North Korea threatens war over forthcoming film

Seth Rogen and James Franco in the firing line.

by Jennie Kermode

It's meant to be a spoof spy movie with Seth Rogen and James Franco as two journalists who travel to Pyongyang and are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong Un, but North Korea today issued a statement calling The Interview "the most blatant act of terrorism and war." Waring that it "absolutely will not be tolerated," the isolated dictatorship threatened "a merciless counter-measure" if the US does not ban it.

Noting that the film had originally been intended to focus on Kim Jon Il (a man whose love of cinema once prompted him to keep his favourite director prisoner and force him to make monster movies), Rogen responded "People don't usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they've paid 12 bucks for it."

The North Korean reaction mirrors that attending the release of Team America: World Police ten years ago.

Share this with others on...
News

About a bear Iain Gardner on immigration, community and A Bear Named Wojtek

Tests of love Dennis Iliadis and his star Konstantina Messini on twisty meet-the-parents thriller Buzzheart

You must remember this Loïc Espuche on childhood revulsion, shyness, shame, kissing and Yuck!

Lights and shadows Dustin Pittman with Ed Bahlman on Alan J Pakula, James Ivory, Brian De Palma and Jerry Schatzberg

Innocence lost Sebastián Parra R on growing up too fast and world building in Seed Of The Desert

UK hopes ride high as Oscar International Film shortlist announced Ireland also makes the grade

More news and features

Interact

More competitions coming soon.


DJDT

Versions

Time

Settings from settings.local

Headers

Request

SQL queries from 1 connection

Templates (10 rendered)

Cache calls from 2 backends

Signals