Intention () is a 2018 documentary film directed by Ji-young Kim, who also directed the follow-up investigation, Ghost Ship. The film focuses on the South Korean government's involvement in and cover up of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. It features scientific analyses and testimonies from survivors to reveal the cause of the sinking, which resulted in the deaths of 304 of the 476 people on board, most of whom were high school students. Kim proves that much of the government-released data made available to the public was faked. Survivors indicated that there was governmental pressure to change their testimonies about the sinking to fit a different, inaccurate narrative for the disaster. Kim proves that there was collusion between government entities to not only conceal that the ship's sinking was not accidental, but also cover up the fact that the Korean Coast Guard failed to rescue passengers. Intention reveals the corruption within the government of Park Geun-Hye, the South Korean president who was impeached in 2017, and notably focuses attention on the National Intelligence Service (NIS). The film is narrated by actor Jung Woo-sung.
The film was released in South Korea on 12 April 2018 and quickly broke the country's box-office record for a political-current affairs documentary.
Film content
In Director Ji-young Kim's documentary, he seeks to reveal the truth about the sinking of the Sewol, an incident that has not been resolved as of 2024. He identifies the failures of the South Korean administration run by Park Geun-hye and the influence of the National Intelligence Service as being critical components in the disaster. Kim examines the corruption and cover-up of the Sewol Ferry sinking, as well as the suffering of the victims' families in the aftermath. The film is divided up into chapters that address the various aspects of his investigation.
Chapter 1: The Evidence Of An Accident: Is It Genuine? Since most of the available coverage at the time of the Sewol's sinking focused on the Coast Guard's failed rescue, Director Kim's team gathered the information given out by the government's Police-Prosecution Joint Investigation Team. The government's case is laid out in this first chapter. The prosecutor's office indicated that the accident occurred because of a sharp right turn and the listing of the ferry's cargo. Old, faulty equipment, poorly secured cargo, a company (Chonghaejin) that focused on profit over safety, and a badly trained captain and crew were blamed for the accident. However, when Director Kim began to delve into the government-released Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, he found that it was suspicious. Ou-Joon Kim, a journalist with a popular news podcast in South Korea, noted that the AIS tracking chart for the Sewol was missing important data. Channel A, an unrelated news agency, reported that the AIS signals for Sewol were missing from the early morning hours of April 16 (about 3:46 am). The news outlet released this information to the public on April 16, the night of the sinking. However, the following day, the government released the supposedly missing data. The missing data was said to have been taken from a local station, the Mokpo VTS center. However, when the documentary team examined the government-released data, they found that there was still missing information at the point where the Sewol made a sharp turn. Journalist Ou-Joon Kim (Journalist Kim) asked if this tampering with the AIS tracking information was an attempt to conceal the ship's path.
CNN Interview Part of the CNN Interview with Ye-Shik Moon, the Captain of the Doola Ace, is shown. Paula Hancocks, a CNN reporter, interviewed Captain Moon shortly after the accident. During the interview, Moon notes that the Sewol made a slow, sharp turn and its AIS system was turned off. However, despite the fact that Moon noted the AIS tracking system was off, and therefore, not sending any data to be recorded at a VTS center, the government did release additional data after the CNN report. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries(MOF) also indicated the Sewol's AIS data had been saved at the Mokpo VTS station. This was suspicious, since the Sewol's AIS system was off: the Mokpo station could not have the data because none had been sent from the Sewol.
Radar Data from Seogeocha Island The radar tower on Seogeocha Island (Seogeochado) reported the Sewol's location data to the Jindo VTS station. The radar data from this station was not immediately available to the public, but was sent two months after the disaster. An investigation of this new data showed that there were straight white lines on the chart that paralleled the Sewol's supposed trajectory on the day of the accident. It was during this data analysis process that Director Kim found that the Sewol had not followed a straight-line course throughout its travel, but rather, experienced several "zigzags" in its motion.
Testimony of the Captain and Surviving Crew Members Captain Joon-Seok Lee, Helmsman Joon-Ki Cho, and Third Mate Han-Gyeol Park gave testimony indicating that the ship had been traveling on a straight-line path before the sudden turn. These statements matched the government's reported AIS track data for the Sewol. Director Kim considered this an odd mismatch, and so investigated the bow angle of the ship on the day of the accident.
Bow Angle and Engineering In an interview with the Coast Guard that occurred on April 16, 2014, shortly after the accident, Chief Engineer Ki-Ho Park mentioned that he shut down the engine of the vessel after the ship listed. Park also stated that the bow of the ship was facing (north) toward the island of Byeongpungdo when the engine and turn stopped. At this time, the ship was floating along with the tide. This testimony also matches the government-reported AIS tracking data. However, Director Kim's team found that the speed data from the AIS chart actually indicated that the ship's engines were still on, and the ship was moving at a speed of 10 knots at the time the engineer reported the ship's engines had been killed.
The Motion of the Sewol During the Accident Physics professor Doo-Jae Park evaluated the speed and nature of the turn, determining that Sewol's track from the government's AIS chart was not possible at 10 knots. This mismatch revealed that there were additional problems with the government's AIS data. Director Kim examined footage taken from the cell phone of the Doola Ace's engineer, Jeong-Yun Kim, when the ship approached the Sewol after its sharp turn. He compared it with the video footage of the Sewol taken by CNN and the AIS data from the government. The AIS data from the government showed that the Sewol was adrift and facing the island of Byeongpung. The CNN footage showed that the Sewol was adrift, but with the island of Byeongpung behind it. A further analysis showed that the bow of the Sewol was pointing away from Byeongpung Island at 9:15 am. The inertia of the turn caused the ship to turn, so Byeongpung Island was actually to the back of the Sewol.
The New Track Chart A new track chart created by the South Korean Navy's radar was issued to the National Assembly in October 2014. The Navy chart included the odd zigzag pattern in the Sewol's travel path noted by Director Kim. Several sharp turns appear on the Navy data. Director Kim examined the Sewol's track using the Navy chart, and he realized that the ship might have been in trouble prior to entering the Maenggol Channel. According to the track data, Sewol made a sudden turn about 20 minutes prior to the accident. It is not possible to have such different track points for the Sewol's supposed trajectory. However, the government's investigation team explained the incorrect AIS data as evidence of an accident. In the first trial, the court concluded that "The AIS track chart serves as the conclusive evidence in understanding the movements of the Sewol." In December 2014, Director Kim and his team needed to stop work on the documentary due to a lack of funding. They were being paid by individuals to create the documentary. They also lacked access to other critical types of information that could move the documentary forward.
Chapter 2: The Truth Uncovered by the Special Investigation Commission In Seoul, there were massive protests over the Sewol incident. The Special Investigation Commission (SIC) to investigate the Sewol Ferry accident was launched by the government, but it had no legal power to either investigate the disaster or prosecute those found guilty of it. In September 2015, the investigation began.
Irregularities in the Testimonies The SIC examined the joint investigation team of the police and prosecutor's office and the crew. The issue was when the accident actually occurred (around 8:49 or 8:50?). The film includes the recorded statement of Sewol's Chief Engineer, Ki-Ho Park, who said the ship had listed prior to entering the Maenggol Channel. A group of survivors talked about an incident that occurred at around 8:30 am, which did not match the government's timeline of the accident. Sewol's Oiler Young-Jae Lee's recorded statement indicates that when he was in the engine control room, the ship was shaking and a small refrigerator tipped over sometime between 8:25 and 8:30 am. However, in the follow-up interviews with the prosecution team, the time was definitely changed to 8:50 am. First Mate/Engineer Ji-Tae Sohn sent text messages to his wife indicating that he had been "interrogated all night" and was going to be interviewed again by the National Intelligence Service (NIS). He made a suicide attempt the following day. Sohn initially said that at a little after 8:26 am, he heard a loud noise and went out to see what was happening. The engines had stopped and the ship was listing 15 degrees. The crew that was on duty came up to meet him as he went down to the engine room. All of the government reports say the time was 8:50 am.
The SIC and the Blue House In April 2016, then-president Geun-Hye Park said that continuing the Sewol investigation was too expensive. In September 2016, the SIC was dissolved.
Chapter 3: The Key to the Mystery In January 2015, work began again on the documentary. People donated to pay for the film's expenses, and the victims' families lent their support by giving Director Kim's investigation team access to critical materials.
Raw AIS Data The raw AIS data for the Sewol's track was written in ASCII. The MOF only sent the navigation data to the government. The new data points formed the rest of the Sewol's track, and this information was what many analysts used to interpret what happened to the Sewol. However, Director Kim used the raw data in ASCII format. He found irregularities in this information. He explained that there are two kinds of data: the first group starts with a number 1 and the second group starts with a number 3. Kim found that prior to entering the Maenggol Channel, the data for the AIS began with a 1. But then the data beginning with a 3 appeared whenever the ship made a sudden turn; this matched with the radar track chart submitted by the Navy. A control device engineer, Seong-bok Choi, confirmed what Director Kim and his team guessed, which was that the normal motion of the vessel generated a normal message starting with 1. A special message was generated every time the ship made the sudden movement, yielding AIS data points starting with a number 3. Kim referred to this data that begins with a 3 as a "special message".
The Sewol's Movements as Given by the Raw AIS Data