The True Stories Behind Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea’s Tragedies
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At first glance, Netflix’s The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea’s Tragedies doesn’t have a clear, specific framework. The eight-episode docu-series is a follow-up to 2023’s In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal, expanding its focus beyond Korean cults to examine other horrific events that continue to cause trauma and pain in Korean society today. However, as the series goes on, a loosely overarching theme becomes clear: an examination of the lengths people will go for money in a society that allows for, encourages, or rewards the accumulation of wealth above all else.
The eight-episode series covers four different events in Korean history—including Busan’s Brothers’ Home, a follow-up on the legal cases connected to JMS church, the “Chijon family” gang murders, and the Sampoong Department Store collapse—through interviews with survivors and witnesses, as well as dramatic reenactments of the crimes and footage from news coverage of the events.
When In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal hit Netflix in March 2023, it shook Korean society. The docu-series, which examines abuses perpetrated by four different religious cults, leads with a focus on Christian Gospel Mission—also known as Providence and as Jesus Morning Star, or JMS.
Jung Myeong-seok is the founder of JMS and a self-proclaimed messiah to his tens of thousands of followers across Korea and the world, including in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia. After being convicted of rape in 2008 and serving a decade in prison, he was indicted again in 2022 for the sexual assault of two female followers. The story of these two survivors, Maple and Amy, were told in the first season of the Netflix documentary. At the time, producer Jo noted that he wanted to tell this story because members of his family have been victims of a pseudo-religious cult.
Echoes of Survivors uses two of its episodes to expand on how Jung Myeong-seok’s pattern of sexual abuse was kept secret for so long, and the measures to which the organization went to try to keep In the Name of God from being released. Part of this is delving into the role Jung’s second-in-command, Jung Jo-eun, played in allowing his abuse of female followers to continue. Last year, she was sentenced to seven years in prison for her role in the abuses. Jung was sentenced to another 17 years in prison in 2024. The docu-series also alleges that members of JMS who are also police officers abused their positions to try to keep Jung out of jail. It wonders just how many Korean institutions include loyal members of JMS.
The episodes end with Maple, who is now married to former idol and Olympic swimmer Alex Fong. The couple is expecting their first child. The final JMS episode leaves viewers with this message from Maple: “To every woman out there going through the same pain as me, let’s stay strong.”
Content retrieved from: https://time.com/7308454/echoes-of-survivors-inside-koreas-tragedies-true-story/.
