Netflix's documentary 'The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea's Tragedies' is stoking global outrage as people are brought face-to-face with horrific tales of abuse, corruption, and survival from the recent history of Korea.
Premiered Aug. 15, the series is a follow-up to the 2023 season of In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal, which explored the Jesus Morning Star cult and its founder, Jeong Myeong-seok.
The second season covers larger tragedies, such as the infamous Brothers' Home in Busan, the Jijon gang serial killings, and the Sampoong Department Store collapse.
The Brothers' Home case has become the most contentious. Investigations found that children and adults who were misrepresented as "vagrants" were kidnapped, detained, and coerced into labor from 1975 to 1987.
A 2022 report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission verified a minimum of 657 deaths at the facility.
One of the survivors had remembered the horror in the series. In an objective introduction, he stated, "It's exactly the same — even the blankets. It feels like being caught and taken back to the 1980s"
Another Korean American viewer posted a personal anecdote on Reddit. He stated: "Almost 40 years later, I still think about the turn of events, how 1 minute can change the trajectory of life, how fortunate we were, what might have happened if we never jumped out.
This documentary really brought that memory back, and I remember it like it was last year."
Global news sources have echoed demands for justice. Time magazine called the work "an examination of the lengths people will go for money in a society that allows for, encourages, or rewards the accumulation of wealth above all else."
India Times reported that it sheds light on "the most haunting chapters of Korea's past, bringing to light painful truths that continue to burden survivors.
Aussie coverage has been on Brothers' Home director Park In-geun's relatives, who live in Sydney and are targeted with a $40 million reparations demand. They were reported to operate sports complexes bought using embezzled money.
The series has also drawn criticism for the way it is approached. Some critics claimed that recreating barracks and requiring survivors to dress in old-style uniforms was exploitative.
One foreign audience member likened it to "getting a Holocaust survivor to wear striped pajamas."
Cultural critic Jung Duk-hyun provided a more expansive vision. He stated, "Reality here is more like a movie than a movie itself.
When you look deeply into the bottom of these incidents, you realize that these are not just past events but ongoing issues even today."
