Humourless regime threatens ‘merciless response’
A NEW film starring comedian Seth Rogen and based on an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has been labelled an act of terrorism by the regime.
A statement from North Korea warned of a ‘‘merciless response’’ unless US authorities banned it.
The Interview stars Rogen and James Franco as two tabloid TV journalists who land an interview with Kim in Pyongyang and are then tasked by the CIA with killing him.
The film is due to be released in the United States on October 14.
In a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the film was the work of ‘‘gangster moviemakers’’ and should never be shown.
‘‘The act of making screening such a movie and that portrays an attack on our top leadership . . . is a most wanton act of terror and act of war, and is absolutely intolerable,’’ the spokesman said.
He called on the US Administration to ban the film from being screened and warned that failure to do so would trigger a ‘‘resolute and merciless response’’.
Rogen poked fun at the threat on Twitter, writing: ‘‘People don’t usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they’ve paid 12 bucks for it.’’
It is not the first time wood has poked fun at a Korean leader.
In the 2004 satirical action comedy Team America, Kim’s father, Kim Jong-Il, was portrayed as a speech-impaired, isolated despot.
In the official trailer for The Interview a CIA officer calls North Korea the ‘‘most dangerous country on earth‘‘, and briefs the Rogen and Franco characters on HollyNorth the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family dynasty.
‘‘Kim Jong-Un’s people believe everything he tells them, including that he can speak to dolphins, or that he doesn’t urinate or defecate,’’ the officer says.
Played by Korean-American actor Randall Park, Kim appears in the trailer as an overweight, cigarchomping dictator, surrounded by security guards.
The scenes set in Pyongyang were filmed in Vancouver.
In a recent interview with Yahoo Movies, Rogen, who cowrote the script, said the idea for the film came out of a discussion over how journalists with access to world leaders might have the opportunity to act as assassins.
‘‘We read as much as we could that was available on the subject . . . We talked to people in the government whose job it is to associate with North Korea, or be experts on it.’’