The Assassin(s) has drawn its 2 millionth moviegoer. The controversial Korean thriller crossed the milestone on Saturday, just 11 days after its September 23 release, despite mounting accusations from conservative politicians that it distorts a pivotal chapter of modern Korean history.
Hive Media Corp, which produced and distributed the film, announced Saturday afternoon that cumulative admissions had passed 2 million, according to Aju Press. The film is the ninth Korean release of 2026 to reach that mark — and it got there while facing boycotts, a political pile-on, and a canceled slate of promotional events.
The run has been a roller coaster. The Assassin(s) opened strong, drawing about 1.41 million viewers over the four-day Chuseok harvest holiday from September 24 to 27, finishing ahead of Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub and Odyssey. As criticism of its portrayal of history mounted, it lost the daily box-office lead to Tazza on September 28 — then reclaimed first place at the start of October and has held it since.
Advance sales suggest the momentum isn't spent. As of 4 p.m. Saturday, the film held 16.9 percent of advance ticket reservations, with more than 84,000 seats booked — second only to the Japanese animated feature Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island, which stood at 25.7 percent.
Directed by Hur Jin-ho, best known for the 1998 romance Christmas in August, the film follows a police officer and two newspapermen chasing unanswered questions about the 1974 shooting that killed South Korea's first lady. Yoo Hae-jin plays Cheol-gu, a detective at the scene. Park Hae-il plays Jae-hwan, a newspaper's city editor, and Lee Min-ho plays Young-il, a rookie reporter.
The history at the center of the storm is real and still raw. On August 15, 1974, at a Liberation Day ceremony at the National Theater in Seoul, a gunman opened fire while President Park Chung-hee was delivering a speech. The president was unhurt, but first lady Yuk Young-soo was shot in the head and died that evening. A high school student, Jang Bong-hwa, was killed by a bullet fired by a member of Park's security detail.
The gunman, Moon Se-gwang, was a 22-year-old ethnic Korean born and raised in Osaka. He had stolen a revolver from a Japanese police box and entered South Korea on a Japanese passport. Seoul concluded that he acted on orders from North Korea relayed through Chongryon, a pro-Pyongyang association of Korean residents in Japan — a finding Tokyo disputed, badly straining relations between the two countries. Moon was hanged on December 20, 1974.
The film does not name the president as the mastermind. Its characters, however, raise the possibility that the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, the state spy service of Park's era, was involved. That premise has drawn charges of historical distortion, most loudly from the People Power Party, the country's main opposition.
Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk wrote on Facebook that the film floated an "absurd" possibility that Park was behind his wife's killing. Rep. Yoo Yeong-ha, a longtime associate of former President Park Geun-hye — the couple's daughter — called it "political propaganda." Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun took a softer line, saying cinematic imagination deserved protection but that creative freedom should be kept separate from altering historical fact.
Online audience scores have split along similar lines. As of September 28, verified ticket buyers on the portal Naver rated the film 8.6 out of 10, while Naver's open netizen score, which requires no proof of purchase, stood at just 2.4.
The dispute has spilled beyond the theater. Protest comments flooded YouTube ads for a fast-food brand and a securities firm featuring Yoo, and comments on both videos were shut down. Hive Media Corp has also canceled promotional events for the film, including an outdoor stage greeting at the Busan International Film Festival.
Hur has said the film was never meant to settle the case. In a pre-release interview, he said he had reviewed broadcasts, documentaries, Japanese materials, books, and academic papers, but found no basis for declaring a single answer. "This was not a story where I could reach a conclusion from the beginning," he said.
Source: Aju Press
