Director: Ahn Gooc-jin
Starring: Son Suk-ku, Kim Sung-cheol, Kim Dong-hwi, Hong Kyung
Country of Origin: South Korea
Running time: 1hr 49m
Malicious online comments carry a disproportionate weight in South Korea.
Careers have been destroyed and lives ruined when a trickle of spiteful posts turns into a deluge.
Actors, pop stars and other celebrities have all been the victims of cancel culture in the time it takes to click a mouse in a nation overly preoccupied with public image.
The anonymous keyboard warriors that churn out copious amounts of bile usually stay out of the spotlight.
Yet they take centre stage in Troll Factory.
Director Ahn Gooc-jin examines the thin line between the genuine and fabricated in a multi-layered story of a journalist that tries to expose an all-powerful conglomerate.
Newspaper reporter Im Sang-jin (Son Suk-ku) pens an article which accuses the Manjun corporation of illegal business practices.
When his piece is discredited, he becomes the victim of an internet hate campaign aimed at ruining his reputation.
Im is handed a six-month sabbatical by his editor but is convinced of the veracity of his story.
Just when it appears as if he is running out of leads a mysterious informant (Kim Dong-hwi) contacts Im. The young whistleblower reveals that a dedicated team of internet agitators were paid to generate dozens of posts to wreck the reporter’s career.
Im must hunt for the facts through reams of fiction as the stress of finding out what really happened takes him to the brink of a breakdown.
It plays out like an American conspiracy thriller from the 1970s as uncertainty looms with every new detail in an ever-shifting tale of control and misdirection.
There is a brief history lesson in a prologue which outlines how a disgruntled youngster began the first publicized candlelight protest against internet charges in the 1990s. The power of the online community helped build a movement against president Park Geun-hye three decades later. Millions headed to central Seoul with candles in hand to demand Park resign in 2016 and early 2017, which eventually led to the impeachment of the president.
Troll Factory explores a much darker side of the internet. The three strong comment unit (the title of the film in Korean) operate from a dingy, garbage strewn apartment with wires scattered everywhere.
Multiple phones and computers are used by the trio who disguise themselves with purposefully difficult to track identities. JjingForkKing (Kim Sung-cheol) is the most brazen of the group and acts as leader while ChAtTaTkat (Kim Dong-hwi) and PEpTeK (Hong Kyung) hesitantly follow before being drawn into a dehumanizing world of contrived online abuse.
They use sinister tactics which begin with praise before quickly shifting to a barrage of vile insults. Director Ahn plunges us into their callous domain starting with a campaign to sell cigarettes using a photoshopped advertisement. Nothing is out of bounds as the triumvirate home in on their victims like hungry predators. It briskly escalates as the group buys thousands of fake Chinese social media accounts to target the school age daughter of a solo human rights protestor with deadly consequences.
What begins as a money-making hustle ends up in disaster as the group inevitably fractures. The playful atmosphere gradually turns sour with Hong Kyung particularly effective as a wavering dissenter that questions the trio’s motives. Son plays the slightly aloof Im with relentless conviction as the less appealing aspects of investigative reporting place him in a series of hopeless dead ends.
Ahn guides us through it all in a frantic maelstrom of flashing comments and memes. It can be disorientating as subtitles often appear at the top and bottom of the screen. Perhaps the extra confusion is intended – although the presence of subtitles is usually enough to dissuade American audiences from foreign films – as the director ushers us into the fast-paced realm of stony-hearted tech-savvy exploiters.
Nothing is conclusive in a modern morality tale which forces us to look beyond the vicious comments in search of the truth.
Stephen Kasiewicz 