How Korean movies portrayed disaster before sewol ferry incident

Host(2006)

In Korean disaster movies like "Host(2006)", "Deranged (2012)" and "flu(2013)", when disaster hits, peopel in charge always run away and government betrays their people and only ordinary citizens are left with facing danger in the end.

Recent sewol ferry disaster looks like scenes from many Korean disaster movies.

Disaster is not an accident in modern society
Capital takes risks knowing the possibility of disaster risk for the profit.
Chonghaejin Marine, the company which owned the ship, made major illegal modifications to increase the capacity of the ship. As a result, it became heavier than it was designed to be. This resulted in steering and stability problems, which were pointed out by its regular captain who notified his superiors. These warnings were ignored, however, all these happend for sake of money.

Much of the public believes that the government did not manage the rescue operations properly either.
The implication being that all the people who could have been saved were not and once again, it is top officials who are being blamed.

Sewol ferry disaster is not the first man made disaster in recent Korean history.
Before the collapse of Sampoong Department Store in Seoul which killed over 500 people back in 1995, Sampoong president fled without evacuation order.
During the daegu subway fire incident back in 2003, the engineer fled with the key to open subway doors with no evacuation order.
When Cheonan ship sinking, all top officers including the captain were rescued while 46 young soldiers were killed or went missing at sea.
These memories remain and the insecurity grows in Korea society and it reflected in many of Korean disaster movies.

Korea disaster movies are quiet different from the disaster movies of Japan and Hollywood in many ways, this is because the historic features of Korean society is reflected in films.

Scene from "Flu(2013)"

Hero of Hollywood disaster movies are usually professional and civil servants.
In a films like "Dante's Peak", "Deep Impact" and "Outbreak" etc., competent and heroic main characters are usually the first one to detect disaster and he/she usually strive and struggle to prevent disaster.
Professionalism of government and public service performance are highly regarded even in a untraditional heroic epic disaster movie like "Contagion(2011)".

Characters in disaster films of Japan makes it strong in the face of disaster as well.
Many Japan disaster movie portrays civil servants and government officials as heroic figure who was killed in the line of duty in a noble profession consciousness
In a movie "Pandemic"(2009), all the people in their place including medical personnel showed commitment to fight against the disaster.
No depiction of division or conspiracy of Japanese society in film and it usually ends with showing hope of rebuilding after the disaster has swept away.

On the other hand, the hero of the disaster movie of Korea is not a civil servant nor expert of any kind.
In Korean disaster movie, the government was not in the presence to rescue the civilian falling into a disaster with the help of experts and public officials.
In movie "Host(2006)" the government did not committed to rescue the girl nor kill the monster, all they do is setting up the group memorial altar trying to make people forget the incident quickly through the fuss of mourning and monitor families of victims assuming that they are infected as well in cooperation with the media

The Sewol tragedy is a wakeup call for Korea to address the blind spots in its political and business culture.
Man-made disasters reveal much about how far a nation really has come, and when it's time to plot a new course to fix some of problems
These problems were clearly shown very often in many of Korean disaster movies as well.




The captain and crews who  escaped the sinking ship first while ordered passengers to remain inside the doomed ship.