Actor O Yeong-su of South Korea’s “Squid Game” was accused of abusing a woman in 2017, and a local court said on Friday that he had been found guilty of sexual misconduct.
The 79-year-old made history in 2022 when he won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor in a television series for his portrayal of an elderly man who seemed fragile in the wildly popular dystopian drama on Netflix.
The Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Court told AFP that the actor received a sentence of eight months in prison with a two-year suspension. The court further stated that he has been mandated to attend 40 hours of classes on sexual violence.Judge Jeong Yeon-ju declared that the victim’s own accounts of the assault and her assertions are “consistent… and appear to be statements that cannot be made without actually experiencing them,” as per the court documents.
O was charged with two counts of sexual assault on an unidentified lady in 2022 and was placed under arrest without bond.According to the Suwon District Court, the occurrences happened in front of the victim’s home and on a walking path in 2017 while O was visiting a remote area for a theater performance.The Netflix series “Squid Game,” which imagines a dystopian society in which marginalized people are made to play lethal versions of classic children’s games, shot to fame.
It drew an astounding 111 million viewers in less than four weeks after its 2021 debut.With the success of the show, South Korea’s influence on popular culture worldwide has grown significantly. This is in addition to the global recognition gained by films like Parasite, which received an Oscar, and K-pop group BTS.Several individuals in the South Korean film business, such as the late director Kim Ki-duk and the actor Cho Jae-hyun, have been accused of sexual assault.
