‘Assassins’: A documentary reveals new details about the strange murder Kim Jon Un’s half brother

Nearly four years after the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, a new documentary seeks to shed light on the brazen airport murder and the involvement of the two young women accused of carrying it out.

Kim Jong-Nam — the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and once the favored heir apparent of their late father and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il — was assassinated in 2017. The confusing circumstances surrounding the murder and subsequent prosecution of the two women accused of the crime is examined in director Ryan White’s real-life crime thriller documentary ‘Assassins’.

The film focuses on the two women – Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong – who were charged with poisoning Kim by smearing his face with the banned chemical weapon VX and had at one point faced a mandatory death penalty in Malaysia.

Kim Jong-Nam was assassinated at a busy Malaysian airport after being exposed to VX nerve agent. In the trailer, footage from the airport shows a woman wrapping her hands around his eyes in a seemingly playful manner. Two women were arrested following the assassination, but the women claimed they thought they were part of a TV prank show.

In the footage, Kim Jong-nam is already limping as he enlists the help of airport security. Within 20 minutes he’s dead. The immigrant girls – Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam – are arrested within days.

U.S. director Ryan White spent 2-1/2 years investigating the case for “Assassins,” which will be released in cinemas and digitally on demand on Friday.