As historical distortion controversies surrounding the movie 'The Assassins' spread, Daejeon City is also taking a 'ricochet' hit for lending its filming locations.

Coincidentally, the work was selected as the closing film at the recently held Daejeon Special Video Film Festival, and the city is struggling amidst a flood of data submission requests from lawmakers regarding this matter.

According to Daejeon City on the 3rd, upon a cooperation request from the film production company in July of last year, the city permitted filming to take place in Soje-dong, Dong-gu, Daejeon, and the former Chungcheongnam-do provincial government building.

Since the content of the movie could not be known at the time, the city stated that it is taken aback by the current situation where political repercussions are expanding over the movie, which deals with the shooting incident of First Lady Young-soo Yuk.

The city explained that the production company's official cooperation request merely contained a brief one-line description stating, "A movie capturing the atmosphere of South Korea in the 1970s," without even outlining the plot or general details.

A city official explained, "Even when 'Squid Game Season 2' was filmed in Daejeon in the past, the details were kept strictly confidential. Production companies typically do not disclose movie plots in advance," adding, "Daejeon City simply permitted the filming as usual to contribute to revitalizing the local economy."

In particular, the city is facing intensive questioning over whether it provided administrative support for the screening of the movie as the closing film of the '8th Daejeon Special Video Film Festival,' which was held from the 17th to the 19th of last month.

Ahead of the parliamentary audit, lawmakers from the People Power Party are reportedly flooding the city with requests for data concerning everything from the background of how the city permitted the filming location to whether the city purchased paid admission tickets for the closing film, turning the issue into a political point of contention.

The city conveyed that the selection of the closing film was handled by an agency through the Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency around May, and understands that 'The Assassins' was chosen as the closing film on the grounds that most of the local filming took place in Daejeon.

In addition, the city added that invitation tickets for the preview screening at the time were distributed through a raffle system to citizens who applied, and that the city did not purchase any admission tickets.

A city official lamented, "This matter was promoted during the term of the previous mayor (affiliated with the People Power Party), and had we known it was a movie with such large political issues and social repercussions, would we have just let it be filmed as is? We would have reviewed it through work reports and other means," adding, "From the perspective of public officials, we have no choice but to actively support film shootings to attract tourists, so it's a difficult situation now that things have turned out this way."

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