By This weekend I just happened to see that Lifetime Television was airing a movie about the abduction of a Queens, New York boy by his father who fled to South Korea. I remember this story because it was one that a featured here on the ROK Drop back in 2008. The movie was titled: “Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story“.
Taraji Henson and Drew Davis (left) star as Tiffany Rubin and her kidnapped son Kobe.
Here is the trailer for the movie:
So I decided to watch the movie and the bottom line on it is that it really isn’t all that great and heavily dramatized for television. The simple story is that mother received an anonymous tip on her MySpace page from someone in South Korea who disclosed the location of her son Kobe who was brought to South Korea by his Korean father Jeffrey Salko who was Rubin’s ex-boyfriend. Rubin flew to South Korea with two men who were part of groups that recover missing children. They went to the school that Kobe attended and Rubin simply went in the classroom and picked up her son and took a taxi to the US embassy. Salko was later arrested in the fall of 2008 in Guam and served time in prison for the kidnapping and was released last June. Pretty simple story, but not one good enough for Hollywood.
In the film version of this story they make Rubin out to be a bumbling mom who distances herself from her family and refuses help even from her husband. She then blows an opportunity to find her ex-boyfriend’s location in Korea with a dating website stakeout she hired a woman to look for Salko on. I have to wonder if the scene in the movie really happened because that scene made Rubin look really dumb.
Then when Rubin gets to Korea the movie totally overplays how she faces arrest and spending the rest of her life in a Korean prison for trying to get her son back. I seriously doubt that nothing more than being deported would have happened if the police even decided to look for her. Anyway the movie featured a chase through Seoul with Salko in hot pursuit after picking up her son at the school as well as a final showdown with Salko at Incheon Airport to include machine gun wielding South Korean policemen looking for her. This was of course all ridiculous and manufactured for the movie.
I am glad Tiffany Rubin was able to get her son back, but if you want to avoid wishing you could get two hours of your life back don’t bother watching this movie, just read the newspaper version of the story and save yourself the time.
Tiffany Rubin and husband, Christopher, celebrate return of her son Kobe at JFK Airport Wednesday night. With help of a nonprofit group, the mom tracked down her abducted son in South Korea.
8:23 am on February 28th, 2011 1
You have got to be kidding me Americans! Please tell me this is a joke, right? Yeah, I guess not. How much did this broad get paid for this fiction? This is how you treat your allies, make them look like a terrorist country? Oops that's right this story wouldn't fly if this story took place in Britain, a white country.
And people wonder why Americans are not liked. But man.. this takes the cake.
GI Korea, chalk this one up to the Anti-Korean Movie category.
9:20 am on February 28th, 2011 2
#1
Don't over-hype it. Lifetime is a women's audience cable channel that pumps out low-budget, sappy, made for cable movies that probably wouldn't even make it to DVD.
In other words, unlike My Father, it will get little undue attention. Relax.
10:00 am on February 28th, 2011 3
Funny, while channel surfing I saw that was playing last night but I chose World's Dumbest Practical Jokes instead. Glad I didn't waste my time!
10:10 am on February 28th, 2011 4
After a little research, I have come to the conclusion that the boy was being abused by the American mother, and the father had no choice but to take his son and flee, after the biased American court gave the son to the wife. Her entire story is full of lies, as her supposed dangerous rescue operation in South Korea. (puhahahaha). And it's no surprise how Hollywood portrays Korea.
10:27 am on February 28th, 2011 5
@4
Lifetime can hardly be considered Hollywood. Also, Americans just don't care enough about Korea to be considered Anti-Korean. Will you ever understand that? I would say American are more along the lines of Korean-apathetic.
I saw the movie it was pretty boring, and super low budget. I couldn't even make it half way through the film. My sixty year old mom that loves the Lifetime Channel enjoyed it. She is pretty much the only demographic for that channel, where low budget, sappy, over dramatic films and shows play day and night.
10:54 am on February 28th, 2011 6
Americans are anti-non-American. They view anything not American as inferior. This forum and other forums are a perfect example of American superiority complex in the way how they portray other nations, especially Asian nations, in their media. Americans can't still get around their heads that they are now bankrupt nation, literally. Enjoy your superiority pie while there's still a piece left.
12:17 pm on February 28th, 2011 7
Most people on this site seem to be pretty secure in their identity, can fend off jibes and can even be self-deprecating, so I don't know about superiority complex. Though, when looked at from the point of view of someone with an inferiorly complex it may be different.
1:09 pm on February 28th, 2011 8
#6 Tom said, " They (americans) view anything not American as inferior." I drive a Mitsubishi. My weight rack was made in China. My TV is a Sanyo.
You're only 30 years behind the times.
1:15 pm on February 28th, 2011 9
Oh and Lifetime is the kind of channel that only fat donut eating american women watch. Don't worry about it.
2:04 pm on February 28th, 2011 10
#8,
While in Korea it's, "If it's not Korean it's crap!"
(Admittedly, the sentiment is not so strong these days).
2:59 pm on February 28th, 2011 11
Cleanup in aisle Tom!
2:40 pm on September 20th, 2011 12
awww, get off your high horses…..no one cares what you think….nerds, letting of steam….
8:46 pm on November 17th, 2011 13
Its because of ignorant guys like you that we have lifetime movies of abductions and sexual assaults by men. And it’s not just over-weight donut eating women that watch lifetime shows but women of all shapes and sizes and “real” men!! And the comments that you men are leaving are just as racist and hypocritical as you’re claiming the show, the United states and the people watching the show to be. You are no better than who you are accusing the rest of us to be like. The only difference is you’re wrong about us but your words have proved to be true about you!
12:45 am on February 20th, 2012 14
Yes this story is real and for those of you “men” thinking it’s not, wake up and realize that this kinda thing happens more often than any of you think! Anytime a woman gets involved with a man from another country and things don’t work, then they run the risk of that man up and taking the child and moving out of the country and back to their country.
This movie is not b/c Americans are anti-Korean….if anything Korea is anti-American!! If that is something you don’t realize then you need a little history lesson.
Sarah…I agree with you!
1:52 am on February 20th, 2012 15
1990: “I don’t like black people.” = racist
2012: “I hate over-dramatic, barely-based-on-truth, low-budget, sappy, made for cable movies that probably wouldn’t even make it to DVD, intended for an audience of under-educated old women.” = RACIST! (and hypocritical)
…coming soon…
2034: “Make a vaccine for Air-Vectored AIDS.” = racist
2146: “Resist the Mechatronic Overlord” = racist
2258: “Obliterate the Nanite Hordes!” = racist
2320: “All Neo-Sapiens back to the Cloning Vats!” = racist
2370: “Go Back to Ceti Alpha V, Invading Reticulas (and take your anal probes with you!” = racist (and homophobic)
2415: “Stay out of our Multiverse, Interdimension Wraithes!” = racist
2490: “I deny the grasp of the Collective Consciousness” = racist
50 Jillion AD: “Stop the Cosmic Crunch” = racist
2:22 am on February 20th, 2012 16
So da movie was ook iv never been to korea an never plan on going but why does it have to be racist I mean she is black an if anything blacks an every other race has. A hard time in america an if anything why don’t the boys father make his own version of his side of the story at least have a blog stating what really happened