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Synopsis:
molka (n): the Korean term for spy cameras secretly and illegally installed, often to capture voyeuristic images and videos
Dahye can’t believe her luck when she finds herself in a whirlwind romance with handsome, charismatic Hyukjoon, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune.
But then a shocking revelation threatens: the couple has been caught on a spycam amid Korea’s growing molka epidemic, and the video is all over the internet. When Hyukjoon flees the country to avoid the intense public scrutiny, Dahye is left to grapple with the ramifications on her own; and the demons from her childhood, long dormant, begin to surface.
Amid the chaos, she catches the attention of Junyoung, a nerdy, introverted IT tech at work. Junyoung harbours a dark secret: he has been spying on the women at work with his own hidden cameras. As Dahye’s life begins to unravel, she unknowingly becomes the sole target of Junyoung’s perverse obsession.
When the facts surrounding the invasion of her privacy come to light, Dahye is faced with the humiliating truth. Her pain and hurt turn to rage as she faces her past. Her desire for vengeance is insatiable, and she will not rest until the men who have wronged her have paid in blood…
A Short documentary about the Molka epidemic:
Review:
Molka is a term for the secret and hidden spy cameras that are put in places throughout South Korea by men to get secret footage of women. They are placed in public bathrooms, in department store changing rooms, in offices, in schools, and in hotel rooms. The problem with molka cameras quickly became an epidemic with over 30,000 cases reported between 2015 and 2018. There have been some huge cases including the Nth Room case, where molka was filmed, encrypted, and sent to chat rooms where for a price, people could watch these videos, and the case of Jung Joon-young, a popular singer who got his start on Superstar K4 and released solo music. He was also picking up women, secretly filming them having sex in hotel rooms and sharing the videos with his friends in a chat group. He only got into real trouble after filming and sharing of a video of him raping a woman in 2019. He served six years in jail, and when he was released, he did not have to wear any sort of monitor or put himself on the sex registry. The biggest fight about these crimes, the rise of molka videos, exploitive crimes, and the violation of women, has been actually the punishment of the criminals. Most of these crimes see very little jail time, very small fines, and very little repercussion.
This is the backdrop of Molka by Monkia Kim, a horror novel that is fueled by the anger and the injustice of this whole crimewave. The main character Dahye works in an office building, is dating a charismatic, rich businessman named Haukjoon, and is doing her best to get over the death of her sister Eunhye. She is also being watched along with the rest of the office by the IT employee Junyoung, a loser who lives with his mother and has a very low opinion of women, who starts obsessing over Dahye after watching videos of her recorded by his spy cams in the women’s office bathroom. When Haukjoon gets a terrible call in the middle of the night and disappears on Dahye, saying that he is heading to the United States for business, Dahye knows that something worse is going on. The truth is that all of the men in this novel are scum, men who live with no accountability for their actions, like Haukjoon getting out of trouble by being wealthy and Junyoung getting out of trouble for setting up spy cameras because “boys will be boys”. The complete disregard for the safety, privacy, and feelings of the women by every man in Molka, including people in places of authority (the bosses at the office and the police), is palpable, and in the end, when Dahye takes matters into her own hands, we cannot stop rooting for her.
This is revenge of the highest order, one that compares with stories like I Spit on Your Grave. The criminals get what they deserve, and the truth is that by the time Dahye starts taking drastic measures to hold these men accountable for their actions, she not only represents herself and her story but the story of all of the women who have been abused terrible men who have not received a proper punishment. She becomes more than a character in her story. She becomes a representative for an entire system that let down women and protected disgusting men.
Molka is Monika Kim’s follow up to The Eyes are the Best Part, and it is an uncomfortable story. I like this more than Kim’s debut because it feels more real, that it want to really spotlight a problem in South Korean culture, and it feels like this is not just the story of Dahye, but the anger of an entire population of women. There is some horror, some difficult scenes, and some paranormal moments, but as a whole this is about the true horror of men who do whatever they want and get away with it.
I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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