Rogen And Franco's Kim Jong-Un Film Is 'War'

North Korea has said the release of a Hollywood comedy about an assassination bid on leader Kim Jong-Un is an “act of war”.

Pyongyang has threatened the US with a “resolute and merciless response” unless the authorities move to ban the film, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

The Interview - released in the US on October 14 - sees the actors playing two tabloid TV journalists who land an interview with Mr Kim in Pyongyang but are then tasked by the CIA with killing him.

In a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the film was the work of “gangster moviemakers” and should never be shown.

The spokesman said: “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.”

It is not the first time Hollywood has poked fun at a North Korean leader.

In 2004 satirical action comedy Team America, a puppet version of Mr Kim’s father, Kim Jong-Il, was depicted as a speech-impaired, isolated despot.

In the official trailer for The Interview (see above), a CIA officer calls North Korea the “most dangerous country on earth”, and briefs the Rogen and Franco characters on the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family dynasty.

"Kim Jong-Un’s people believe everything he tells them, including that he can speak to dolphins, or that he doesn’t urinate or defecate," the officer says.

Played by Korean-American actor Randall Park, Mr Kim appears in the trailer as an overweight, cigar-chomping dictator, surrounded by security guards.

The scenes set in Pyongyang were filmed in Vancouver.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Movies, Rogen, who co-wrote the script, said the idea for the film came from a discussion over how journalists with access to world leaders might have the opportunity to act as assassins.

He said: “We read as much as we could that was available on the subject … We talked to people in the government whose job it is to associate with North Korea, or be experts on it.”