Last year, a political blockbuster gripped South Korea with a dramatization of a painful memory from its authoritarian past, when the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979 led to a military coup and plunged the country into the iron grip of martial law.

At his confirmation hearing three months ago, South Korea's defence minister Kim Yong-hyun rejected accusations from the opposition that he wanted to impose martial law. It was, the conservative hardliner said,

The opposition-controlled parliament overturned the the martial law edict, and his rivals on Wednesday took steps to impeach him.