the director and lead actors are continuing with their scheduled stage greetings is interpreted as a choice to meet with audiences directly, separate from the controversy surrounding the film. At the same time, a debate is intensifying over where the line is drawn between permissible criticism of the film and attacks on the creators and actors as individuals.