실미도 | Silmido
개봉 Released
감독 Directed by
역사배경 History
주연 Cast
2003.12.24
강우석 Ryoo Seung-wan
1.21 사태 The Blue House Raid
설경구 Sol Kyung-gu
안성기 Ahn Sung-ki
허준호 Heo Joon-ho
정재영 Jung Jae-young
Following the North Korea’s infiltration and failed assassination attempt of President Park Chung Hee in 1968, the Korean Republic Army planned to assassinate North Korean president Kim Il-Sung as retaliation. 31 criminals and death row inmates are recruited into secret training on the island of Silmi; for two years they are subjected to maximum mental and physical abuse before the mission is cancelled and the unit terminated.
Politician and army general Park Chung Hee seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961, where he was then elected as the third President of South Korea in 1963 and ruled the country as an authoritarian dictator.
Silmido is based on the 1999 novel Silmido by Baek Dong-ho, which in turn is based on the true story of Unit 684. Unit 684 was a black operations unit of the Republic of Korea Air Force formed to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in 1968, in retaliation for the Blue House raid assassination attempt against President Park Chung Hee. The unit consisted of 31 civilian recruits, mostly petty criminals and unemployed youths, and underwent three years of exceptionally harsh training on the island of Silmido, during which 7 members died.
Unit 684's assassination mission was cancelled in August 1971 following an improvement in relations between North Korea and South Korea.Upon receiving news of the cancellation, the 24 surviving members of Unit 684 mutinied, killed all but six of their guards, and made their way to the mainland, where they hijacked a bus to Seoul. The bus was stopped by the army in the Daebang-dong neighborhood of Dongjak District, Seoul. Twenty members of the unit were shot or committed suicide with hand grenades.
Six guards survived the Silmido uprising. One of the guards, Yang Dong-su, confirmed that the unit's mission had been to infiltrate North Korea and kill Kim Il Sung. Yang stated that most of the unit's members were petty criminals, stating that "They were the kind who would get into street fights a lot." Yang also gives his version of why the uprising occurred: "They revolted because they felt that they were never going to get the chance to go to North Korea and that they would never be allowed to leave the island. They were in despair."
The four survivors of Unit 684 were sentenced to death by a military tribunal and executed on 10 March 1972. They were tried in secret and their bodies were not handed over to their families after the execution. The South Korean government concealed all information regarding Unit 684 until the 1990s.
Unit 684 came to public attention with the release of the film Silmido in 2003, but the government only released an official report on the unit and the mutiny in 2006. In 2009, the families of 21 members of Unit 684 sued the South Korean government for ₩670 million in compensation.
On 19 May 2010, the Seoul Central District Court ordered that the government pay ₩273 million in compensation to the families. The court found that "the Silmido agents were not informed of the level of danger involved with their training, and the harshness of the training violated their basic human rights" and also acknowledged the emotional pain the government caused by not officially disclosing the deaths of the agents to family members until 2006.
Silmido is one of the two smaller islands nearby Muuido Island, which is located in Jung-gu, Incheon. Muuido has two famous beaches, namely Hanagae Beach and Silmi Beach. At low tide, it is possible to walk to Silmido from Silmi Beach.
