(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Cheol-seon = The subtitles of the movie 'Silmido', which portrayed the North Korean agents of the Silmido unit as former criminals such as death row inmates or lifeless inmates, have been modified 23 years after its release.
The Ministry of National Defense requested the film distributor CJ ENM to revise the guide subtitles in July at the request of the Silmido Victims' Family Association, and the distributor accepted the request and announced on the 23rd that it has been using the revised subtitles since the 4th of this month.
The movie 'Silmido', released in December 2003, is a movie about the North Korean agents of the Silmido unit of the Air Force, established in 1968.
In the movie, the unit's operatives were depicted as former criminals, such as death row inmates or inmates, but according to a survey by the Ministry of Defense's Past Photo Investigation Committee, in reality, most of the Silmido unit's operatives were ordinary civilians.
Even in the existing movie, there was a subtitle before starting that said, "The origins and situation settings of the trainees in the movie have nothing to do with other North Korean intelligence units or agents in the past or present."
However, there was no mention of the origins of the Silmido unit agents depicted in the movie, which led to the spread of the misunderstanding that the Silmido agents were criminals.
The new subtitle says, "The portrayal of unit operatives as special criminals, death row inmates, and life-defense prisoners in the movie 'Silmido' was set in a situation different from historical facts. The 'Ministry of Defense Past Photographic Investigation Committee' and the 'Past History Review Committee for Truth and Reconciliation' clearly established that there were no death row inmates or life-defense prisoners among the Silmido unit operatives, and most of them were ordinary civilians. The Silmido unit operatives who suffered due to the movie 'Silmido' “We offer our condolences to the bereaved family.”
The Ministry of National Defense said, “We expect that this measure will accurately convey to the public that the Silmido Unit operatives were ordinary civilians, not death row inmates or inmates, and will contribute to restoring the honor of the victims and their families.”
The Silmido Unit was established in April of that year under the leadership of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Air Force to infiltrate North Korea following the infiltration of Seoul by North Korean armed agents, including Kim Shin-jo, in January 1968.
The number of operatives in the Silmido unit was 31, the same as the number of North Korean armed operatives. Of these, 7 died during training, and the remaining 24 were completely isolated and virtually detained on Silmido for 3 years and 4 months.
In August 1971, 24 members of the unit, who suffered from harsh training and unfair treatment, killed their unit members, escaped, and headed to Seoul. They advanced to Daebang-dong and engaged in a confrontation with the military and police, resulting in 20 deaths.
The four people who survived were sentenced to death, and the Air Force secretly buried the bodies without notifying their families of the executions that took place the following year.
The Ministry of National Defense's Past Photo Investigation Committee recommended an apology for the human rights violations in the Silmido incident in 2006 and the exhumation of remains, and the Ministry of National Defense apologized in the name of the minister at the opening ceremony for the excavation of the remains of Silmido agents in October 2024.
