Korean Action Thriller Sparks Controversy For Its Dialogues

A new Korean movie is currently running a successful box office, surpassing 1.2 million cumulative viewers just three days after its release. However, it has sparked controversy for the language used in the film.

According to the Korean Film Council‘s integrated ticketing system on July 18th, the film Hope attracted 594,811 viewers on the 17th alone. This brought the total audience to 1,220,519, solidifying its position as the box office leader.

Hope is an action thriller depicting the story of Beom Seok (played by Hwang Jung Min), the head of the local office in Hopohang, located in the Demilitarized Zone, who hears from local youths that a tiger has appeared and confronts a hard-to-believe reality.

As the movie hits the box office, controversy has arisen around the frequent use of the curse word “shibal” (equivalent to f*ck) in the film. Some viewers have pointed out that the swearing occurs excessively. One netizen analyzed that the word “shibal” appears 137 times in the film.

In response, director Na Hong Jin said at a Q&A session with director Bong Joon Ho, “Half of the curse words were ad-libs by the actors, and the other half were scripted.” He added, “Even though about 200 instances were removed during post-production, there are still over a hundred left.”

Na also stated, “I believe the dictionary meaning of this word needs to change at this point,” explaining, “The swearing in the film serves as a kind of exclamation that expresses various emotional depths as accents.“