‘Harbin': Somber historical drama sees act of mercy lead to bloodshed

Japan Times

11-07-2025

Ahn Jung-geun, a Korean independence fighter, shot and killed Japanese statesman Hirobumi Ito at the train station in Harbin — a northeastern Chinese city then under Russian control — on Oct. 26, 1909. Generations of Koreans have since revered him as a national hero. The Japanese government, which ruled Korea as a colony from 1910 to 1945, once regarded him as a terrorist.
All of the movies about Ahn have understandably been Korean, though the latest, Woo Min-ho's 'Harbin' is not a flag-waving celebration of his violent gesture of resistance. Rather, the film, which became a No. 1 hit in South Korea following its December 2024 release, is somber in tone, shot in richly atmospheric browns and grays in South Korea, Mongolia and Latvia — the latter a stand-in for Harbin and Russia's Vladivostok.
Also, Hyun Bin as Ahn is a complex personality with a cloud of self-chosen doom hanging over him. And his allies in his assassination plot have their own identities and narrative arcs that make 'Harbin' more of an ensemble piece than a one-man show.
The only two Japanese characters — Lily Franky's Ito and Park Hoon's Maj. Tatsuo Mori, a gimlet-eyed army officer who becomes Ahn's implacable nemesis — are framed as villains, though Franky's layered performance, with its projection of inner steel beneath a velvety urbane exterior, is a master class in doing much with little.
The action begins in the winter of 1908, when Anh, a Korean resistance army general, leads his outnumbered forces in a surprise attack on a Japanese unit that ends in brutal hand-to-hand combat (think 'Gladiator,' not 'Saving Private Ryan') and victory for the Korean side. Over the objections of several of his subordinates, Ahn decides to spare his handful of prisoners, but Mori, one of captured men, can never forgive Ahn for denying him an honorable warrior's death.
Once freed, Mori promptly mounts a lightning raid on Ahn's camp while the general is away. Returning to a scene of slaughter, Ahn is swept by feelings of guilt and remorse. He decides to avenge the spirits of the dead by killing Ito, the leading Japanese architect of Korea's colonization.
The story focuses on the days leading up to Ito's assassination and follows the outline of actual events, if with an emphasis more on thriller tension than the political and historical backdrop behind the plot. There are also twists aplenty, with the plotters divided between a true-blue loyalist like Woo Duk-soon (Park Jeong-min), who fought with Ahn and trusts his leadership, and a malcontent like Lee Chang-sup (Lee Dong-wook), who also served under Ahn but vehemently opposed his decision to let the Japanese prisoners live.
These interpersonal clashes, as well as the complications that follow on the arrival of a possible traitor, may not be always easy to follow in the gloom of the various hideouts, alleyways and night journeys, but they add texture to what would have otherwise been a simple story running on predetermined rails.
There is also a spare poetic beauty in cinematographer Hong Kyeong-pyo's camerawork, beginning with an opening drone shot of Ahn crossing a frozen lake in bitter cold, looking like a determined lone traveler in an alien hellscape. An apt metaphor for Ahn, who stopped at nothing to carry out his mission despite the nearly insurmountable difficulties — and the ultimate personal cost.