Chinese state media on Saturday slammed the irreverent movie at the centre of a cyber-attack on a Hollywood studio as "senseless cultural arrogance", adding it was wrong for American film-makers to mock North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The comments came as the United States warned North Korea would face retaliation for the hacking of Sony Pictures over a movie that infuriated Pyongyang, which counts China as its key ally.

The film, "The Interview", is a madcap comedy about a CIA plot to assassinate Kim.

"The Interview, which makes fun of the leader of an enemy of the US, is nothing to be proud of for Hollywood and US society," China's Global Times newspaper, which has links to the ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial.

"Americans always believe they can jab at other countries' leaders just because they are free to criticize or make fun of their own state leaders," it added.

"No matter how the US society looks at North Korea and Kim Jong-un, Kim is still the leader of the country. The vicious mocking of Kim is only a result of senseless cultural arrogance."

Sony has cancelled the release in the face of chilling threats from anonymous hackers, said to be linked to North Korea, who invoked the 9/11 attacks in threatening cinemas screening the film.

The editorial in the Global Times, which is owned by the official Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, also called for the US to "show some good manners instead of being too aggressive".

China has for decades been North Korea's closest ally and biggest trading partner, though ties have been strained in recent years by Pyongyang's continuation of nuclear tests.

Beijing on Friday criticised a call by the United Nations for North Korea to be referred to the International Criminal Court over its human rights record, including a massive system of labour camps.

China has become a key export market for Hollywood films, leading to accusations that US studios avoid themes which could be seen as critical of the country's authoritarian political system.

The Global Times added: "Now that the Chinese market has become a gold mine for US movies, Hollywood has begun to show an increasingly friendly face, just in order to attract more Chinese viewers."

Seoul says Sony attack bears hallmarks of N. Korea
Seoul (AFP) Dec 20, 2014 –

South Korea on Saturday said North Korea had likely carried out a crippling cyber attack on Sony Pictures, which bore all the hallmarks of an onslaught on its own banks and media agencies last year.

Seoul said it would share information "related to the cyber attack on Sony" with the United States and step up international cooperation in coping with further online threats.

Sony cancelled the Christmas Day release of "The Interview," a madcap romp about a CIA plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, after anonymous hackers invoked the 9/11 attacks in threatening cinemas screening the film.

"We express deep regret and condemn such North Korean activities as they seriously undermine the openness and security of cyber space and they constitute a crime that caused property losses," South Korea's foreign ministry said.

In a statement, it also noted "the similarities between the attacks on Sony Pictures and those against South Korean banks and others in March last year".

An official investigation blamed North Korea's military intelligence agency for the attack, which completely shut down the networks of key TV broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN, and crippled operations at three banks.

Access records and the malicious codes used in the attack in South Korea pointed to the North's military Reconnaissance General Bureau, the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) said, calling it a "premeditated, well-planned cyber attack by North Korea".

Professor Lim Jong-In of Korea University Graduate School of Information Security said the North has created its own army of cyber experts, around 1,000 of which work in China, who can "turn into hackers at a moment's notice and mount attacks".

"With 6,000 hackers under its cyber warfare command, it is counted as one of the world's top five countries in terms of cyber warfare capabilities. It selects some 300 students and raise them as elite cyber warriors every year," he told AFP.

"The North is one of the world's least wired states and therefore, it is quite safe from online counter-attacks."