South Korea’s latest all-action movie blockbuster has topped the box office since its release in late December, but is coming under fire for portraying a North Korean soldier as the hero and for saving his lacklustre South Korean counterpart.

The big-budget film, “Ashfall”, sees special forces from North and South teaming up to save the Korean Peninsula after Mount Baekdu erupts. Lee Byung-hun, who plays the North Korean officer, emerges as the hero and saves the peninsula from a volcano that is revered in the North as the mythical birthplace of Kim Jong-il, the father of the present North Korean dictator.

Asfall is one of a series of films and TV shows commissioned in 2018 when hopes were high of peace on the peninsula. But a barrage of rocket tests from the North and a breakdown in relations between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump has now left those dreams in tatters. North Korea is again the bad guy - except in the movies.

Accusations the productions are too pro-North Korean in flavour have also been levelled at the creators of “Crash Landing on You”, a romantic comedy TV series that was first aired in mid-December. The plot has the young heiress of a major South Korean fashion company blown over the Demilitarised Zone that divides the two nations while hang gliding, but being rescued by a dashing North Korean officer.

The unlikely scenario sees hugely popular actress Son Ye-jin landing in a picture-postcard North Korean village where everyone is well-fed, content and kind to the intruder from the South.