Acclaimed at Sundance 2020, Ryan White’s recent documentary follows the bizarre case of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in broad daylight in the budget terminal of Malaysia International Airport. In February 2017, carrying $100,000 in cash and four North-Korean passports in the same false name, this fun-seeking playboy thought he was boarding a flight to Macao. Security cameras captured how two young women approached their victim
from behind and rubbed the deadly VX nerve poison into his face. The eldest son and heir apparent to previous leader Kim Jong-il had long fallen out of favour after being caught trying to visit Disneyland in Tokyo on another false passport. Fearing the political fall-out from his latest escapade, the North-Korean authorities duped two young women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, into what they thought was a video prank. The girls were charged, their story apparently the stuff of fiction. White goes from Pyongyang’s secret corridors to a Kuala Lumpur courtroom, where this astounding
masterpiece of manipulation unfolds, built on the naivety of young girls raised on social media. Assassins is not just a masterful
investigation, but the hair-raising yet true story of a cold-blooded dictator,
an audacious murder and two innocent girls awaiting execution. The film is shown in English with Hungarian subtitles, viewing fee 1,500 forints.
