Scandal Makers (과속스캔들)

Scandal Makers (과속스캔들, also known by the English titles Speedy Scandal and Speed Scandal) is a 2008 South Korean comedy-drama film directed by Kang Hyoung-chul, in which a former idol singer turned radio DJ in his mid-thirties discovers that a young single mother and her small son who appear at his door are his daughter and grandson.^{1 • 2} It opened in South Korea on December 3, 2008, runs 108 minutes, and stars Cha Tae-hyun, Park Bo-young, and child actor Wang Seok-hyeon.¹ Made without a top star-driven marketing push, a major studio, or a large budget, it finished with more than 8.2 million admissions, at the time the record for a Korean comedy.^{2 • 3}

Production

The film originated in a scenario called "Gwasok Samdae" (Speedy Three Generations) written by Kang Hyoung-chul, who was 34 at the time and for whom the film was a debut as both director and screenwriter.⁷ It was produced by Toilet Pictures, the company founded by producer An Byung-ki, in a joint venture with the investor DCG Plus, and distributed by Lotte Entertainment.^{4 • 8} Shooting ran from July 20 to September 30, 2008, about two months and 46 shooting days, on a budget kept below the Korean film average.^{7 • 9}

Casting the child. Wang Seok-hyeon, who plays Gi-dong, had never acted before and was six years old when the film opened; director Kang selected him from an audition with a 1,000-to-1 ratio, and his preparation consisted of about two months of practice before shooting.¹⁰ Kang directed him with numbered expressions, calling for "number 1 smiling face" or "number 3 sullen face," and the boy's deadpan lines and smirk became the film's most-quoted moments online.¹⁰ Park Bo-young, then 18, had a busy 2008 with four films, and Scandal Makers quickly established her, leading to later hits such as A Werewolf Boy (2012).²

Box office

The film's commercial run was unusually long and steady. It passed one million admissions on December 11, eight days after release.¹⁰ It crossed three million on Christmas Eve and reached 3.4 million by December 25, drawing 588,000 viewers on those two days alone, and it held the number-one box office position for four consecutive weeks, beating Hollywood releases including The Day the Earth Stood Still.^{11 • 12} On December 28, 26 days after release, it passed four million viewers, the fifth Korean film of 2008 to do so after The Good, the Bad, the Weird, The Chaser, Public Enemy Returns, and Forever the Moment.¹³ It passed seven million on January 26, 2009, reaching ninth place on the all-time Korean admissions chart, and it remained number one at the weekend box office into February 2009.^{14 • 15}

Final figures vary slightly by source and cutoff date. The KOFIC film database records 8,223,255 total admissions and a gross of $39,591,429.¹ The KOBIZ yearly chart for 2008 credits it with 4,361,509 admissions and revenue of 28,506,879,500 won in 2008, ranking third among Korean films that year behind The Good, the Bad, the Weird (6,684,933) and The Chaser (5,046,096); a KDI-published table using KOFIC data lists 4,353,173 admissions for the same year.^{5 • 16} Box Office Mojo reports a worldwide gross of $41,745,790, with South Korea accounting for $41,281,917 and small additional totals from Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore releases in 2009.⁶

The run also carried into 2009: in the first half of that year the film, no longer a new release, briefly reclaimed the number-one weekend spot, and it placed third among all films shown in Korea in that half-year with 3,848,803 additional admissions.¹⁷

Reception and awards

Contemporary coverage attributed the success to word of mouth from a 50,000-seat preview screening, high repeat-viewing rates, the comic chemistry among Cha, Park, and Wang, and the film's warmth at a time of gloomy social news.¹⁴ Cine21's analysis noted that the film had none of the conventional hit ingredients, a top star, a major studio, or a large budget, and read it, alongside the documentary Old Partner, as evidence that the Korean box-office formula was changing.¹⁵ It was the highest-earning Korean film of 2008 by expected profit relative to cost.⁹

The 2009 awards season treated it as both a commercial and a critical player. It won Best New Actress for Park Bo-young and Best New Director for Kang at the Blue Dragon Awards, Best New Actress at the Daejong Film Awards, Best Screenplay and Best New Actress at the Paeksang Arts Awards, and Best New Director and Best New Actress from the Korean Association of Film Critics, among other honors.¹ It screened in competition at the Udine Far East Film Festival and at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2010.¹

Legacy

The film set a Korean comedy-genre admissions record of about 8.22 million that stood until Miracle in Cell No. 7 passed it in February 2013.³ For Cha Tae-hyun it remained his biggest commercial hit until Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017), and for Kang Hyoung-chul it launched a streak of commercial successes including Sunny (2011, 7.36 million viewers) and Tazza: The Hidden Card (2014, 4.02 million).²

International attention. In March 2009, sales agent M-Line Distribution announced that Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of Men in Black, was attached to direct and executive produce an American remake, after the William Morris Agency put together a package that drew interest from several major studios; by that point the original had reached 8.2 million admissions in Korea.¹⁸ Domestically, Lotte Entertainment made it the first Korean film to screen with English subtitles in its own cinemas, with subtitled prints at branches in Seoul, Busan, and Ansan.¹³ The film has remained a staple of Korean-culture programming abroad, including family-film screenings presented by the Korean Film Archive series and the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles in 2024.¹⁹

References

1. Scandal Makers (2008), KOFIC Korean Film Database
2. SCANDAL MAKERS, by Pierce Conran, KOFIC Korean Film Biz Zone (August 7, 2018)
3. 7번방의선물, 과속스캔들 깼다…1천만명 넘기려나, Newsis (February 17, 2013)
4. 과속스캔들, 우만위키
5. KOBIZ Yearly Box Office 2008, Korean Film Biz Zone
6. Scandal Makers, Box Office Mojo
7. 제작진이 밝힌 '과속스캔들' 6가지 시련, Dong-A Ilbo (January 15, 2009)
8. 2008년 최고의 사건사고 '과속스캔들' 크랭크 업, Newswire (October 2, 2008)
9. '과속스캔들', 올해 한국영화 수익 1위..현재 80억, Star News (December 28, 2008)
10. 여섯살꼬마가 100만배꼽을잡았다…'과속스캔들' 왕석현, Sports Dong-A (December 11, 2008)
11. '과속스캔들' 올해 한국영화 6번째 300만 고지, Yonhap News (December 26, 2008)
12. '과속스캔들' 4주째 1위, 올 한국영화 흥행 5위, SBS News (December 29, 2008)
13. Scandal Makers' success leads to English subtitled screenings, KOFIC Korean Film Biz Zone (December 31, 2008)
14. 700만 '과속스캔들'의 흥행 비법, OSEN (January 26, 2009)
15. 한국영화 흥행공식이 바뀌는가, Cine21 (February 24, 2009)
16. 이달의 이슈: 콘텐츠 속에 길이 보인다, 나라경제 (KDI, May 2009)
17. [[영화세상] 한국영화, 2009년 상반기 결산, Sports Khan (July 7, 2009)](https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/200907070428273)
18. Sonnenfeld to direct remake of Korean hit Scandal Makers, Screen Daily (March 3, 2009)
19. LA한국문화원, 유쾌한 한국 가족영화 '과속스캔들' 상영회 개최, Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles (2024)

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2007 to 2008 › Released in 2008

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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