Death of Lee Sun-kyun (Parasite): Bong Joon-ho calls for investigation

Other South Korean personalities want to know precisely why the actor would have ended his life.

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Korean press announced the disappearance of Lee Sun-kyunactor famous for Night and Dayby Hong Sang-soo, Parasiteof Bong Joon-ho or the series Dr.Brain. He committed suicide at the age of 48. He had two children born in 2009 and 2011.

Found lifeless in his car in Seoul, he was the subject of a public investigation for drug use at the time of his death, and it was for this reason that he allegedly ended his life.

Married to actress Jeon Hye-Jin (Sado) since 2009, he left her a note in which he expressed his suicidal thoughts following his “stalking” by the police: in October, tested positive for Marijuana, he was pushed to abandon his series No Way Out, whose production had just started. When he was found lifeless, he had just undergone 19 hours of interrogation and medical tests to find traces of psychotropic drugs. So many personal details which leaked into the press, and which he said he suffered from in his suicide letter.

Bong Joon-ho and other South Korean artists are now officially calling for light to be shed on his death. 29 members of the Cultural Artists Solidarity Association, the director Lee Won-tae, the actors Choi Deok-moon and Choi Jeong-hwa and the personalities at the head of the Korean Producers Guild and the Busan film festival signed an open letter to the country’s authorities. This is translated into English and relayed by The Hollywood Reporter.

“We were meeting to ensure that no such accident could happen in the future, following the tragic death of actor Lee Sun-kyun, they write, recalling that the country holds the sad record for the highest number of suicides per capita in the world. We demand the opening of an investigation to discover the truth and demand the media to delete their articles which do not respect their journalistic function. Finally, we also call on the authorities to review the law in order to better protect the human rights of artists.”

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