A new documentary surrounding the final interview with K-pop idol Sulli, who committed suicide at age 25, reveals complex truths about South Korea’s notoriously brutal music industry. Dear Jinri, premiering at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in South Korea, features the star’s latest Netflix project. At the heart of the documentary, the final interview with the deceased idol, at once raw, powerful and heartbreaking.
Sulli, born Choi Jin-ri, committed suicide in 2019 after a long battle with online harassment. What Sulli shares during this final conversation raises “many crucial questions in our society,” noted director Jung Yoon-suk after the film’s screening at BIFF.
“These could be issues relating to women, issues relating to vulnerable people in our society or issues relating to equality,” he added. Sulli, who began her career as a child actress at the age of 11, made her musical debut in 2009 with the girl group f(x), which quickly became one of the top K-pop groups the most prominent. Known for behavior considered controversial in South Korea, including refusing to wear a bra in public, Sulli has been the victim of relentless online harassment and the target of sexual criticism.
The film explores the singer’s lonely childhood and her struggles with her image as a woman in a world that can be intensely focused on appearance. “Since you were born as a pretty woman, you don’t have to know anything,” she was told according to the documentary. The documented pressures of the K-pop world are highlighted, with Sulli explaining that she was asked to be “a product of the highest quality.”
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She compares her experience to that of the protagonist in Luc Besson’s film Nikita (1990), who undergoes rigorous and vicious training to become a killing machine, completely cut off from the outside world. It seemed like people “couldn’t realize that we were human beings,” Sulli says in the documentary. Sulli’s response to the online bullying she experienced – particularly her decision to forgive one of her harassers – is arguably one of the most poignant and revealing scenes in the film.
The interview is punctuated by frequent pauses, the camera lingering silently on his subject, the pain and sorrow palpable on his face. In the room, we heard sobbing throughout the projection. Suicide is the leading cause of death for South Koreans aged 10 to 39, according to official figures. Several young K-pop stars have died by suspected suicide in recent years, including Goo Hara, Jonghyun and Moonbin, sparking widespread calls to better address the mental health of young people in the industry.
Sulli also speaks candidly about feminism, a still-controversial topic in socially conservative South Korea, saying she “supported women who spoke out” even if their views didn’t match hers. The documentary paints a portrait of a contemplative and resilient figure who resisted the pressure of conformity, instead striving to forge her own understanding of the world and her place in it.
It takes its title from Sulli’s legal name, Jin-ri, which means “truth” in Korean. Its director wanted the film to be as “deep as the truth itself, as the name” of the star suggests. Mr. Jung believes it is “extremely important to see this person not only as a celebrity or an idol, but also as someone who has self-awareness as an artist.”
