North Korea Threatens War Over Seth Rogen Flick

Image by Getty Images
North Korea denounced a forthcoming American comedy film featuring a plot to assassinate its leader Kim Jong Un as an act of terrorism and threatened to unleash a “merciless counter-measure” if Washington failed to ban the movie.
The movie “The Interview”, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, is scheduled for release in December.
“Making and releasing a movie on a plot to hurt our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated,” the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
The Hollywood movie recounts the story of a talk show host and his producer who land a rare sit-down interview with Kim, the third leader of his family dynasty to rule North Korea.
The Central Intelligence Agency then recruits the pair to assassinate him.
Rogen responded to North Korea’s threat with a lighthearted tweet:
People don’t usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they’ve paid 12 bucks for it. Hiyooooo!!!
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 25, 2014
Kim, in his early 30s, has shown no sign of easing the iron grip imposed by his grandfather, state founder Kim Il Sung, and his father, Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011. Nor has there been any letup in the personality cult surrounding his leadership.
He has maintained tight control of virtually all aspects of life after ordering the execution of his powerful uncle to crush what was termed an attempt to overthrow the authorities. More than 200,000 people are believed to be held in prison camps, but Pyongyang rejects as “fabrications” details of mass brutality set out in a U.N.-sponsored report citing escapees and exiles.
The foreign ministry spokesman said North Koreans regarded the life of their leader as “more precious” than their own.
“If the U.S. administration allows and defends the showing of the film, a merciless counter-measure will be taken,” the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying.
The North currently holds three U.S. nationals, accusing them of various crimes,and remains technically at war with Washington’s key Asian ally, South Korea.
North Korea routinely refers to Americans as “imperialist warmongers”, berates American leaders through its media and once called U.S. President Barack Obama a “wicked black monkey”.
But Kim is also believed to be a fan of American culture and oversaw the staging of a show featuring popular U.S. folklore.
He was seen giving a thumbs-up to dancing Disney characters and a performance set to the theme song from the film “Rocky”.
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, the most high-profile American to meet Kim, sang “Happy Birthday” to the North Korean leader during his latest visit in January to stage a basketball game.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.