Deranged (2012 film)

Deranged
Promotional poster for Deranged
Directed by	Park Jung-woo
Produced by	Lim Ji-young
Written by	Park Jung-woo Jo Dong-in Kim Kyeong-hoon
Starring	Kim Myung-min Kim Dong-wan Moon Jung-hee Lee Ha-nui
Music by	Jo Yeong-wook
Cinematography	Gi Se-hun
Edited by	Park Gok-ji
Production company	Oz One Film
Distributed by	CJ E&M
Release dates	5 July 2012 (2012-07-05)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Budget	₩10 billion
Box office	US$28.4 million

Deranged (Hangul: 연가시; hanja: 鐵線蟲; RR: Yeongasi) is a 2012 South Korean science fiction thriller film starring Kim Myung-min, Kim Dong-wan, Moon Jung-hee and Lee Ha-nui. It is Korea's first medical thriller on an infectious disease epidemic (another related film, Flu, was released the next year in 2013). The film was directed by Park Jung-woo and produced by Lim Ji-young and Oz One Film. Distributed by CJ E&M, the film was released on July 5, 2012 and runs at 109 minutes.

Plot

Jae-hyuk (Kim Myung-min) is a former professor with a doctorate in biochemistry who is currently working as a pharmaceutical sales representative after losing his life savings and his job due to a bad investment he made in the stock market on the advice of his younger brother. When a series of dead bodies are found floating in the Han River, the public is shocked to discover that the deaths are related to a fatal outbreak of virus-infected mutant parasitic horsehair worms, called Yeongasi, that can control the human brain. Those infected show symptoms of increased hunger without appropriate weight gain and excessive thirst when the worms are mature and ready to reproduce. Hence, they jump into the river to allow the worms to come out of the body. While the authorities work to find a cure, Jae-hyuk and his brother Jae-pil (Kim Dong-wan), a detective who is agonized with guilt for squandering Jae-hyuk's money in the stock market, struggle to save Jae-hyuk's family when they exhibit similar symptoms to the infected.

Starting with Seoul, dead bodies with similar signs of malnutrition are found every morning in rivers all across the country. The police have trouble understanding the cause of the sudden deaths, as all the victims don't show any physical symptoms but look gruesome as soon as they jump into the water. One victim is found dead in his bathtub, but there are also unidentifiable worm-like organisms swimming next to his dead body. Officials at the Ministry of Health find out that these organisms are parasitic horsehair worms that normally use insects as hosts but became mutated into a new form that allows them to infect human bodies as well. The sudden change in appearance that was seen consistently in all victims was caused when the parasites escaped the bodies in the water. As soon as the news gets out and the government makes a public announcement urging people who have been in or near water and show symptoms of hunger and thirst to get checked out, countless people rush to hospitals. Pharmacies are crowded with people desperate to get anthelmintics. Matters become worse when more people jump into rivers overnight and dead bodies float around every morning.

Then it is discovered that using any type of anthelmintic actually causes more excruciating pain and eventual death. Chaos ensues and worsens until one patient claims that he was cured by a specific type of drug called Windazole. The country goes crazy in order to get a hold of the drug, but pharmacies run out of supply in less than a day. Government officials contact the pharmaceutical company in charge of making Windazole, ChoA Pharmaceuticals, and demand that they increase supply. However, ever since being acquired by an investment company, the devices involved in creating the drug were poorly managed and the company fails to make a single pill. Public hearings follow as the government requests the company to reveal the drug’s composition, but the CEO says that the company’s major stockholders refuse to do so, and the government has no legal grounds to force the company to disclose the drug’s “recipe” either.

Jae-pil then discovers evidence that this was all planned out by workers at ChoA Pharmaceuticals. He finds someone who used to work at the research team at ChoA and threatens him to tell the truth. The worker confesses the entire story. A few years back, the researchers at ChoA learned about the parasite Yeongasi and thought that finding out the protein involved in controlling the brain might help with finding a cure to other brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The team was successful in making a mutant version that used mammals as hosts and seemed to be on the way to success with their research when the company was sold over, and the research team was disbanded. Some of the researchers who were angry about the whole incident came together and agreed to take part in a collective stock manipulation scheme in which they bought a bunch of stocks and released the parasite after storing away 100,000 packets of the drug. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of tourists became infected over the summer as they went to rivers for vacation. One of the researchers then acted as if he had been treated by the drug in order to raise stock prices.

Given this information, Jae-pil calls Jae-hyuk, and the two go to the storage the researcher admitted to having kept away the rest of the drugs. When Jae-hyuk finally is about to get a hold of the medicine, someone locks the door to the storage and sets the building on fire. The two survive, but the researcher who had been giving Jae-pil the information is murdered by a mysterious man (who later turns out to be the researcher to claim that Windazole worked), and all of the drugs burn down. Jae-pil then finds out that the murdered researcher had actually been the head of the research team and was a close friend to the CEO. Jae-pil learns that the other researchers had already run away overseas and that the head of the team was just staying behind to see how things panned out. Thus, the entire plan was premeditated and taken out by the CEO and the researchers from the beginning. Meanwhile, the CEO suggests that the government buy the company in its entirety, which would then allow them to find out the drug’s composition and make more of it for the rapidly increasing number of patients. The price the CEO offers is completely unreasonable and most government officials are against the idea, but the Prime Minister says there is no other option and is about to sign the contract. In the nick of time, he is informed of the whole scam and the CEO is arrested. Jae-hyuk is in despair when he suddenly realizes, based on his knowledge of chemistry, that as long as he is able to create a drug with the same active ingredient as Windazole, he should be able to treat his family—he doesn’t necessarily need Windazole itself. Other people join in on the plan and pharmaceutical companies hastily create an effective drug that treats everyone.

The movie ends with Jae-hyuk and is family spending time at an amusement park. Jae-hyuk suggests the family go on vacation overseas all together, preferably to a place with many drugstores. His wife laughs and asks if Jae-hyuk is worried that there might be Yeongasi in other countries as well. Jae-hyuk smiles but suddenly freezes and whips around as the film suddenly transitions to a scene with a dead body floating in New York Harbor.

Themes

Public Health and Government

Many references are made to the government throughout the film. One key aspect is how the government responds to the national epidemic. Towards the middle, families are separated as those infected are quarantined and other family members who are not infected are asked to leave because a “lack of resources.” Moreover, when the situation becomes dire, police are even ordered to confiscate the phones of patients because other healthy citizens were unnecessarily becoming “frightened” by the videos of Yeongasi patients posted on social media by those in quarantine. There are several scenes where the head of the Ministry of Health keeps yelling, “Stick to the manual!” suggesting how inflexible the government can be.

Money

A major theme in the film is the human greed for money and how it can lead to devastating consequences. One man who works in the tourism business admits that he saw men letting loose dogs a while back and found the dogs floating in the river the next morning but didn’t report anything because he made a living off of tourists who came to the rivers during the summer. News of dead dogs wouldn’t help with his business, and he solely relied on the summer months to earn enough money for the entire year. In addition, once people find out about Windazole, a black market quickly springs up. When Jae-hyuk desperately tries to find the drug for his family, a colleague of his is able to buy one for an extremely high price. Jae-hyuk also contacts a dealer who sells the drug for an astronomical amount of money (but the police crash the place and the dealer flushes everything down the toilet to get rid of evidence). This theme is best shown in ChoA Pharmaceuticals CEO, however, who plans the entire national crisis out in an attempt to make money off of a dying company. His greed almost leads to the demise of an entire country.

Family

Family is greatly emphasized throughout the entire film. Jae-hyuk is initially depicted as a very irritable father and husband, but arguably rightly so because of the financial difficulty his family is in. He has to work long hours and is always having to deal with other people in a servile manner, which tires him out by the time he gets back home. Yet the epidemic allows him to finally focus on his family, and he is willing to do anything to save his wife and children at all costs. By the end of the movie, he tries to express his love and spend more quality time with his family. In addition, the family’s love for each other is often shown. Even in the midst of having to fight against the disease, Gyung-seon (Jae-hyuk’s wife), calls and asks how Jae-hyuk is, which makes Jae-hyuk upset as he begs her to please focus on herself and the kids. When the situation seems bleak, Gyung-seon asks that Jae-hyuk not feel sorry for being unable to help the rest of the family and constantly tells him that he tried his best, which is all that matters.

Community

Community and cooperation among each other are highlighted throughout. When Jae-hyuk is able to get one packet of the drug through his colleague, he runs into a mom holding a crying infant who is infected. He tries to turn away and leave but goes through an intensely emotional scene that depicts his inner moral conflict. He finally gets out of the car and quietly rushes over to the mother to offer her a pill, which is unfortunately caught by other people desperate to get the drug and leads to violence. The theme of community is also seen when Jae-hyuk realizes that he just needs the active ingredient and tries to get into the company that is blocked off by the police. He asks the protestors to help him get in, and the protestors work together to push away the police so that Jae-hyuk can get in.

Cast

• Kim Myung-min - Jae-hyuk
• Moon Jung-hee - Gyung-seon
• Kim Dong-wan - Jae-pil, an investigator and younger brother of Jae-hyuk
• Lee Ha-nui - Yeon-joo
• Eom Ji-seong - Joon-woo
• Yeom Hyun-seo - Ye-ji
• Kang Shin-il - Doctor Hwang
• Jo Deok-hyeon - Tae-won /Yhengmorada
• Jeon Kuk-hwan - Prime Minister
• Choi Jung-woo - Minister of Health and Welfare
• Lee Hyung-chul - James Kim
• Jung In-gi - Sales Office Manager
• Song Young-chang - Doctor Kim
• Choi Il-hwa - South Korean president
• Kim Se-dong - Production Director

Reception

On the first day of its theatrical release, Deranged sold 190,953 tickets, making it number one on the daily box office chart (beating Hollywood film The Amazing Spider Man which sold 149,170 tickets). The film grossed a total of ₩31,992,014,698 after only five weeks of screening, with 4,515,665 total tickets sold nationwide.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result	Ref
2012	49th Grand Bell Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Moon Jung-hee	Nominated
	33rd Blue Dragon Film Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Won
		Technical Award	Seo Sang-hwa	Nominated
2013	49th Paeksang Arts Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Moon Jung-hee	Nominated
		Most Popular Actor	Kim Dong-wan	Won

External links

• Deranged on Twitter
• Deranged at the Korean Movie Database
• Deranged at IMDb
• Deranged at HanCinema