[단독]Mungyeong-si “Chosun Gumasa production subsidy cannot be recovered”

[이데일리 박지혜 기자] Mungyeong City’s Cultural Tourism Foundation, which provided incentives to the SBS TV drama’Chosun-gu Masa’ (played by Gye-ok Park, director Shin-Soo Shin), which was engulfed in controversy over history distortion, expressed its position that “the subsidies cannot be recovered.

Bae Tae-han, the secretary general of the Mungyeong Culture and Tourism Foundation, said in a phone call with E-Daily on the 24th, saying, “It has already been implemented.”

Director Bae said, “Chosun-gu Masa paid about 3.6 million won, 20% of the filming expenses in Mungyeong last year.” He then emphasized that “there was no previous screening for the contents of the drama, and it was applied to revitalize the local economy.”

Mungyeong City introduced incentive support business for the first time in 2019 and provided incentives not only to Joseon Gumasa but also last year’s dramas’Wind and Clouds and Rain’,’Train’, and the movie’Aliens’.

Mungyeong City is providing incentives up to 10 million won for filming movies and dramas in the region. It is to promote attractions and revitalize the local economy.

As explained by Director Bae, 20% of the production cost, such as room and board expenses, fuel expenses, auxiliary contributions, and heavy equipment usage fees, will be provided in case of filming more than 5 times in Mungyeong among domestic and international movies and videos with a net production cost of 300 million won or more.

However, Director Bae said, “We will review the contents of the filming when conducting future support projects with this incident as an opportunity.”

Also, from the previous day on the website of Mungyeong City and the Foundation, he said, “We will make an official position soon” regarding the raining of “Stop the support for the production of Chosun Gumasa immediately”.

SBS TV’s Monday-Tuesday drama’Chosun-gu Masa’.

From the 22nd to this day, when the first episode of Joseon Gumasa was aired, nearly 700 articles were posted on the free bulletin board on the Mungyeong City homepage, “Please stop supporting Joseon Gumasa”.

Most of them say, “The public opinion is not good enough for advertisers to withdraw the advertisement. Does Mungyeong City continue to support it?”, “Support with national tax? Please stop”, “I request you to withdraw the support for the production of dramas contributing to the Northeast Project right away.”

In fact, the advertising industry is also showing a stop-loss movement for this drama one by one.

More than 1,700 complaints from related viewers were received by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCC) on the previous day, and an article requesting the suspension of broadcasting on the Blue House National Petition bulletin board has been posted.

Earlier, many netizens raised suspicion of distortion of history, saying that Chinese-style accessories such as mooncakes appeared in the scene where Chungnyeongdaegun served food to Father John (Dalsey Paket), a priest of Kuma, during the first episode of the Joseon Gumasa.

In addition, as it became known as the work of the author Park Gye-ok of the tvN drama’Queen of Iron Man’, which was surrounded by controversy over the history of the story of the Joseon Dynasty, which is a UNESCO World Record Heritage and National Treasure, the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty are called “one piece of paper,” a suspicion was raised that Park was not a Korean-Chinese.

Among these, the production crew of Joseon Gumasa explained that the controversy over the distortion of history, such as the use of Chinese-style props, was set to explain the dated characters, but had no special intention.

The production crew said in a statement on the previous day, “To emphasize the situation in which the Chungnyeong Daegun (played by Jang Dong-yoon) had to travel a long distance to the Chinese border to bring the western shaman, a place called’near Uiju (the Ming Dynasty border)’ was decided. It was a setting to describe the location of the characters in the far outskirts,” he explained. He then apologized, saying, “I am sorry for the inconvenience caused by this scene that could be misunderstood during the sensitive period,” and “I will pay attention to the production in the future.”

On the other hand, according to the statistics of the audience rating research company Nielsen Korea, the second episode of’Chosun-gu Masa’ broadcast the previous day recorded an audience rating of 4.5% for the first part and 6.9% for the second part based on national households.

Compared to the viewership ratings of 5.7% for the first part and 8.9% for the second part, which were broadcast on the 22nd, this figure has decreased by 1.2% and 2.0%, respectively.