Watching the controversial film “The Assassin(s)” the other day, I found myself choking up more than once. I asked myself why. The film is hardly a melodrama. It is a deftly crafted political mystery thriller, moving briskly through a succession of suspenseful scenes. Some viewers may simply enjoy it as gripping entertainment.
For me, however, it was an unsettling encounter with an era I had lived through. The film’s vivid reconstruction of the 1970s brought back memories that had lain dormant for half a century. I sat through the lengthy closing credits, then left the theater recalling a bleak winter afternoon in 1975.
It was mid-December, 16 months after first lady Yuk Young-soo was fatally shot during the Liberation Day ceremony at the National Theater on Aug. 15, 1974. I was walking back to my newsroom from the now-defunct Tongyang Broadcasting Company studio, feeling utterly devastated.
I was one of three female reporters from major newspapers invited to interview Park Geun-hye, President Park Chung-hee’s eldest daughter, as she assumed the public duties of first lady following her mother’s death. We were all roughly her age. That was not the problem. What troubled me was how the interview had been arranged.
Each reporter was assigned questions in advance. A prominent male announcer presided over the prerecorded television interview, scheduled for broadcast that evening. Park delivered her prepared answers calmly and clearly. Everything proceeded without an apparent hitch. Yet I emerged feeling that we had merely performed the roles allotted to us, rather than exercised our judgment as journalists.
That old sense of professional shame may help explain why the film touched me so deeply.
Near its conclusion, “The Assassin(s)” portrays journalists at the fictional Dongseong Ilbo proclaiming their determination to defend press freedom against brutal authoritarian repression. The scene evokes the historic Declaration for the Practice of Free Press, adopted by more than 180 Dong-A Ilbo journalists on Oct. 24, 1974 — a landmark in the history of Korean journalism and democratization movements.
Critics of the film contend that the actual declaration had no direct connection to the newspaper’s coverage of the shooting that killed the first lady. On that narrow point, they have a legitimate argument. But dismissing the scene as mere historical distortion overlooks the larger reality: the pervasive censorship, intimidation and fear under Park’s Yushin regime, enforced through emergency decrees and other instruments of state power.
In the film, Kim Jae-hwan (Park Hae-il), the Dongseong Ilbo’s city editor, suspects that the official account of the shooting conceals important facts. As he pursues the story, he faces humiliation and even physical assaults. But with his newsroom colleagues firmly standing behind him, he reads aloud the journalists’ declaration. Its words still resonate:
“We feel a painful sense of shame” that calls for press freedom and journalistic awakening are coming from outside our profession, notably from churches and universities. A free press, the declaration asserts, is the responsibility of journalists themselves — not a privilege granted by authorities or handed to them by the public.
The journalists pledged to resist interference in newspapers, broadcasting and magazines, bar government agents from their workplaces and reject the unlawful detention of colleagues. Their declaration was not simply rhetoric. It was a commitment to act, despite the risks.
The real-life consequences were severe. After Dong-A Ilbo journalists began challenging reporting restrictions, the government pressured major advertisers to withdraw their business. Blank advertising spaces appeared in the newspaper. In response, ordinary citizens bought space for messages of solidarity, creating the celebrated campaign of “encouragement advertisements.”
Ultimately, the newspaper’s management yielded to pressure. Before dawn on March 17, 1975, men brought in to break up a sit-in forcibly removed protesting journalists. More than 130 journalists and broadcasting staff were dismissed in the course of the crackdown. Their struggle remains a painful chapter in Korean press history.
Against this background, the film’s fictional protagonists acquire tremendous force. Kim tells rookie reporter Han Yong-il (Lee Min-ho) to “see what you can and write what you should.” Following that advice could cost the young journalist his career, perhaps even his life. Police detective Park Cheol-gu (Yoo Hae-jin), meanwhile, doggedly probes gaps in the official investigation.
Director Hur Jin-ho blends documented events with imagined characters and circumstances. He does not establish a definitive alternative account of the assassination, let alone point at any specific individual as the invisible hand behind the disputed incident. Instead, he portrays people trying to honor their professional obligations when asking questions can itself be dangerous. By doing so, he obviously displays caution in revisiting unresolved questions.
One such question concerns the whereabouts of the bullet suspected to have killed the first lady. The film recommends renewed attention to that missing piece of evidence. Whether further investigation can settle the doubts is uncertain. But the search for verifiable facts is far more constructive than another round of partisan accusations.
What stayed with me after the credits was not a conspiracy theory; it was a reminder that journalism loses its purpose when reporters surrender their questions —and that the shame of doing so can endure for decades.
- - -
Lee Kyong-hee
Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com