The first ‘scandal’ concerns Kim Min Hee’s affair with the much older and married director Hang Sang Soo (Ha Ha Ha). Ever since the affair was confirmed, the actress has  suffered negative publicity with many refusing to watch her films in the cinema. The situation has become so bad that she has been forced to leave  Korea for America, where it has been confirmed that she married the director in July this year; depsite the director still technically being married to his first wife. I know, crazy!

Sadly, all this fuss and scandal is detracting from what an amazing actress she is, especially with her recent turn in Park Chan Wook’s Agassi ( soon to be shown in London as part of the LEAFF).

I bet people pour more hate and scorn on the women in these affairs, without accepting that the men are hardly innocent themselves. In the case of Sang Soo, his own wife has denied that her husband has actually left her and maintains that they are still married. She released a statement confirming

“I will never divorce him. I’m going to wait for him until I die. I still love my husband, and he loved me too. Everyone around us knows how family-oriented my husband is. I’m being hopeful. My husband will return to me.”

The situation became even more tangled when the mother of Kim left a message to the director’s wife saying it was harder to be the mother of a woman who had fallen in love with a married man than to be the woman whose husband had left her.

Scandal number 2 concerns actor Kyung Ku. The great Korean actor left his wife in 2006 and married Song Yun-ahin 2009.

However, many fans blamed his new wife for the marriage break-up, claiming she was a home wrecker. The online abuse directed at the couple became so bad that they eventually filed a lawsuit against 57 website users for defamatory statements made  about them on internet forums. This was despite the fact that the actor made clear that the actress had no effect on his marriage breaking up. Most people didn’t believe it and the actor now has a reputation for questionable moral standards.

I guess it’s easy to judge people but much harder if you have to experience these situations first hand. My feeling is that people in South Korea have higher standards when it comes to marriage and the treatment of anyone who threatens marital stability is usually harsh. Still, it could be worth pointing out once in a while that celebrities are normal people just like everybody else.