Movie 'Chiaksan' to Release as Scheduled…Court Says Little Risk of Damaging Mountain's Reputation

Injunction to Ban Screening Dismissed... Release on the 13th
"Difficult to Predict Reputation Damage Due to Fictional Content"

The injunction to ban the screening of the horror film 'Chiaksan,' based on the urban legend that 10 dismembered bodies were found in Chiaksan Mountain in the 1980s, has been dismissed. Accordingly, the film is scheduled to be released as planned on the 13th.

Movie 'Chiaksan' Poster (Left) / Scene from the Movie (Right) [Photo by Toho Entertainment]

On the 12th, the 50th Civil Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Chief Judge Park Beom-seok) dismissed the injunction request filed by Wonju City and Daehan Buddhist Jogye Order's Guryongsa Temple, among others, against the film production company Doho Entertainment, claiming that the image of Chiaksan and the city could be damaged.

The court explained, "It cannot be predicted that the reputation of Chiaksan will be damaged or that viewers will have a negative impression of Chiaksan simply because the mountain appears as the setting in this fictional film."

It added, "It is difficult to see that Wonju City or its citizens' personal rights or property rights would suffer serious and significant damage."

Earlier, during the hearing on the 8th, the Wonju City side argued, "Citizens of Wonju take pride in Chiaksan to the extent that they regard it as virtually identical to Wonju City," and "If false information about dismembered murders occurring on such a mountain is used for noise marketing, it would lead to infringement of citizens' personal and property rights."

Guryongsa Temple, Wonju Livestock Cooperative, Wonju Horticultural Cooperative, and the agricultural and fishery corporation Geumdon also stated, "There are organizations that are committed to maintaining the clean image of the Chiaksan brand," expressing concerns that "the damage due to trademark value infringement could be significant."

However, the film production company countered, "The film does not contain content that directly infringes on the honor or property of Wonju City or Guryongsa," and called the claims of damage to brand value "abstract."

They also argued, "While it is common for films to include subtitles stating that the story is fictional in the intro, this film has inserted such subtitles twice, at the beginning and the end," and added, "In modern society, cultural awareness has developed to the extent that the use of specific place names in films and the formation of negative images about those areas are separate matters."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.