5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Resistance, poetry and bullets: Films for liberation day
Three films exploring resistance, sacrifice and the fight for freedom during Japan's colonial rule
Come Aug. 15th in South Korea, national flags flutter from apartment balconies while ceremonies fill the airwaves. It's Gwangbokjeol — Liberation Day — marking Korea's freedom from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.
For a country that endured forced labor, cultural suppression and the horrors of wartime mobilization, the day brings out a distinct national pride. So what better way to mark the occasion than with Korean cinema's take on this dark yet defiant era? These three films, spanning from intimate poetry to pulpy espionage, offer windows into how ordinary people became extraordinary under the occupation.
Director Lee Joon-ik ("The King and the Clown," "The Throne") strips away his usual period drama bombast for something more solemn and devastating. Shot in black and white, this biographical film follows poet Yun Dong-ju during his final years under Japanese rule, when writing in Korean itself became an act of rebellion.
The film unfolds through flashbacks as Dong-ju (Kang Ha-neul) faces interrogation by Japanese authorities. We watch his evolution from an idealistic student to a young man caught between artistic expression and political reality. His cousin Song Mong-gyu (Park Jung-min), a fiery revolutionary, pulls him toward active resistance, while Dong-ju struggles with whether poetry alone can serve his country.
This isn't your typical resistance drama — it trades heroics for restraint. Lee and screenwriter Shin Yeon-shick let the weight of the era accumulate through telling details: the moment Korean becomes a forbidden language, the pressure to adopt Japanese names, the way even studying literature requires moral compromise. Kang Ha-neul, better known for lighter commercial fare, delivers a remarkably nuanced performance, especially as Dong-ju's poems are recited aloud against the backdrop of the brutal reality that inspired them.
Neither pure heroism nor violent resistance offers clear-cut answers here. When Dong-ju and Mong-gyu finally reunite in a Japanese prison, the revelation lands with quiet devastation. It's a portrait of how oppression crushes not just bodies but spirits, and how art endures even when the artist doesn't.
Available with English subtitles on Amazon Video.
"The Age of Shadows" (2016)
If "Dongju" whispers, Kim Jee-woon's espionage thriller roars. Set in the 1920s, this lavish cat-and-mouse game follows colonial police captain Lee Jung-chool (Song Kang-ho) as he navigates the treacherous space between his Japanese employers and Korean freedom fighters.
The film opens with a bravura sequence. Freedom fighters flee across moonlit rooftops while Japanese forces swarm over the buildings in pursuit. It sets the tone for what follows: two hours of double-crosses, shifting allegiances and gripping set pieces that recall everything from Carol Reed to Alfred Hitchcock. Song, reliably excellent, plays a man whose moral compass spins wildly as he engages in increasingly high-stakes deception.
The director never lets clarity get in the way of momentum — you might lose track of who's betraying whom, but the sheer craft keeps you engaged. Also, at 140 minutes, it's deliberately maximalist, but that's part of the appeal. "The Age of Shadows" is blockbuster craftsmanship at its most audacious -- Kim shoots even throwaway dialogue scenes with the intensity of climactic confrontations. The Japanese characters may strike as cardboard cutout villains, but when the filmmaking is this assured, nuance takes a backseat to pure cinematic pleasure.
Available with English subtitles on Apple TV and Prime Video.
"Assassination" (2015)
Choi Dong-hoon's sprawling adventure walks the tightrope between historical gravitas and popcorn entertainment. Set primarily in 1933, the height of Japanese occupation, it follows an agent from Korea's Shanghai-based provisional government who assembles three specialists — including sniper Ahn Ok-yun (Jun Ji-hyun) — to eliminate a Japanese commander and a Korean collaborator in Seoul.
The plot quickly spirals into delicious complexity, with hired hitmen targeting the assassins, turncoats revealing their true colors, and a separated-at-birth subplot that somehow doesn't derail everything. Choi stages it all with real gusto, making good use of spectacles ranging from an explosive ambush at a gas station to a wedding that erupts into gunfire instead of bouquets.
Jun Ji-hyun, also known as Gianna Jun, one of Korean entertainment's most bankable stars, brings steel to her role as the sharpshooting Ahn. The film surrounds her with colorful supporting players, including Ha Jung-woo as a suave contract killer and Lee Jung-jae as a slippery double agent whose loyalties shift like quicksand.
At $16 million, it's clear as day that "Assassination" was built as a crowd-pleaser, and it shows in both the lavish period recreation and the occasionally broad emotional beats. Regardless of its commercial ambitions, when the film clicks — which is often — it delivers the kind of old-fashioned Saturday matinee thrills rarely seen in Korean cinema anymore. It's unabashedly commercial, but executed with enough style to sustain its formula.
