In 2019, bad news continued to come out of the Korean entertainment industry, and from October to November, idol stars Cui Xueli and Goo Hara committed suicide one after another, both of whom were previously Korean A-list stars.
Choi had become abnormal before committing suicide, often engaging in strange behaviors on live streams and social media, such as dressing revealingly, giggling, incoherent, and at one point being suspected of having a nervous breakdown.
Shirley hanged herself in mid-October, and a month later, her friend Goo Hara also committed suicide.
The company's explanations are all consistent, because of work pressure, the two suffer from depression, so they finally found short-sightedness.
However, netizens unanimously suspect that Shirley and Goo Hara may have suffered from the "forced escort" behavior of the national and Korean entertainment circles, and their suicide reminded many people of the "Zhang Ziyan case" that caused a sensation in South Korea 10 years ago.
The "Zhang Ziyan case" in 2009 was once hailed as South Korea's "national humiliation", and actor Zhang Ziyan hanged herself at home, after which her agent exposed Zhang Ziyan's suicide note.
In the suicide note, Zhang Ziyan revealed that over the years, she was forced to accompany wine and sleep with her hundreds of times in exchange for acting opportunities.
Zhang Ziyan has served more than 30 "big people", most of whom are people in the entertainment industry, and a few are chaebols or media figures.
The South Korean police investigated all those involved in the case after Zhang Ziyan's death, but in the end they did not give up, and then the boss of the company of the first offender Zhang Ziyan was sentenced to 1 year in prison, suspended for 2 years.
In 2019, because of the outbreak of the "victory case", South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered a reinvestigation of the "Zhang Ziyan case", and also stated that he would "bet on the honor of the police" to give an explanation to the people.
What is the situation of this "Zhang Ziyan case"? What did Zhang Ziyan's "suicide note" write and how was it exposed?
First, the "Zhang Ziyan case" that the South Korean police do not want to mention
The "Zhang Ziyan case" broke out in 2009, on March 7 of that year, actor Zhang Ziyan was found dead at home, and after the police went to the scene to investigate, it was announced that Zhang Ziyan had committed suicide.
Soon, Zhang Ziyan's former agent Liu Changhao sent a "suicide note" to the police, with Zhang Ziyan's signature, handprints, and a seal stamped in the middle of the paper like a contract.
Because the content of the suicide note was so vigorous, the police once suspected that it was forged.
After handwriting investigation, the police did indeed write the "suicide note" by Zhang Ziyan, which exposed her inhuman treatment in the entertainment company.
In order to let the company get resources, the owner of the performing arts company let Zhang Ziyan sleep frequently for many years, serving more than 30 guests, with a total of more than 100 times.
Zhang Ziyan said in her suicide note that there was no limit to the number of times and the number of people she could sleep with, and she had accompanied 5 guests a day and slept with 4 people at a time. Even when you are sick, or on your parents' death day, you are always on call.
Because some guests have quirks, Zhang Ziyan is often forced to take some sex drugs or stimulants, and is often beaten by guests. Zhang Ziyan was physically and psychologically damaged as a result, and eventually suffered from severe depression and was forced to undergo sterilization.
At the end of her suicide note, Zhang Ziyan made a list of people to sleep with, including business celebrities and directors, as well as some big journalists. The most attractive names are Sin Geho, the founder of the South Korean chaebol "Lotte" group, and his son Shin Dongbin.
A sentence in the suicide note made the police investigating the case at the time also painful: "As an insignificant newcomer in the entertainment industry, I just want to be free from this uninterrupted pain." ”
In April of that year, the South Korean police opened a case based on this suicide note, and they found a group of "sleeping companions" according to the list of Zhang Ziyan's confessions, and arrested them for investigation.
As for Zhang Ziyan's boss, Kim Seung-hoon, he was not arrested because he was in Japan.
After the incident, Kim Seung-hoon said in Japan, saying that the matter of "sleeping with him" was pure slander, and his company absolutely did not abuse artists.
However, in 2010, Kim Seung-hoon was arrested immediately after returning to China, and South Korean prosecutors prosecuted him, but was later sentenced to only one year in prison, with two years of probation, not for forcing the artist into prostitution, but for assaulting the artist.
Kim himself admitted the charge at trial, and any other charges were not convicted without evidence.
South Korea was very concerned about the "Zhang Ziyeon case" at that time, but the South Korean police behaved very strangely, and have been reducing the influence of the incident, and no longer raised the case after Kim Seung-hoon's conviction.
The reason for this is that the "Korean Wave" was at its peak at that time, and Korean idol groups swept the world, making South Korea a strong country of cultural influence.
In order to seize the east wind of the Korean Wave, even the South Korean government is promoting the development of the entertainment industry, and the president invites stars to the presidential palace for dinner, treating idols as national heroes.
2. A suicide note is not a suicide note, and a prisoner is not a prisoner
After 2011, the Korean wave entered the era of sweeping the world, and Koreans began a cultural carnival. In this crack of prosperity, Zhang Ziyan's case quietly advanced in 2013-2014.
But at this time, the "Zhang Ziyan case" is no longer the business of Zhang Ziyan's family, and it is her former boss Kim Seung-hoon, her former colleague Liu Meishu and former agent Liu Changhao who are facing her in court.
All the disputes revolve around Kim Seung-hoon, Liu Changhao, and Liu Mi-sook, and Zhang Ziyan did not participate, but she was killed by the greed of others.
The starting point of the matter is Liu Changhao, who is Zhang Ziyan's former agent and has signed some other artists, Liu Meishu is one of them.
Liu Changhao thought that he was very capable and did not lose to his boss Kim Seung-hoon, so he took the artist to set up his own door and abducted Liu Meishu away.
However, according to the agreement of the entertainment industry, if the economic relationship is changed without authorization during the artist's contract period, the artist has to pay a large amount of liquidated damages, often dozens or even hundreds of times the annual salary.
Therefore, after Liu Meishu was abducted, Kim Seung-hoon sued her and asked her to pay, but Liu Changhao and Liu Meishu wanted to use some means to blackmail Kim Seung-hoon and ask him to stop pursuing him.
Liu Changhao is also Zhang Ziyan's agent, so he knows that Zhang Ziyan slept with Kim Seung-hoon, so he found Zhang Ziyan and tricked her into writing down a document to write down all the things Kim Seung-hoon forced her to do and use it to blackmail Kim Seung-hoon.
Liu Changhao told Zhang Ziyan that he would not publish the documents, but only used this to blackmail Kim Seung-hoon, which could help Zhang Ziyan terminate the contract and let her go to a better company, and there would be no need to live this kind of "hotel lady-like life" in the future.
Zhang Ziyan thought that the "agent brother" was sincerely helping her, so she wrote the "suicide note" released later with joy, and even when she wrote the "suicide note" and handed it to Liu Changhao, she was full of joy, thinking that her life had turned around.
Unexpectedly, Liu Changhao lost Zhang Ziyan's trust when he changed hands, put this document in front of Kim Seung-hoon, and threatened to expose the document and let him spit out Liu Meishu's contract.
Kim Seung-hoon was very angry about this, he felt that Zhang Ziyan had betrayed him, so he sent a text message to Zhang Ziyan to question the situation, and said that he would bring some people to confront.
As a result, after receiving the text message, Zhang Ziyan committed suicide. It had been just a week since she wrote the "suicide note."
In 2014, the Korean media believed that the truth was finally revealed and that justice should be given to this poor woman.
But in court, Liu Meishu did not admit to knowing Zhang Ziyan, and Liu Changhao did not agree with Kim Seung-hoon's statement, insisting that Kim Seung-hoon arranged to sleep with him, so that Zhang Ziyan suffered from depression and finally committed suicide.
As for this "suicide note", it was originally written by Zhang Ziyan herself, and the content in it is naturally true.
Media reporters learned through investigation that this Kim Seung-hoon claimed to have 20 years of experience and had a large number of stars, but in fact he had bad deeds, and he had several actresses who committed suicide, such as Lee Eun-joo, Jung Do-bin, and Choi Zheng.
These people are a little similar to Zhang Ziyan, they are not popular actors, but they frequently receive plays and have a certain audience popularity.
The "Zhang Ziyan case" has thus become the talk of South Koreans and even Asians after tea and dinner, and the South Korean police could not continue to investigate.
Because the case lacked the necessary material evidence, the parties were no longer there, and they entered the stage of justification and reasonableness. The case was then temporarily sealed and the parties were hardly punished.
Third, the reinvestigation of "Zhang Ziyan's case" in 2019 was only carried out for 2 months
In 2019, a huge scandal involving the entertainment industry broke out in South Korea, and Lee Shengli, a member of YG's famous group BIGBANG, was accused of "pimping" and providing sexual services to overseas customers and domestic rich second generation in nightclubs in which he participated.
This case is another famous case in South Korea - the victory case.
After the case broke out, President Moon Jae-in ordered a thorough investigation of the case, and then South Korea began to call for a thorough investigation of the "Zhang Ziyan case" to give an explanation to Zhang Ziyan, who had been dead for 10 years.
It just so happens that Moon Jae-in has always wanted to completely clean up some shady scenes in the country, including the unspoken rules of the entertainment industry, anyway, when the tide of the Korean Wave has passed, this matter will not have any impact.
Therefore, Moon Jae-in, who heard the wind, immediately ordered the "Zhang Ziyan case" to be restarted, to gamble on the honor of the police and give an explanation to the people.
Since the president gave the order, the South Korean police began to continue to investigate the "Jang Ziyan case".
After the news came out, a woman named Yin Zhiwu came forward, she is a junior of Zhang Ziyan's company, claiming to know Zhang Ziyan's story and willing to take it as a witness.
Korean television also began to show photos of Zhang Ziyan, and various newspapers reported her tragic situation during her lifetime.
But strangely, in March 2019, the South Korean president ordered a reinvestigation of the case, and on May 20, the prosecutor came to dismantle Taiwan, saying that the case could not be investigated, saying that it was too long, there was no evidence, and the case involved a lot of fake news, and the prosecutor could not investigate.
Soon, the "Zhang Ziyan case" came to an end again, and this time, the case may be completely sealed.
As for Yin Zhiwu, a witness in the case, he made high-profile publicity during the investigation, saying that he "help her sister get justice", but it was soon exposed that she was a liar, because many of her accounts did not match Zhang Ziyan's "suicide note" and were all made up by herself.
Moreover, Yin Zhiwu was accused of using Zhang Ziyan to promote herself, and she herself was selling some aid materials to support Zhang Ziyan to make money.
After the South Korean media reported the incident, Yoon Ji-woo's supporters began to investigate her fundraising for Jang Zi-yeon, and finally found that Yoon Ji-woo had embezzled donations to help Jang Zi-yeon fight the lawsuit.
Soon, hundreds of netizens jointly asked Yoon Ji-go for donations, and Yoon Ji-go chose to secretly leave South Korea and run to Canada to hide.
After this incident, the popularity of the "Zhang Ziyan case" in South Koreans dropped a lot, and many people said that it was better to give up and let this poor woman rest in peace.
4. "This line is like this"
In the case of a female artist committing suicide, it is really a shame that the South Korean government still handled this case like this in the case of a suicide note and national supervision.
According to legal theory, there is only one suicide note and list, and the police do not have more evidence, and they are indeed not qualified to arrest people. But when the police knew that Zhang Ziyan was forced to sleep with a large number of people before her death, even the company's boss Kim Seung-hoon did not punish, which is a bit unreasonable.
Later, some experts analyzed that the "Zhang Ziyan case" was difficult to advance, not because there was no evidence or witnesses, but because it touched the interests of the entire Korean entertainment industry. Arrested Kim Seung-hoon, offended the big bosses behind him.
The Korean entertainment industry is a giant-level industry, involving more than 100,000 artists, hundreds of thousands of employees, and an economy of trillions of won.
This behemoth has always had very harsh internal competition, and for insiders, tragedies such as Zhang Ziyan are actually predictable.
The Korean entertainment industry began in the 90s of the last century, during which South Korea absorbed a large number of American and Japanese pop culture and cultivated a local entertainment style.
Subsequently, the wind of the Korean Wave blew for 20 years, and the film, television, and music industries were very developed, and young people yearned to become stars.
For example, the artists of Zhang Ziyan's company, in order to appear in TV series, some of them have a brief relationship with directors or screenwriters and investors, become boyfriend and girlfriend, and even exchange one-night stands for an opportunity, which is the means they rely on to survive.
It should be said that this kind of behavior is not uncommon in the entertainment industry of various countries, and there are not 10,000 or 8,000 second-tier and third-tier actors in South Korea, and there are many people who want to exchange their bodies for fame.
A senior South Korean media person commented impatiently after many investigations of the "Zhang Ziyan case": "It's like this when you enter this industry, if you don't want to do it, go home and find a class!" ”
After the "victory case", some people also proposed that the reason why the Korean entertainment industry is so corrupt is also related to the monopoly of the chaebols.
The chaebols control most of the resources in society, and if they want a piece of the pie from the chaebols, they have to exchange things.
Reporters who participated in the investigation of the "Zhang Ziyan case" once revealed that some second-generation chaebols, watching a certain actress on TV look good, or newcomers in the entertainment industry and their own appetites, will order their subordinates to bring them meetings and exchange feelings.
As a reward, the artist's company will be invested, and the artist himself will be helped, which is an unspoken rule.
In recent years, South Korea has been sluggish due to its economic downturn, and the entertainment industry has also been sluggish, and the Hallyu era has passed, and more and more people have withdrawn from this industry and exposed its dark insider.
The South Korean government has repeatedly promised to strengthen the supervision of entertainment companies, and perhaps in the future, the Korean entertainment industry will become more humane and cleaner.
Literature / Commerce
Resources:
1, "Zhang Ziyan's Death and Unspoken Rules", Hu Mu
2, ""Unspoken Rules" Forced to Death Korean Actresses", Liu Haier