Scandal Makers

Scandal Makers is a 2008 South Korean comedy-drama film written and directed by Kang Hyeong-cheol and starring Cha Tae-hyun, Park Bo-young and Wang Seok-hyeon. This was director Kang's first film and the highest grossing Korean film of the year.

Plot
Former teen idol Nam Hyeon-soo (Cha Tae-hyun) is now in his thirties and works as a radio DJ. A young woman named Hwang Jeong-nam (Park Bo-young) sends stories about her life as a single mother to the radio station Hyeon-soo works at, telling him she is going to meet her father. He then finds out that he's her father when she shows up at his apartment with her son Ki-dong (Wang Seok-hyeon). She tells him that her real name is Jae-in and that her mother was Hyeon-soo's first love Jeong-nam. Hyeon-soo doesn't believe it at first, so they undergo a DNA test and the results confirm that they're related. Jae-in dreams of performing on stage as a singer, but Hyeon-soo fears that if she does, their paternity scandal might get out. Because of Jae-in's rising popularity, Ki-dong's father Park Sang-yoon (Im Ji-kyu) finds her. They meet and chat, with Sang-yoon initially under the mistaken assumption that Jae-in is romantically involved with Hyeon-soo. When Ki-dong later goes missing at Jae-in's performance, Hyeon-soo realizes that he really does care for his daughter and grandson. After news about his daughter and grandson got leaked, he wasn't faced with damage to his career due to taking responsibility of them in the first place, low popularity, and news about a disgraced film star beating up a scandal gossip journalist. With encouragement from Ki-Dong's kindergarten teacher, he changes his image to a responsible older man, which is warmly received by everyone. At a Christmas recital, Sang-yoon reconciles with Jae-in and Ki-Dong, rekindling their love for each other.

Cast

 * Cha Tae-hyun as Nam Hyeon-soo
 * Cha Soo-chan, Cha Tae-hyun's son and first child, appeared as a cameo at the last scene of the film. He was one year old at the time of filming.
 * Park Bo-young as Hwang Jeong-nam/Hwang Jae-in, Hyeon-soo's daughter
 * Wang Seok-hyeon as Hwang Ki-dong, Jae-in's son
 * Im Ji-kyu as Park Sang-yoon, Jae-in's first love and Ki-dong's birth father
 * Hwang Woo-seul-hye as Kindergarten teacher/Granny
 * Im Seung-dae as Bong Pil-joong, entertainment reporter
 * Jeong Won-joong as Bureau director
 * Kim Ki-bang as Director
 * Park Yeong-seo as Assistant director
 * Sung Ji-ru as Lee Chang-hoon (cameo)
 * Go Jun as Commercial film director

Release
Scandal Makers was released in South Korea on 3 December 2008, and topped the box office on its opening weekend with 473,725 admissions. It continued to chart well finishing with over 8 million tickets sold becoming the highest grossing Korean film of 2008. The second highest grosser was The Good, The Bad, The Weird with 6.6 million tickets, then The Chaser with roughly 5 million tickets sold.

Remakes

 * A Chinese remake titled Scandal Maker, directed by Ahn Byeong-ki and starring Tong Dawei and Michelle Chen was released in China on November 11, 2016.
 * A Vietnamese remake titled Ông ngoại tuổi 30 was released on March 30, 2018.
 * An Indonesian remake titled Scandal Makers was released in Amazon Prime Video on January 19, 2023.