So a deeply disturbed student tools up with a variety of weapons and goes on a rampage and, inevitably, the media starts looking for something to blame. mental illness, perhaps, or campus bullying or - if we really want to get down to basics - the easy availability of weapons in the US.

But no, none of this is addressed. Although Cho Seung-hui refers to the “martyrs” of Columbine High in the mid-massacre rantings he mailed to NBC, and although he compares himself to Jesus Christ, the mindless rent-a-quote mob have decided to blame… a film.

The film in question is Oldboy, the second in Chan-wook Park’s critically acclaimed Vengeance trilogy.

According to Nick James, editor of Sight and Sound (as quoted in The Times) said: “Oldboy is a very, very distinctive film and the most highly regarded of the films now labelled Asian Extreme cinema but it is also so ludicrously over the top that no sane person could mistake it for reality.”

He goes on to point out: “I don’t think there’s a case of cause and effect here. It’s not the movies that are the problem — it’s the guns.”

Millions of people have seen Oldboy, and other more violent films, with no repercussions. The vast majority (all bar one, assuming that Cho has actually seen the film, which is in no way proven) of this film’s audience get to the end of it, switch it off and go about their normal everyday lives.

Trying to blame a film - or a book, or a comic, or a game - for every shocking act of violence that comes along is not just lazy journalism, it’s also dishonest and manipulative journalism and more than a little sick.

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