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Still from the BBC documentary “Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups.” (@BBCWorldService on YouTube)

“18 months for Seungri, two years for Choi Jong-hoon, and the ‘Police Prosecutor General’ gets acquitted. What kind of country is this?” 

“The real tragedy is that this documentary was aired on the BBC and not in Korea.” 

The YouTube premiere last Sunday of the BBC documentary “Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups” has drawn a heated response in Korea. 

The documentary features eyewitness accounts of the Burning Sun scandal, starting with a KakaoTalk group chat room whose users included musical artists Seungri, Choi Jong-hoon, and Jung Joon-young. As of midday Tuesday, it had been viewed over 3.4 million times and received over 21,000 comments. 

The predominant reaction among viewers was anger. In particular, they were upset at the excessively light sentences received by the perpetrators in comparison with the severity of the case, which involved sexual assault, the distribution of illegally filmed footage, and collusion with the police. 

Still from the BBC documentary “Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups.” (@BBCWorldService on YouTube)

While the figures responsible have already been released and resumed their lives, the wounds of the victims in the documentary have yet to heal. 

The case first came to public attention in 2016 when Jung was indicted on charges of distributing illegally filmed footage. According to the documentary, Jung handed his cell phone over to a private forensics lab before reporting to police, while his attorney pressured both the lab and the victim. 

The police closed the case after a halfhearted investigation. But a copy of Jung’s phone made by the forensics company survived, and three years later, that copy was shared with the media, which shared the grisly details for all the world to see. 

The documentary featured a first-ever glimpse at some of the video footage shared in the KakaoTalk group chat. The images provided clear evidence of Seungri treating women as playthings, including one case in which he coerced and dragged a visibly struggling woman. 

Appearing in the documentary, SBS Entertainment News reporter Kang Kyung-yoon, who investigated the case, said, “I feel that what’s happening in this industry is like a microcosm of our society: money, power, women, sex.” 

“The more I work in this field [entertainment], the more I see the bottom of the pit — society’s true face,” she added. 

Still from the BBC documentary “Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups.” (@BBCWorldService on YouTube)

Also revealed was the fact that it was the late singer Goo Ha-ra who helped determine the identity of the so-called “Police Prosecutor General” who colluded with Seungri and other perpetrators.  

The documentary offered a bitter reminder of how the celebrity that comes with being a member of a popular K-pop group can confer enormous power. It also made reference to how the case was viewed at the time through the broader lens of gender issues in Korea. 

One commenter observed that the documentary provided a clear glimpse at a reality in Korea where those who attempt to rescue women end up branded as “feminists” and targeted for witch hunts. 

The arrest of Seungri and the others was not the end of the story. Burning Sun employees said nothing has changed in Gangnam clubs — meaning that the same things that happened at Burning Sun are still going on at different clubs. 

“I want the perpetrator to forever blame himself and feel guilty,” the victim said in the documentary — but even that hope did not appear to have come to pass. A video released in January showed Seungri drawing an enthusiastic response from many when he mentioned the “Big Bang” name at an event in Cambodia. Jung Joon-young was released after completing his sentence in March. 

In the past 15 years, sex crimes, including those related to illegal filming, have increased by 11 times in South Korea. 

By Nam Ji-eun, staff reporter 

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]