“There are still many people who believe the Silmido unit members were vicious criminals, just like in the movie. For over 20 years, the bereaved families have suffered doubly and triply with the stigma of being the relatives of convicts and death row inmates.”
Lim Choong-bin, 69, the head of the Silmido Victims Bereaved Families Association, was still tearful during a phone call on the 21st. This is an injustice that has remained unresolved for more than 20 years since the release of the movie ‘Silmido’ (2003).
‘Silmido’ Subtitle Modified After 23 Years
“No Death Row Inmates or Lifer Convicts Among Operatives”
Families Say Movie Created Stigma of Violent Criminals
Decades of Suffering Caused by Cinematic Imagination
Last month, the opening subtitle of the movie ‘Silmido’ was modified. The change clarifies that depicting the unit’s operatives as special criminals, death row inmates, and lifers in the film differs from the facts. The new subtitle states, “The Ministry of National Defense Truth Commission and others clearly verified that there were no death row inmates or lifer convicts among the Silmido unit operatives, and that most were ordinary civilians,” adding, “We offer our condolences to the Silmido unit operatives and their families who suffered because of the movie.”
It is the first step in 23 years to correct the historical truths distorted by the film. However, Lim noted, “Subtitles alone have limits. How many people will actually see them? There needs to be a public apology from the film company.”
Victims of State Violence Branded as ‘Human Trash’
Her older brother was an operative in the 684 Unit covered by the movie ‘Silmido.’ Created following the January 21 Incident in 1968, when 31 North Korean armed commandos penetrated close to the Blue House, the unit was established for infiltration operations against North Korea. Thirty-one civilians were recruited and subjected to grueling training for three years and four months on Silmido, an uninhabited island off Incheon. The level of harsh treatment was so severe that seven members died during the training period. Unable to endure it any longer, the operatives escaped the base in August 1971. After engaging in a shootout with military and police in Daebang-dong, Seoul, they detonated grenades and died collectively. There were only four survivors, and Lim Choong-bin’s brother was one of them. All four survivors were sentenced to death by an Air Force court-martial in December 1971 and executed by firing squad in March of the following year. Her brother was only 24 years old at the time.
For dramatic effect in the film, all members of the 684 Unit were portrayed as ‘human trash with no hope in the bottom of society, either death row inmates or criminals’ (a line by the training commander, played by Ahn Sung-ki).
However, according to Ahn Kim Jung-ae, who investigated the Silmido incident as the chief of the 2nd investigation division for the Ministry of National Defense Truth Commission in 2005, there were no violent criminals among the operatives. It is true there was a plan to select them from among death row inmates. But the Ministry of Justice at the time reportedly objected, arguing that death row inmates must have their bodies handed over to their families after execution, but selecting them for a special forces unit would prevent body retrieval, causing social problems.
Lim Choong-bin’s brother was also just an ordinary young man. Born in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, he graduated from an agricultural high school and was looking for a job. According to trial records, while hanging out at a friend’s house in Daejeon, he met a 684 Unit recruiter and fell for the promise that if he just completed the mission, he would receive ample compensation and a job at a U.S. military base.
The family learned that he had entered the Silmido unit only after the movie’s release, through the testimony of a surviving training instructor of the 684 Unit.
“When my oldest brother out of three sons and five daughters went missing, our whole household was in chaos. My father, a minor public official, even wrote a letter to the president asking him to find his son, and performed multiple shamanistic rituals. Both of my parents passed away without knowing news of my brother, and finding him was their dying wish.”
He was such a precious existence to her family. When Lim Choong-bin first watched a movie where that brother appeared as ‘human trash,’ she recalled, “I wanted to scream that this wasn’t true. It was so shocking that tears just poured out.”
Where Does the Responsibility of Fiction Toward Reality End?
The movie ‘Silmido’ is South Korea’s first 10-million-viewer film. Recording a final audience of 11.08 million, roughly one in four citizens at the time watched it. Most of those people learned about the Silmido incident for the first time through this movie and believed the film’s settings to be facts. Lim Choong-bin lamented, “I still cannot proudly step forward as a bereaved family member of a Silmido victim.”
Movies are a genre of fiction. Dealing with real people and historical events does not mean every scene must be replicated exactly as it happened. However, the moment a film touches upon historical events, cinematic imagination establishes a relationship with reality outside the screen. The fiction in ‘Silmido’ gave people the misconception that the actual 684 Unit operatives had criminal backgrounds, which caused prolonged suffering for the bereaved families.
Bereaved families of Silmido victims once filed a complaint against director Kang Woo-suk and the production company of ‘Silmido’ on charges including defamation of the deceased and dissemination of false information. They lost from the first trial up to the Supreme Court, with the reasoning that “the freedom of expression and creation could be severely shrunk.”
The freedom of creation and the responsibility of creators are subjects that frequently spark debate. Despite recent controversies over historical distortion, the movie ‘Assassins,’ which stands on the verge of breaking its break-even point (3.3 million viewers), reveals a similar dilemma. The movie portrays the possibility that the mastermind behind the assassination of First Lady Rah Park Young-soo was not North Korea, but ‘higher-ups in the KCIA.’ Depending on the audience, it even opened up room to think of the ‘KCIA higher-ups’ as former President Park Chung-hee, sparking controversy over unfilial themes.
Films also possess the power to forge collective memories about history. Where does the responsibility that a movie must shoulder toward reality truly end? This is the question that the movie ‘Silmido,’ which received a new subtitle after 23 years, poses to ‘Assassins,’ currently holding box office appreciation events.
