North Korea’s Hollywood-style thriller unveils taboo plot against Kim’s father

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 cinemas 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.

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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 film 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.