The controversy over "The Assassins" ultimately boils down to whether President Park Chung-hee was a normal person or not.

‌Most people who criticize "The Assassins" ask,
"What kind of madman
would order the assassination of his own wife to shift the political landscape?"
But among normal people,
who else would assassinate their political rivals multiple times,
and even while having a wife,
use recruiters to collect women from all over the country for entertainment?
To begin with, it is strange to even categorize President Park Chung-hee as an ordinary person.
Furthermore, looking at the film director's interview,
he says there isn't even a scene in the movie where President Park orders the assassination.
If the assassination plot was devised by the KCIA rather than President Park,
this movie becomes even more plausible.
At the time, someone like Cha Ji-chul was such a madman that he even suggested killing the people of Busan and Masan to shift the situation, claiming that 1 or 2 million people were killed in Cambodia during the Buma incident.
Isn't this a passage that clearly reveals how much the KCIA during President Park Chung-hee's era treated human lives like flies?