Director turns to virtual reality for short film about brutal murder of sex worker by US soldier

For 25 years, filmmaker Gina Kim wanted to make a film about the true story of a South Korean sex worker killed by an American soldier, but struggled with how to do so without feeling she was exploiting the victim. Then virtual reality arrived.

Through a partnership of storytelling and technology, Kim finally brought the 1992 murder to life in Bloodless, a 12-minute piece that won the award for best VR story at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The director said virtual reality is providing new ways to depict tragedies without making them into a spectacle.

“It allows you to feel the pain of others as if your own,” Kim said. “VR is not cinema. It’s something else.”

Kim was at college in 1992 when South Korea exploded in rage at the incident involving the soldier and sex worker in the town of Dongducheon, home to a US military base 40km north of Seoul. Protesters, including Kim, took to the streets, trying to shed light on the grim conditions of sex workers and to urge the South Korean and American governments to bring the soldier to justice.

Yet it was during those protests that Kim first saw how apparently well-intentioned people could exploit the very person they were trying to help. Protesters trying to highlight the case printed fliers and posters of a leaked crime scene photo showing the naked and brutally disfigured body of the 26-year-old woman. The image led to an outpouring of anger that eventually led to the soldier’s trial and murder conviction.