In Korea's recent history, apart from war, what is the event with the largest number of deaths? That was the humidifier fungicide poisoning incident that caused a sensation in Korea many years ago.
The incident caused major sacrifices and led to a formal apology from then-President Moon Jae-in. The product was used by nearly 10 million consumers, causing more than 1 million people to contract lung diseases and more than 20,000 deaths. And this incident has now been remade into the movie "Air Killing".
Prototype story: Korean humidifier disinfectant case
In South Korea, because of the dry climate, many people have humidifiers at home. Although the purifier should be added to the treated clean water, but because it is easy to accumulate dirt and produce bacteria after use, in 1994, with the world's first and South Korea's only gimmick, some companies launched sterilization products for the sprinkler, and other companies began to imitate the manufacturing disease. Unexpectedly, it became the beginning of the most serious chemical social event in Korean history.
Pregnant women who were also admitted to a university hospital in Seoul in the spring of 2011 died of unexplained acute lung disease, and it was not until they were pathologically investigated that they learned that the sterilizer may have been the fatal cause of people's deaths, and the product disappeared from the stage of history.
After the serial injury incident, most of the victims protested one after another, and after investigation, the truth was finally understood. However, what is even more shocking is that manufacturers know that products are harmful to the human body, but they continue to mass-produce for their own benefit, and the state has approved the listing of products.
So far, most of the relevant people and enterprises directly or indirectly involved in the production of this product have only been acquitted or punished slightly. The government, which stood idly by, did not give the victims an acceptable apology or compensation. During this period, the number of victims and deaths continued to increase.
"Air Killing" is adapted from Su Zaiyuan's novel "Bacteria: Humidifier Fungicides and Self-Evident Things".
Su Zaiyuan is known as "a novelist who represents the vulnerable groups", and he has long been concerned about social and vulnerable issues, and two works have also aroused social discussion after being adapted into films, namely "Suyuan" and "Tunnel".
It is reported that Su Zaiyuan is also currently working on the Special Investigation Committee for Humidifier Biocides, and in order to defend the victims at that time, he even postponed his TV series writing schedule indefinitely, and devoted all his enthusiasm to the publication of the novel and the film adaptation. He hopes to warn the people through his works that if we forget and erase this memory, the next victim will be us.
It is not so much a work of depicting the victims as it is a history that must be remembered in order to protect the future of us, so that tragedies do not repeat themselves.
"Air Killing" is directed by Zhao Rongshan, director of the film "Breathless", which is his new work for nine years. This time, Zhao Rongshan took the novel as the foundation, and after six years of investigation and verification, he made a script adaptation and directed. Through the film, he is not simply reporting to the society, but also has the dramatic elements that resonate with the audience, as well as the emotional feelings that warm people's hearts.
The story tells that the trauma center physician (Kim Sang-kyung) is faced with the death of his beloved wife (Xu Lingji) due to unknown lung disease, and his son's life is also in danger, but he is helpless.
The sister-in-law (played by Lee Hyun-bin), a former prosecutor at the Seoul District Prosecutor's Office, became a lawyer after her sister's death, vowing to seek justice for her sister's death. The two teamed up to investigate the relevant medical incident and found that the real culprit was a fungicide added to the adder!
It turns out that after the chemicals in the fungicide are atomized, they will be absorbed by the human body, which will cause pulmonary fibrosis and even death. In order to expose the truth to the world, the two gathered the victims' families and filed a complaint with the fungicide manufacturer, asking for joint compensation.
Can a poisoning incident affecting more than a million people be valued by the country and the world because of the resistance of this group of people, and will not repeat the same mistakes?