'Parasite' actor Lee Sun-kyun found dead in Seoul

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00:00 You've mentioned most of what we know now. An extremely popular actor who got his first

00:05 breakthrough in 2007 in a television drama catapulted to international fame with this

00:12 Zeke's capturing movie about middle class angst parasite, which of course became the

00:17 first ever foreign language film to win an Oscar. So a man definitely at the height of

00:23 his powers suddenly struck down by what appears to be suicide. Of course, this is not by any

00:30 means the first suicide among the celebrity class of South Korea. We're seeing a virtual

00:37 epidemic of suicides in this country, but particularly among some very, very high profile

00:43 individuals. This appears to be linked to allegations of drug use, which he is himself

00:50 resisted. He said he didn't take drugs voluntarily. He was blackmailed into, sorry, he was passed

00:58 the drug somehow in a Kangnam nightclub and subsequently blackmailed, but nevertheless

01:03 appears to have taken his own life. As you say, Andrew, he also recently been dropped,

01:10 hadn't he, from a major TV series, No Way Out in South Korea. Drug offences there are

01:16 considered a really serious crime. I'm all right to say recently the national police

01:19 talking about an all out war on drugs. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, in the West

01:26 we have a very supportive infrastructure for people who are addicted to drugs. It's a health

01:33 problem. It's a mental health problem. Here it's a criminal problem. And of course, the

01:37 prosecution authorities, sort of almost a hangover from Korea's pre-democratic past,

01:43 have a very, very high conviction rate. And I think this conviction rate is one of the

01:48 things that drives suicides for those who are under investigation. Again, it's not just

01:54 Lee Seung-gyun who's died while under the shadow of a prosecution investigation. A former

02:00 president, Noh Moo-hyun, killed himself when his family was being investigated for alleged

02:07 corruption. A former mayor of Seoul killed himself when he was facing allegations of

02:13 sexual harassment. So this is not an isolated case. And many Koreans are asking themselves

02:20 why so many people are doing this. And I think if you speak to foreign observers of the Korean

02:25 scene, they'll say that one of the reasons for Korea's extraordinary national success

02:31 is this very, very traditional communal culture, which sort of unites the society. The downside

02:37 of that is this intense peer pressure on how to behave. And for public figures, there's

02:43 very, very little tolerance for a kind of rock and roll lifestyle, which we sort of

02:48 tolerate among celebrities in the West. And so we're seeing many celebrities kill themselves

02:54 when they come under just some hint of allegations of misbehavior. And this is a big problem.

03:03 It's widely perceived as a problem. But as it's not a political problem or an economic

03:07 problem, it's difficult to know how to address this deep seated social issue.

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