{ "id": "ep3gt1t2nv", "slug": "the-terror-live", "title": "The Terror Live (더 테러 라이브)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": 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"https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Terror Live is a 2013 South Korean suspense thriller directed by Kim Byung-woo, in which radio anchor Yoon Young-hwa, played by Ha Jung-woo, broadcasts live with a terrorist.", "snippet": "The Terror Live is a 2013 South Korean suspense thriller directed by Kim Byung-woo, in which radio anchor Yoon Young-hwa, played by Ha Jung-woo, broadcasts live with a terrorist.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.2010-2014-films.crime-films.alpha-m-to-w", "markdown": "# The Terror Live (더 테러 라이브)\n\n**The Terror Live** (더 테러 라이브) is a 2013 South Korean suspense thriller directed by Kim Byung-woo, in which a demoted radio news anchor, Yoon Young-hwa, lands an exclusive live broadcast with a terrorist who has blown up Mapo Bridge on the Han River, and then discovers a bomb has been rigged on him.[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) [Ha Jung-woo](https://www.edgepedia.org/ha-jung-woo) plays Yoon in what is essentially a one-room, near-real-time thriller built around a single broadcast studio.[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_terror_live?search=the+terror+live)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / writer | Kim Byung-woo, his first commercial film[3](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/interview.jsp?blbdComCd=601019&mode=INTERVIEW_VIEW&pageRowSize=10&seq=51) |\n| Lead cast | Ha Jung-woo as Yoon Young-hwa; supporting cast includes Lee Kyeong-yeong, Jeon Hye-jin, and Lee Da-wit[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) |\n| Release | July 31, 2013 (South Korea); world premiere July 26, 2013 at PiFan as the closing film[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) • [4](https://asianwiki.com/The_Terror_Live) |\n| Runtime / rating | 97 minutes; rated 15 in South Korea[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) |\n| Box office | 5,584,295 admissions on 809 screens; total gross $28,931,830[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) |\n| Production | CINE2000 production; international sales by Lotte Entertainment[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) |\n| Competition | Opened the same day as Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, a USD 39.6 million production[3](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/interview.jsp?blbdComCd=601019&mode=INTERVIEW_VIEW&pageRowSize=10&seq=51) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nYoon Young-hwa, once a top national news anchor, has been demoted to radio news after an unsavory incident. During his radio show, a caller threatens to blow up Mapo Bridge; the staff dismiss it as a prank, but the bridge is destroyed about 10 minutes later. Seeking to revive his career, Yoon arranges an exclusive live broadcast of the crisis. The terrorist demands a large payment for the exclusive interview, which is accepted, and then reveals that he was one of the construction workers on Mapo Bridge and wants the President to apologize for coworkers who died during its construction. The government dismisses the demands, the terrorist strikes again, and Yoon's attempts to mediate between the government and the terrorist collapse when he learns that a bomb has been rigged on him as well.[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052)\n\n## Production\n\nKim Byung-woo conceived the premise while looking out his office window at the Han River, drawing on the horror he felt watching televised images of the [September 11 attacks](https://www.edgepedia.org/september-11-attacks); in a 2013 interview he argued that terrorism as a social phenomenon cannot take hold without media coverage, citing the interval between the two plane impacts on the World Trade Center as time created for news cameras.[3](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/interview.jsp?blbdComCd=601019&mode=INTERVIEW_VIEW&pageRowSize=10&seq=51) • [5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p) He wrote the script over roughly four years while reading books on terrorism, aiming for a film that felt factual rather than film-like, concentrated on one place and one person.[5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p)\n\n**A deliberately contained shoot.** Filming at a set in Paju took six weeks over 19 shooting days, a short schedule for a commercial film that reflected thorough preparation. Five cameras were used, two of them the cameras nominally installed in the film's broadcast studio, which were actually filming Ha Jung-woo. The terrorist acts themselves are shown through the in-film TV monitors; Kim said this indirect presentation raised realism and reduced the precision required of the computer graphics, keeping costs down on a net production budget of 3.5 billion won.[5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p)\n\n## Release and box office\n\nThe film opened on July 31, 2013, the same day as Bong Joon-ho's *Snowpiercer*, a film with a budget of over 40 billion won against The Terror Live's 3.5 billion won net production cost.[3](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/interview.jsp?blbdComCd=601019&mode=INTERVIEW_VIEW&pageRowSize=10&seq=51) • [5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p) It passed one million admissions within four days of release,[5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p) and went on to sell 5,584,295 tickets on 809 screens for a total gross of $28,931,830.[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) A Korean Film Council industry report listed it among South Korea's top box-office performers for 2014 tracking.[6](https://rm.coe.int/focus-2014/168088dca8) Release dates differ slightly across databases: the Korean Film Council lists July 31, 2013, while AsianWiki lists August 1, 2013.[1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052) • [4](https://asianwiki.com/The_Terror_Live)\n\n## Reception and interpretation\n\nThe film drew attention as a low-budget, single-location thriller that succeeded commercially in Korea. A 2021 academic study in the *Journal of Video Production Technology* compared it with Hollywood's *Phone Booth* (2002) as a parody reinterpreted for Korean circumstances, judging it successful in four respects: its standing as a suspense thriller, its creative expansion of the parody by scaling a personal ordeal into a national event, Ha Jung-woo's performance, and the emotional engagement it builds with the terrorist. The same study found the two films diverge sharply at their endings, arguing that The Terror Live discards the allegorical resolution of its source text in favor of a more overtly stated social critique.[7](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002794015)\n\nKim Byung-woo resisted heavily political readings. He said the terrorist was given a backstory only because a simple villain would be uninteresting, that he had not set out to criticize a particular government or carry a large message, and that the ending was planned from the start and could not be softened for commercial reasons.[5](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p) Critics have noted the film's tension-building: a Rotten Tomatoes-cited review describes how scary situations keep escalating even when the objective level of danger has not changed.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_terror_live?search=the+terror+live)\n\n## Festival history\n\nThe film premiered as the closing film of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) on July 26, 2013, and later screened at the New York Asian Film Festival (2014), the Udine Far East Film Festival (2014, in competition), the Shanghai International Film & TV Festival (2014, Panorama), and the Paris Korean Film Festival (2014), among others. It won the Grand Prize at the Korea Gold Awards Festival (2014) and Best Actor at the Busan Film Critics Association Awards (2013).[4](https://asianwiki.com/The_Terror_Live) • [1](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Terror, LIVE (2013), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) film database](https://koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20136052)\n2. [The Terror Live, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_terror_live?search=the+terror+live)\n3. [KIM Byung-woo, Director of THE TERROR, LIVE, Korean Film Council interview, August 8, 2013](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/interview.jsp?blbdComCd=601019&mode=INTERVIEW_VIEW&pageRowSize=10&seq=51)\n4. [The Terror Live, AsianWiki](https://asianwiki.com/The_Terror_Live)\n5. [\"'더 테러 라이브', 자장면 같은 영화 원했죠\", Yonhap News, August 4, 2013](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20130803048900005?input=1179p)\n6. [World Film Market Trends (Focus 2014), Council of Europe, source KOFIC](https://rm.coe.int/focus-2014/168088dca8)\n7. [Lee Jeong-guk (2021), \"A study on the character of films dealing with a hostage in a limited space: Focusing on and \", 영상기술연구 vol.37](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002794015)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2010–2014 films › Titles M to W*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Terror Live (더 테러 라이브)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Terror Live (더 테러 라이브)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Terror Live (더 테러 라이브)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-terror-live. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Terror Live is a 2013 South Korean suspense thriller directed by Kim Byung-woo, in which radio anchor Yoon Young-hwa, played by Ha Jung-woo, broadcasts live with a terrorist." }