Novelist files compensation suit against “Assassination”

Choi Dong-hoon, director of "Assassination" / Korea Times file

By Bahk Eun-ji

The star-studded Korean action film “Assassination” is embroiled in a lawsuit with a novelist who claims the movie plagiarized his novel.

Choi Jong-rim, author of “Korean Memories,” published in 2002, has filed a 10 billion won compensation suit against film director Choi Dong-hoon, Show Box, a distributor and Caper Film, the company that produced “Assassination."

Earlier this month, the novelist claimed that a large part of the film’s plot and characters were similar to his novel. The novelist also applied for a court injunction to stop the distributors screening the film. The application will be dealt with on Thursday.

The novelist, 64, insists that the main female character in “Assassination” is a sniper just like in “Korean Memories."

Caper Film said it would take strong countermeasures against the novelist, claiming the female sniper in the leading role, which is Choi’s main argument could not be seen as a point of plagiarism because the female character in “Korean Memories” mostly works to raise money.

Caper also claims assassination plots were common struggles against Japan during the colonial era.

“Assassination," which opened on July 22, has sold more than 9.3 million tickets as of Wednesday. The film stars top stars such as Jun Ji-hyun, Lee Jung-jae and Ha Jung-woo.