MovieChat Forums > Eden (2013) Discussion > Insult to victims of sex trafficking!!

Insult to victims of sex trafficking!!


WoW!
Only Hollywood can take a serious, dark and deeply disturbing subject and completely dilute it of all realism and true devastating emotion.

This film was so ridiculously unrealistic (Corrupt cops shooting people willy-nilly, trackers and pets given to trafficked girls, girls escaping and being re-captured, selling babies, teaching girls to drive, buying back friend ...etc ...etc), it's an insult to the true horror and utter devastation these girls have to suffer!

If you want to begin to even remotely imagine the kind of devastation human sex trafficking inflicts on it's victims then I suggest you watch a decent realistic film about the subject:

Lilya 4-Ever (2002)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300140/reference

Or if you're too lazy for subtitles:

Sex Traffic (2004)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419365/reference

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[deleted]

Based? Haha... Everything can be based on anything. Your argument is worth ..zero.
The OP is right! Does Chong Kim endorse this film? Nope!

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[deleted]

Check AND mate! Well said.

As for those rushing to condemn this for not following the typical EXPECTED type of victimization...life is full of variety, and though every victim of sex trafficking and abuse experiences trauma, not every story is going to be the same!

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Or you could make your own movie and stop depending on Hollywood to visualize the horrors of the real world for you.

Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. - Mr Glass

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[deleted]

Wow what a d-bag. This movie was showing the girls devastation perfectly.

Listen to this podcast http://www.newhopedigital.com/index.php/2011/09/chong-kim-a-trafficking-survivors-dramatic-story/ and see they were not just making stuff up. The warehouses. The recruiting. The babies. Building the trust. The escape.

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my issue with this film and the surrounding available information on it is it makes some huge huge claims that resonate massively for a 1st world country.
amongst those claims are massive police corruption at the level of cops executing cops, and running a 'white' slavery ring inside of American boarders.
For something so massive, so devastatingly awful you would expect a huge investigation and arrests and documentation and ........something, anything from the authorities and the world wide media documenting this and the effort to put those who did it to justice.
So has anyone else tried to google this, tried to find news of it outside of Chong Kim's word and the film makers. an independent third part like the FEDS or CIA, or law enforcement agencies hammering hard down on this?
I spent a good few hours on it and all I could turn up was Chong Kim and articles relating to this film, nothing independent of it.
There should most definitely be a trail that addresses the 2 cops executed in the farm ditch at the start of the movie and the disappearance or murder of the ranking police chief (Bridges) to back Kim's story. That would be completely independent and document-able outside of a slavery ring that was good at hiding itself.
Is it possible that this film is a work of fiction like Joaquin Phoenix's "I'm Still Here". If so then Tribek's comments are entirely valid. This film asks us to be shocked and appalled by the evil inside America, but the public record doesn't establish that evil happened, yet. If it's fiction pretending to be real bet that purposely by all parties involved or because Kim has duped them then it is an insult to real victims of trafficking.
If this case is true then where is the effort to bring this network down and to justice. That surely is an important part of the story.

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Sounds like the controversies surrounding "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" to me....

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Hard to know. I seem to be the only one who's googled and noticed there isn't any reference to this case outside the author and this film. Surely 3 dead cops and corruption to a high level in the police force regarding a slavery ring would make a blip on the scale somewhere?
Happy to be shown links to 3rd party details on this case.

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I would think that the part where the cop killed those two guys would not have been something that Chong Kim saw in real life - in the movie she was in the warehouse - so I am guessing that part is dramatic licence.

Also, from http://www.womenspress.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&amp ; ; ;ArticleID=2297

She was 19 and living in Dallas when a young man who said he was in the military romanced her and convinced her to go with him to Florida. The couple never reached Florida; they ended up in an abandoned house in northern Oklahoma instead. There the man handcuffed Kim and destroyed her identification papers. After escaping, Kim said, she couldn't find assistance without identification. A woman from an escort service approached Kim and offered to help. She told Kim the escort service just provided dates for men and Kim wouldn't have to have sex with them. Kim accepted the job, but shortly after was raped and sold to someone in Las Vegas. Once in Las Vegas, Kim was transported with 40 to 50 other girls from warehouse to warehouse, state to state.


In the movie, she goes from being lured by a `firefighter` to the warehouse, which is much more dramatic because this is a movie. And frankly, if she could not find help, why did she decide to become a escort before calling her parents? I`m sure there was some reason (bad relationship with her parents maybe), but in a movie that wouldn`t work so well. A kidnapped escort is not as sympathetic as a kidnapped store clerk.

Since she didn't start talking about her experience until ten years after the fact, I am going to guess that she has no idea if the cops were really running a prostitution ring, and that was all artistic licence.

I do not think there is any reason to doubt the story that she was kidnapped. However, any of the surrounding factors in the movie are subject to dramatization. Overall, I think this 'based off a true story' movie was no better or worse than any other. We have a kernel of truth with a great dramatic element attached. The movie worked really well for me, and I also went hunting for the real story right after I watched it.

I would love to see a documentary about Ms. Kim's experiences.

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the cops running it is part of what has caused the outrage. slavery on american soil. if it never happened, if it's just a scary story, then that's very deceitful to the people that have felt real out rage after taking this movie of kim's 'true story' at face value.

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[deleted]

not corruption of police in general, we know that goes on but this movie asked us to believe that the ringleader, the organiser was a police chief or something, and that he executed 2 other cops when they found a dead girl in a trench.
It's asking us to feel outrage for the horrible horrible true crime that happened to this woman, and we have seen outrage, in these here reviews and messages, people believe this stuff is happening, the question is, did any of it really happen. Nothing we can verify nothing that has caused a court case, nothing that has left a news trail.
Why I ask is should I really be outraged if it didn't really happen? Should I really be scared for the daughters of america being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery within american boarders if they are in fact not being sold here at all, if it's not happening?
Cos it does happen else where,

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To say it does happen else where, but believing it does not happen in the USA is a bit naive tbh. "Based on a true story" gives an incredible amount of leeway, just look at all the haunting movies, that are based on true events, I agree that you're right to be skeptic, but slavery and sex slavery happens especially in the western world. If you have prostitution, then it's very likely that some are forced into it.

-Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.-

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Why is it likely?
We have police forces, prying eyes, neighborhood watches and public outrage to prevent that sort of thing in western cultures. In eastern European cultures they have blind eyes and partial acceptance of this sort of thing.
I'm suspicious of Chung's story in particular though. Where is the story of her case being followed up? Everyone is feeling for her tragedy but if any of what happened in this film is her story then there should have been an investigation. Where is the evidence of this? That it is missing kinda makes the whole thing an exercise in fiction, and as you can see from the reviews and comments people aren't treating it as fiction,

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"In eastern European cultures they have blind eyes and partial acceptance of this sort of thing"

Yeah, you don't even know what countries are in Europe, and your European sex slavery knowledge comes from the movie Taken

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more a history of violence, Lilya 4-Ever and a few other depressingly grim works of fiction. Good point though who knows what to believe from what we see on our screens when a based on true story can be a completely unsubstantiated piece like Eden.

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Why do you have such a hard time believing that human trafficking occurs in the US? You can question the individual facts of this particular movie. But to claim human trafficking doesn't happen in the US is naïve. If you have actually researched human trafficking, as you claim, then it would have taken less than 3 seconds to find link after link, including the FBI's own webpage, involving human trafficking in the US.
I don't believe you researched this near as much as you claim.

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who are you aiming that at Sylvrewolfe?
I'm just questioning this movie.

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I agree, I just watched the movie and tried to do some research on the movie. I could only find information based on the movie a Q and A of the actors and director isn't proof to me. Human trafficking is a horrible thing that goes on, we all agree on that. But "creating" a story that is suppose to be a true life story is just wrong.

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Whole thing is a HOAX.

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I've seen nothing to prove it otherwise.

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I think it just seems unrealistic to you because most people are unwilling to accept that bad things do happen in America. Although corruption in America is not as overt as in other countries (I have been to places where you can openly pay an official to push your paperwork through faster or pay your way out of a ticket) it does happen here. It's also not far fetched (look up the number of missing women between 14 and 20) to believe that sex trafficking and slavery goes on in America. There was also no massive police conspiracy. You had one martial, who given the appearance of the area was probably one of very few LEOs over a wide area.

The girls escaped and were re-captured because like the guy said, most people are cowards. He probably went into that store with his fake police badge, called them junkies and the clerk was probably happy to be rid of them. Teaching them to drive makes sense. You can expand your operation with paid labor or get the victims to become the oppressors and co-conspirators. Selling babies and organs is big business. Many criminal organizations diversify as they scale so it should not be that hard to believe that with a surplus of women of child bearing age, some of who probably get pregnant as a hazard of the job, that they would expand to selling babies. Her attempting to buy her friend was one thing that was a bit unbelievable.

I think some of the complaints from posters here are a bit off base. Yes they were given cats, but if you read any real life accounts on abduction you will learn that most abductors use a limited number of strategies to maintain control. Sometimes it's fear (the guy constantly threatening the girls), sometimes it's torture (the ice bath), sometimes it's giving them something to fear having taken away...We all react to situations in unexpected ways when fight of flight kicks in. I actually enjoyed the movie.

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still, there is nothing I have yet found on the net out side of Chong and this film which confirm this case. Chong and this film reference each other as verification of authenticity, but no arrest, investigation or reporting verifies any event in this film. So why are we living in fear again? Wide spread sex trafficking in America. Run, Hide?

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Last year I met a guy from the Salvation Army who told me that the biggest job of the SA is to stop human slavery worldwide. He told me that the are very active in the US. He also told me that the single largest human slavery event in the US is the Super Bowl. The SA devotes all their resources to rescuing women from forced prostitution in whatever city the Super Bowl is in every year.

So for those posting here who say that human slavery does not happen in the US: think again.

For those of you who say they can't find corroborating information on the plotline of this movie: remember that prostitution is typically a profession exploited by powerful men who can make information and people disappear.

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"remember that prostitution is typically a profession exploited by powerful men who can make information and people disappear. "

what evidence do you have for that claim?
Why isn't it small time thugs bullying weak locals?
Are you implying a govt level conspiracy?
That's about as unlikely as this movie.

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I'm not implying a 'government level conspiracy' but certainly powerful people in and outside the government are capable of such things, maybe not as part of a conspiracy, but certainly individuals in government are capable of abusing their power to their own ends.

If you want evidence, contact the headquarters of the Salvation Army about their human slavery interdiction program. They will tell you that such goings-on cannot happen without high-level complicity - it doesn't need to be a conspiracy, it only has to be a handful of people cooperating for mutual gain.

For a recent/current example, look at the judge in Pennsylvania who sold kids to the prison system for kickbacks: http://blog.blacknews.com/2013/05/judge-mark-ciavarella-sentenced-selling-kids-prison-system101.html#.UZd9zUp_Z2M

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I'm not implying a 'government level conspiracy' but certainly powerful people in and outside the government are capable of such things, maybe not as part of a conspiracy, but certainly individuals in government are capable of abusing their power to their own ends.

If you want evidence, contact the headquarters of the Salvation Army about their human slavery interdiction program. They will tell you that such goings-on cannot happen without high-level complicity - it doesn't need to be a conspiracy, it only has to be a handful of people cooperating for mutual gain.


The problem is that government officials can also make a LOT of money and gain A LOT of fame and money by exposing said corruption, especially if it involves kids. Any DA who found a US Marshall involved in a child sex ring and shut it down would be an instant hero and be on the fast track to state attorney general or even governor.

Yet, that never happened in this case, even after a victim allegedly stepped forward...it's as if someone said they found a lost tomb of a Pharaoh in Egypt, and not a single archeologist went out to investigate.

Imagine that? Someone with a STORY that they found a lost tomb and the media believed every word of it without any evidence. People would be laughing and everyone would be demanding proof...someone says they were a part of a giant forced child sex ring, and no one bats an eye.

And what the movie showed was not some low life thug handed a few bills to a border cop to look the other way while he took a girl to a brothel. This was depicted, as Chong said it was, as a giant, multinational operation. How could something like this exist without any proof what so ever, especially when there are power and money hungry reporters, politicians, and law enforcement who would love to take the credit for exposing it, AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT there is a witness right there who could easily show them where the facility was?

I mean, why hasn't she gotten a cop to go out to the place she was held in and just open up the records and find who owned/rented it at the time she was held? That's all that's needed to follow a paper trail leading to the alleged kidnappers.

For a recent/current example, look at the judge in Pennsylvania who sold kids to the prison system for kickbacks: http://blog.blacknews.com/2013/05/judge-mark-ciavarella-sentenced-selling-kids-prison-system101.html#.UZd9zUp_Z2M


That was simply a case of a judge taking money from a private jail, not of a judge running a giant Hollywood style forced sex ring that spans the globe. And notice that even that little story made it to the papers...why didn't Kim's MASSIVE STORY make it into any?

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overt as in other countries (I have been to places where you can openly pay an official to push your paperwork through faster or pay your way out of a ticket)

In Chicago (this was the late '90s) it was pretty much institutionalized that if you paid your traffic fine in cash on the spot it would not go on your record. The cops were very blatant about it. This happened all three times I was pulled over in different parts of Chicago (two speeding, one illegal right on red) and lots of friends told similiar stories.

---
...just say to "have faith," because when you're up against logic it is the only card you've got.

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how's that? people with brains look to proof and evidence before they take a story as fact.
We're awaiting that proof, in your own time, but fast if you would.

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[deleted]

seems like you're the one who needs to get over yourself.
it's not about me it's about the facts, the missing ones. It's not personal, why would you think it was?

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[deleted]

I agree, this movie was wretched. These are the best movies I've seen on the topic...

Holly (2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419815

Hardcore (2004)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396630

Pleasure Factory (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1018902

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