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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Simran Hans

Assassins review – who were the women who killed Kim Jong-un's brother?

Doan Thi Huong and Siti Aisyah being escorted out of a courthouse by armed guards.
Doan Thi Huong and Siti Aisyah being escorted out of a courthouse by armed guards. Photograph: Publicity image

In February 2017, at Kuala Lumpur airport, two young women smeared the deadly chemical agent VX across the face of Kim Jong-nam, estranged half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He died less than 20 minutes later. CCTV footage of the incident shows one of them wearing a white top emblazoned with the phrase LOL. According to their lawyers, the pair thought they were competing in a YouTube prank show. Perhaps wisely, Ryan White’s slick documentary chooses not to mine the bizarre scene for comic potential. Instead, he spins the arrest of Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong – economic migrants from Indonesia and Vietnam respectively – into a parable about political corruption.

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