If there's anything that Hollywood excels at generating these days, it's certainly controversy. Interest groups, ethnicities, genders, and even nations have all at one point or another taken to the news media and internet message boards in the quest to decry the latest wrong the town of tinsel has visited upon them. However, rarely (if ever) will you see someone threatening to start a war over a film's controversy. So naturally, who better to do just that than North Korea's foreign ministry, who apparently blew a gasket when they saw the recently released trailer to the Seth Rogen/James Franco action comedy The Interview.
Yahoo, among other worldwide news feeds, reported on North Korea's official remarks remarks which were made in response to the film that's main premise is sending in a journalist and his crew to assassinate the North Korean head of state, Kim Jong-Un. Through an official statement, the North Korean foreign ministry had said that:
"The act of making and screening such a movie that portrays an attack on our top leadership... is a most wanton act of terror and act of war, and is absolutely intolerable."
The ministry would have the US ban the film from ever being shown, or else they would retaliate with a "resolute and merciless response".
If The Interview doesn't seize those comments and turn them into pull quotes for the next trailer/TV ad, they're passing up some very good publicity.
This obviously isn't the first time that American film has poked fun at North Korean leadership, considering Team America: World Police turned the movie loving
[[ ahref http new remembering-kim-jong-il-with-godzilla-movie-he-made-by-kidnapping-its-director-28422.html www.cinemablend.com ]] Kim Jong-Il into a Bond villain for its own purposes. However, America is an equal opportunity offender, and sometimes that offensive lens has been turned on its own leadership, especially in the case of George W. Bush. He smoked pot in Harold And Kumar Go To Guantanamo Bay, was somehow involved in The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, and was even a subject of fictitious assassination himself with The Assassination of George W. Bush - and yet, the man didn't rail against Hollywood one bit.
North Korea's response to The Interview is even more ridiculous considering the context of the film itself. They obviously haven't watched many Seth Rogen/James Franco movies, because if they had then they'd realize that there's a good chance this movie will probably end with the two of them attempting and failing their assassination, which would only lead to a pot smoking/hug filled love fest. Rogen and Franco aren't agent provocateurs, they're comedians who revel in controversy and dick jokes. To think that this film is going to be anything politically incendiary on the level of an Atlas Shrugged film is really ridiculous, and it only serves to further ridicule the dear leader's nation in the eyes of those who see its threats as nothing more than hollow.
The Interview takes its best shot on October 14th.
