암살자(들) passed three million viewers while protesters stood outside its lead actor's home

What it is

암살자(들) (am·sal·ja·deul), Assassins in English, is a thriller directed by 허진호 (Hur Jin Ho), with 유해진, 박해일 and 이민호 in the lead roles and Hive Media Corp as producer and distributor. It opened in Korean cinemas on 23 September 2026. The brackets around 들, the plural marker, let the title read as either Assassin or Assassins.

The film follows the doubts and the people behind the shooting of the first lady, 육영수, at the National Theatre in Jangchung dong, Seoul, on 15 August 1974. A caption says it is based on real events and that characters and specific incidents were imagined.

It passed 2 million viewers on its eleventh day, 3 October. It sat at the top of the overall box office for 15 days after opening, led the weekly chart three weeks in a row, and on 12 October, its twentieth day, passed 3 million, the fifth Korean film of 2026 to get there. Week three, 5 to 11 October, drew 758,587 people, up from 667,698 the week before. By 27 October the count stood at 3.34 million.

Why it took off

The numbers rose as the argument did. The objection is that the film distorts history, since it questions the findings of the 1974 investigation, and the protests moved from the film to the actors in it. OSEN reported a protest by a right wing group outside 유해진's home, complaints to companies that use the cast in adverts, and talk at the National Assembly audit of a search of the production.

The festival felt it too. The producers cancelled the cast's appearance at the BIFF opening ceremony on 6 October and an outdoor stage greeting on 7 October, citing the safety of audiences and guests, and 이민호's Actors' House session went with them. 박해일 still turned up on 8 October for a Community BIFF talk about an older film.

허진호 said nothing in public for about a month, then spoke on MBC's PD수첩 on 27 October. He said he was in fifth grade when the first lady died and remembered his family's grief. Documentaries in 2005, he said, showed a wide gap between the 1974 findings and later interviews with guards and investigators. He said he could not accept the demand that a film must follow the 1974 account. The director 이명세 called protests at actors' homes shocking and warned they could scare off creators and investors.

How to do it

It is still in cinemas in Korea. iMBC reported on 12 October that it was screening nationwide, and viewer scores rose in the third week, with the Naver verified rating going from 8.0 to 8.8 and the CGV Golden Egg index climbing. The theatre chains quoted in that report were CGV, Lotte Cinema and Megabox.

For the argument around it, MBC's PD수첩 episode of 27 October carries the director's first public comments and voices on both sides. The teaser is on Hive Media Corp's YouTube channel, and the main trailer ends on a question: six shots were heard at the ceremony, so whose gun fired the other two.

Our sources only cover the Korean release. Outside Korea, festival or streaming news is what to watch for.

Where, if you want it

Any multiplex in Korea for now. The real event behind the film took place at the National Theatre in Jangchung dong, Seoul, on 15 August 1974; Dongguk University station on line 3 is the usual stop. In Busan, the cancelled festival events would have put the cast at 영화의전당 in Centum City on 6 and 7 October.