The tragic mystery of a university student’s murder in a fast food joint is brought back to life in the new movie “Itaewon Homicide” (이태원 살인사건) which was released in Korea Thursday. [hidepost]
Two Korean-American teenagers are accused of stabbing a Korean university student to death in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant in 1997 while out in Itaewon. They then point the finger at each other so convincingly, the detectives and prosecutors aren’t sure who the real killer is.
Jung Jin-young (“The King and the Clown”) plays the prosecutor out to convict one of the two boys, that is if he can figure out which one is truly guilty. Jang Geun-seok (Beethoven Virus) and Sin Seung-hwan (Two Guys) play the parts of the two teenagers, one the son of a US military serviceman and the other the son of Korean immigrants.
In the true story, the two boys, Arthur Patterson, 17, and Edward Lee, 18, were both brought in as suspects to the random murder of Cho Jung-pil, a Hongik University student. The case outraged Korea as one was definitely guilty, but both were eventually let free after neither the judge nor the prosecution could find which boy was guilty. The two reportedly accused the other, and police were unable to tell from contradicting evidence which was telling the truth.
Lee was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1998. Patterson was officially charged as an accessory and served some time in prison, but fled the country before the Korean prosecutor could renew a travel ban.
The director, Hong Ki-sun told local papers that he wanted to “expose the South Korean government’s inability and incompetence” through the movie, as well as thrill audiences with the real-life cat-and-mouse mind games played by the prosecutor and boys.
Even today, the case is considered one of the largest police and justice screw-ups in the nation’s history, since the case was complicated by the boys US citizenship. The victim’s family never received an apology from either suspect.
Watch the preview to the movie “Itaewon Homicide!”
Video credit: raine210[/hidepost]
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