The movie "The Bathing King" was accused of infringing the Korean comic "The Bathing God"

Recently, the comedy film "The Bathing King" directed by Yi Xiaoxing and starring Peng Yuchang and Qiao Shan is in theaters, and has easily exceeded 100 million yuan in four days. However, on the day of its release, the film was accused of illegal production and copyright infringement, triggering a series of disputes.

On the morning of December 11, the film was exposed for allegedly infringing the popular Korean comic "The Bathing God". The Korean Moon People Company made representations to the director Yi Xiaoxing and the producer and distributor of "The Bathing King", and reserved the right to file a legal infringement lawsuit. In the afternoon of the same day, Yi Xiaoxing firmly denied plagiarism through Weibo, saying "Welcome to compare the film", "Original work, no plagiarism", and "I will accompany any legal action".

Yi Xiaoxing said that the so-called plagiarism only refers to the one-letter difference between the titles of "The King of Bathing" and "The God of Bathing", and both films are about bathing. Apart from that, the two works have no similarities in content, plot and character settings. The "bathhouse" culture is by no means unique to South Korea, and China has every reason to film it.

"The God of Bathing" is the work of Korean cartoonist Ha Il-kwon. It tells the story of a 26-year-old college graduate who was chased by loan sharks and had nowhere to go. He accidentally hid in the public bathhouse "Golden Bath" and started the job of scrubbing baths by accident. He worked hard to become the top bathing manager.

In 2018, Wangyueren Company stated that the project was originally developed and produced jointly with Wanda Film and Television, and Yi Xiaoxing was selected as the director of the project. However, in October 2019, Wanda stated that it could not proceed with the signing of the final investment and production contract due to internal company reasons.

Afterwards, Yi Xiaoxing unilaterally registered the copyright of the localized script he adapted as his own creation and planned to shoot it himself. The reason was that the adapted script changed the title of "The God of Bathing" to "The King of Bathing" and modified a lot of the story content, so it can be regarded as a different movie.

After that, lawyers from Mochizuki Company and the original comics company tried to communicate with Yi Xiaoxing many times but to no avail. "The King of Bathing" was also forcibly released in China on December 11.

Regarding this dispute, Yoon Chang-yeop, CEO of South Korea's Moon Watching Company, recently stated that if Yi Xiaoxing remains unchanged in his stance on the original work, he will definitely file a lawsuit against him, even though he knows that the lawsuit will be difficult.