TOP S. KOREA DIRECTOR, ACTOR ACCUSED OF RAPE
Actress claims filmmaker Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyun raped her while shooting movie years ago
ASOUTH Korean actress has accused award-winning film director Kim Ki-duk and a top actor of rape, as the country’s nascent #MeToo movement begins to spiral.
The fresh allegations against Kim come after his presence at the Berlin Film Festival caused controversy following a fine for physically assaulting a different actress.
In the latest case, an actress, who refused to be named, said that Kim repeatedly tried to enter her hotel room when they were shooting a movie in a remote village several years ago.
“It was a living hell. So many nights, he came to my room and slammed the door or phoned me at the room repeatedly until I responded,” she told Seoul’s MBC television station.
Kim eventually summoned her to his room to “discuss a script”, she went on.
“Then he raped me.”
The film’s male star, Cho Jaehyun, also raped her, she said.
The two men “shared stories of raping actresses and there was a sense of competition between them”, she said in an investigation aired late on Tuesday.
The actress said she had quit acting afterwards and was in therapy for years.
Her accusations come as the #MeToo movement gains ground in South Korea, which remains socially conservative and patriarchal in many respects despite its economic and technological advances.
Earlier this week, a provincial governor and former presidential contender resigned after an aide accused him of multiple rapes.
Kim, who has won prizes at the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals, including a Golden Lion for Pietà, was fined 5 million won (RM18,000) by prosecutors last year for physically assaulting an actress on set.
Kim told MBC television that he was involved only in “consensual sexual relationships”.
“I never tried to satisfy my personal desires using my status as a film director.”
Cho, who has starred in many of Kim’s movies and is known as his “alter ego”, told the station he would talk about the accusations “once an investigation begins”.
“I’m panicking. I am a sinner. But many of the things I see in news are so different from truth.”
Cho apologised last month after being accused of sexually abusing female crew members and students. He was fired from the college where he was teaching and removed from a TV drama production.
Another actress interviewed by MBC on Tuesday said Kim repeatedly asked to see her breasts and her naked body during an audition process that felt “deeply humiliating”.