The upcoming Woo Min Ho-directed film Harbin has been talked about by fans of the Korean film industry for quite a while due to its superb cast — main leads Hyun Bin, Park Jeong Min, Jo Woo Jin, and Jeon Yeo Been, alongside supporting cast of Yoo Jae Myung, Park Hoon, and guests Jung Woo Sung and Lee Dong Wook.
This week, finally, we are getting more information about the film as it gets closer to its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8th, followed by its Korean release in December.
That information includes an incredibly powerful and utterly stark poster of main lead Hyun Bin, who plays the film’s protagonist An Jung Geun – the man who vows to kill former Japanese Prime Minister/Resident General of Japan, Itō Hirobumi.
The Harbin poster has assassin and ultimately Korean hero Hyun Bin (An Jung Geun) in shadow, with only the lower half of his face showing as his flat cap is pulled down to hide his eyes and his collar also pulled up suggesting he is trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
The trailer released with the Harbin poster (watch below) shows An Jung Geun walking across a desolate ice and snow-filled landscape alone, and then flashes back to the battle in which he emerged as the only survivor.
We then see him at Harbin train station in a huge crowd of people as he slowly moves towards Itō Hirobumi with the intent to kill.
The trailer also features An Jung Geun’s monologue about his intentions, and what caused them:
I gave up everything and was about to die, as the miserable screams of my dead comrades hovered in my ears and they drifted in front of me. But, at that moment I realized that I was living in place of them. And I knew what I had to do. Kill the leader of the Japanese army. the Old Wolf, who is destroying Korea.
Harbin is directed by the previously mentioned Woo Min Ho (The Man Standing Next, Inside Men).
TIFF describes the plot of the film like this:
In 1905, Japan forced Korea to sign the Eulsa Treaty, stripping the nation of its diplomatic rights and reducing the entire peninsula to a Japanese colony. By 1909, when Harbin begins, Korea’s small but tenacious Righteous Army militia is deep into a campaign of armed resistance against the Japanese.
After emerging as the sole survivor of an especially bloody skirmish, Ahn Jung-geun (Hyun Bin) heads an operation to assassinate Itō Hirobumi, the first Japanese Resident-General of Korea and a key symbol of violent colonial oppression.
The operation will require Ahn and his cohort to travel clandestinely into Russia, gathering resources and allies while concocting elaborate decoys.
With terrifying risks at every turn, murderous security forces on their tail, and the entire plan under constant threat of collapse, the question arises: how many Koreans must die for the sake of their country’s independence?
We will keep you updated here at Leo Sigh as more information about Harbin is released but do take note in the trailer, the cinematography by Hong Kyung Pyo (Parasite) is absolutely stunning.