BEIJING – North Korea aired a new propaganda film on TV about a failed assassination attempt on the country’s supreme leader, with South Korean media describing it as an “unprecedented work addressing a taboo.”
The film “Days and Nights of Confrontation,” which had been screened at theaters in Pyongyang since last year, was released for the first time on state-run Korean Central Television in January.
The latest piece depicting a plot to kill Kim Jong Il, the late father of incumbent leader Kim Jong Un, by blowing up a train, is a sequel to the 2022 movie “One Day, One Night,” which was themed on an assassination attempt of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and the grandfather of the current leader.
The perpetrator of the plot to murder Kim Jong Il is a son of the man who attempted to kill Kim Il Sung. Both of the offenders are depicted as counter-revolutionary elements.
According to South Korean media, the new suspenseful thriller, which reportedly won three awards at the Pyongyang International Film Festival, features Hollywood-style action sequences, including train fights, car chases and explosions.
In 2024, the movie “72 hours” about lessons learned from the Korean War was released in North Korea. Kim Jong Un was closely involved in the production of the film featuring violent action scenes and computer graphics. He reportedly wrote the script and directed the acting.