Leftist Commercialism and the Corruption of Political Cinema: The Case of Assassins
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” With that social philosophy, former journalist Min Huh framed a growing controversy over the South Korean political film Assassins, which has sparked intense debate over leftist commercialism and the corruption of political cinema.
The film Assassins strongly implies that the 1974 Liberation Day shooting of First Lady Yuk Young-su was not carried out solely by Mun Se-gwang, but potentially orchestrated through an internal conspiracy involving Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian government. Despite facing historical distortion controversies, the film reached a cumulative audience of 2.41 million as of the 5th, its 13th day in release. The production represents a monster created by leftist commercialism, drawing on fiction and conspiracy to drive box-office success while exploiting freedom of expression and faction immunity.
The Commodification of Conspiracy in Political Cinema
According to Huh, political filmmaking has transitioned from seeking truth to manufacturing it as a commercial product. When a historical narrative becomes a guaranteed box-office brand capable of monetizing audience anger, nostalgia, and victimization, the original cause turns into raw material for the content industry. Initially, cinema was needed to uncover the truth, but the format of hidden truths eventually turned into a box-office commodity. Once truth-seeking became an industry, the medium began requiring new truths manufactured specifically for the sake of the film, in a cycle where productions demand the creation of new conspiracies rather than truth giving birth to a film.
Director Huh Jin-ho defended the project by stating that he did not set out to establish Park Chung-hee as the mastermind behind the assassination. However, the film utilizes suspicious security directive changes, symbolic mise-en-scène, and silhouette characters to guide viewers toward believing in a hidden background.
Limits of Artistic Freedom and Faction Immunity
Critics point out the ethical dilemma of borrowing the heavy weight of real history—such as Park Chung-hee, Yuk Young-su, and August 15, 1974—to maximize box-office impact, only to retreat behind the defense of fiction when criticized. Attributing major criminal charges to real historical figures, especially while surviving family members remain, demands heavy factual backing rather than relying on a convenient shield of creative license.
The Boundaries of Expression and Factional Immunity
As legal scholar Zechariah Chafee Jr. famously stated, The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.
Attributing serious crimes to real historical figures without strong factual grounding crosses from expression into violence, demanding heavy evidence and clear distance between fact and fiction when personal reputations and grieving families are impacted. Filmmakers borrow the weight of real history for box-office impact, only to retreat behind the defense that it is merely a movie and fiction when criticized; this suggests the authority of fact is used for box-office gains while fictional immunity is invoked solely to evade legal and ethical responsibility.