Actors to Defend Political Drama
By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter
Two actors in last year’s popular historical soap opera ``Seoul 1945’’ will appear in court on May 16 as witnesses to prove that the work’s director did not distort facts to defame a former president and a former prime minister.
The actors are Kwon Seong-dok who played the role of the first South Korean President Syngman Rhee and Kim Dong-hyun who played former Prime Minister Jang Taek-sang in the KBS historical soap opera which aired last year.
According to a statement from the Seoul Central District Court yesterday, judge Lee Dong-geun has accepted a request from a lawyer for the drama’s director to present the two actors as witnesses at his next hearing.
The request was made at the first hearing of the drama’s director Yoon Chang-bom and the anonymous writer, who were both accused of defamation of character by the families of Rhee and Jang late last year.
They claim that the drama distorted history and belittled the achievements of their fathers.
``The drama seriously defamed both the former president and prime minister as it portrayed them as collaborators with the Japanese and the United States, hence abandoning a unified Korea. Also the drama states that the two tacitly approved of the assassination of the center-left leader Yeo Un-hyong,’’ said Rhee In-soo, an adopted son of the former president.
The lawyer plans to prove through the testimony of these actors that the claims of the accusers are wrong.
``The roles of Syngman Rhee and Jang Taek-sang just serve as a background of this drama and they do not account for a significant part of it. We have requested that the actors stand as witnesses so that they can prove the accusers’ claims are wrong,’’ said lawyer Kim Hyung-taek.
The next hearing will take place at 2 p.m. on May 16.
The weekly drama, which aired from January 7 to September 10 last year was set around 1945 right after the Japanese colonial period ended and the nation was engulfed in ideological turmoil.
Conservative groups had complained from the start that the drama failed to do justice to right-wing figures whose historical evaluation, they argue, was incomplete, while leftists were generally portrayed as considerate and concerned for the future of the nation.
Others say that the drama made the viewers reconsider history and shed light on leftists after the country’s liberation as their contributions to the nation have been much neglected under the banner of anti-Communism in South Korea.