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Korea often ranks as one of the safest places in the world, yet the country is no stranger to shocking crimes. Several of these true-crime stories have gone on to be adapted into blockbuster films. NA Hong-jin’s The Chaser (2008) was based on real life serial killer Yoo Young-chul, and BONG Joon-Ho’s classic Memories of Murder (2003) was based on the Hwaseong serial murder case. Featuring incidents ripped from the headlines, some of these films go beyond just reporting true-crime stories. The documentary Non Fiction Diary (2014) goes into great detail to reveal how the criminals manifested, while films such as Silenced (2011) and Where the Truth Lies (2009) sparked public interest, helping to bring justice to victims.

 

 

KANG In-ho (GONG Yoo) notices that things aren’t quite right when he arrives in the sleepy, foggy town of Mujin to begin his new job as the art teacher at a school for the hearing impaired. The students are withdrawn with many exhibiting signs of physical abuse. The school principal’s demeanor is unsettling and the administrators and counselors seem too willing to use physical violence to discipline the kids. As In-ho grows closer to the students, they reveal to him the school’s shocking secret of deep rooted corruption, perversion and child sexual abuse.

Horrifyingly, HWANG Dong-hyuk’s Silenced is based on true-life events. The film is an adaptation of Gong Ji-young’s 2009 best-selling novel “The Crucible” which detailed the accounts of the child sexual abuse scandal that was uncovered at the Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing impaired. Though the cruelty and abuse at the school had been going on for decades, it was not until a newly hired teacher alerted authorities to the school’s atrocities that action was taken. The initial trial attracted relatively little national interest and the teachers and administrators that had been found guilty of rape and molestation received lenient sentences. However, after the movie’s release, interest in the case exploded and the public asked for the investigation to be reopened. The end result was a retrial with much stricter sentencing, closure of the school, and a new law called the Dogani Bill which ended the statute of limitations for sex crimes against children and disabled women.

Silenced went on to become a commercial and critical success. The film attracted 4.7 million at the domestic box office and received nominations for Best Picture at the Blue Dragon Awards and the Grand Bell Awards, South Korea’s two most popular film awards shows. Additionally, the movie’s popularity was a catalyst for social change in Korea. After the release of Silenced, HWANG went on to direct the international smash hit Miss Granny (2014) as well as the recent Chuseok box office release The Fortress. Lead actor GONG Yoo recently starred in the blockbuster TRAIN TO BUSAN(2016).   

 

 

A clan of serial killers, living in the countryside, torturing, murdering, and sometimes eating their victims, sounds like the plot for a classic horror film. However in South Korea, this shocking true crime story dominated headlines in 1994 when the sinister exploits of a group of young men from South Jeolla province’s rural Yeonggwang County where uncovered by the police. Calling themselves the Jijon Clan, this demented group of serial killers set out to steal from the rich and murder them. Victims were tortured, killed, roasted and eaten. Some victims were even forced to participate in the murders to stay alive. When eventually captured, members of the Jijon Clan admitted to six murders and showed absolutely no remorse. 

JUNG Yoon-suk’s documentary Non Fiction Diary covers the Jijon Clan case, which sent shock waves through a country that had never before dealt with the concept of a group of serial killers, and left many people asking “How did Korean society devolve to this point?” Through archive footage, interviews, and testimony, JUNG takes viewers through the history of Korea’s rapid movement towards democracy, modernization and capitalism, and the divide within Korean society that was created in the process. JUNG then covers two other major tragedies contemporary to the mid 1990s: the Sampoong Department Store collapse and the Seongsu Bridge failure which resulted in 502 and 32 deaths respectively. JUNG goes on to make parallels between these tragedies, which were eventually determined to be the result of negligence, incompetence and greed, with the Jijon Clan murders begging the question “Why were they punished differently?”

Non Fiction Diary, the second documentary feature from artist/director JUNG Yoon-suk, received a limited release in South Korea and was invited to major international film festivals, including the Busan International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the SITGES International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. JUNG’s latest work Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno was released earlier this year.

 

A fast food restaurant seems like an unlikely place for violence, but in the spring of 1997 a brutal murder took place in the men’s restroom of a Burger King located in the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon. JO Jung-pil, a 22-year old university student, was violently stabbed multiple times. The weapon and clues led police to main suspects Korean American Edward Lee and Arthur Patterson. As the two defendants continued to point fingers at each other, the Korean investigators were set back by language barriers, lack of evidence, and difficulty finding witnesses. After several trials Lee was found guilty while Patterson was released and managed to leave Korea before his travel ban went into effect.   

Set in the foreigner friendly district of Itaewon, Where the Truth Lies attempts to capture the dark, edgy underside of a neighborhood once considered to be dangerous and off-limits to Koreans. The end result of the polarizing trial, which added to anti-foreigner sentiment at the time, left many Korean citizens unsatisfied. With the movie’s release 10 years after the original crime took place, renewed public interest in the “Itaewon Burger King Murder” allowing for the case to be reopened before the statute of limitations expired. Eventually new evidence was found linking Patterson to the murder and prosecutors were successfully able to extradite him back to South Korea where they could hold a new trial.

Where the Truth Lies was directed by HONG Ki-seon. JUNG Jin-Young King And The Clown (2005) and Ode to my Father (2014) plays Prosecutor Park, who is relentless in in his efforts to bring justice to the victim, but is held back by insufficient evidence and political meddling. Robert Pearson, a fictionalized version of Arthur Patterson is played by JANG Keun-suk, who is set to star in KIM Ki-duk’s next film The Time of Humans (2018) while RYOO Seung-wan of Veteran (2015) portrayed Alex JUNG, a fictionalized version of Edward LEE and will star in Director HONG Ki-seon’s next movie The Disclosure.