나확진 / 인턴 이효윤
| yna@yna.co.kr 2021-09-19 07:02:29
by Ra Hwak Jin / Lee Hyo Yoon
[Episode 8] Assassination (2015 Directed by Choi Dong-hoon)
“Assassination,” released in July 2015 became director Choi Dong-hoon’s second mega-hit garnering 12.7 million audiences. The success ranked No. 8 of all Korean films.
Earlier director Choi has once produced another success with “The Thieves.” Also “Assassination” was already being anticipated for the cast including top stars Jun Ji-hyun, Lee Jung-jae and Ha Jung-woo and for having been known to have invested 18 billion won which is 4 times more than the average production fee of Korean movies.
The film dealt with the activists for the independence of Korea during the Japanese Colonialism in the 1930s planning to eliminate the pro-Japanese figures in Gyeongseong and Shanghai.
In 1933 China, Yeom Sek-jin (Lee Jung-jae) Captain of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea police bureau recruits sniper Ahn Ok-yun (Jun Ji-hyun), ‘Big Gun’ (Cho Jin-woong) from a military school and Hwang Duk-sam (Choi Deok-moon) expert of bombs. Their mission was to assassinate Kawaguchi Mamoru, the commander of the Japanese army and pro-Japanese businessman Kang In-guk (Lee Geung-young).
When the squad set out for Gyeongseong, a contractor called “Hawaii Pistol” (Ha Jung-woo) follows the crew with his partner “Buddy” (Oh Dal-su) offered a great deal of money in turn of getting rid of the assassinators.
The director previously produced a film that went back and forth time, called “Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard” but “Assassination” was his first historical film.
◇ Banquet of top rank actors
The film attracted interest in that the head of the assassination crew was a woman. Jun who rose to a Hallyu star with TV drama “My Love From the Star” said that she had such pressure for having to lead story as a main character on an interview when the film was released. But the result was a groundbreaking success. She exerted her attractiveness twice more acting double roles of Ahn Ok-yun and the daughter of a pro-Japanese family, Mitsuko.
“I will do anything for money.” Ha took the just right role for him, the “Hawaii Pistol,” a humorous and romantic man. His foreign language acting such as Chinese and Japanese was interesting.
Actor Lee who took the role of captain Yeom standing in the opposite side of the others attempted a surprising image transformation.
That Lee reduced 15kg for the film became an issue as well. His final scene in which he cries out in the court with his top off is considered the best part and was parodied in many show programs.
Including the main stage for the gun-fight scenes, the petrol station-street, the 5 streets and 76 buildings were all prepared in an open-set of 13,500㎡ in Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province. The producers at that time, said that it was the biggest film set in Korea.
In Shanghai Chedun, another stage, Gyeongseong’s Mitsukoshi Department Store set was produced. The producers restored more details adding CG on the 3-story building.
The costumes for the film were 4,500 sets and it took 3 months to produce a coat. 51 firearms were invested for the main characters’ armed struggles against Japan. The guns used by the star actors were ‘Mosin-Nagant’ as Ahn’s rifle, a big-sized German pistol Mauser for Yeom and German Walther PPK used by James Bond in the “007” series for Hawaii Pistol and German automatic MP-28 for Buddy.
Various classic cars produced in the 1939s such as Ford A, Ford T and Lincoln K also give visual pleasure.
Kim Won-bong who send the assassination squad to mission was a real historic figure, the captain of the Heroic Corps and led armed rebels against Japan. But in that he supported the North Korean regime after the Independence he couldn’t receive any conferment and was purged in the North.
Later, a hot controversy rose in the political circle over appointing Kim Won-bong an independence patriot.
Yeongyang North Gyeonsang Province, the homeland of ‘Mother of the Independence Army’ Nam Ja-hyeon patriot, known as the model for Ahn Ok-yun, has set out to establish a memorial hall for the patriot. Also, other female patriots such as Oh Gwang-sim, Chi Pog-yong and Park Cha-jeong who actually took part in the war for Independence and Kwon Ki-ok who became a female pilot to fight in the Chinese battle against Japan were re-evaluated.
But the court did not accept Mr. Choi’s claims for all 3 trials.
As the court approved the fact that there were a lot of female patriots who joined the armed fights against Japan by throwing bombs and that there were other novels featuring a woman sniper as the main character, the court did not regard the character in Mr. Choi’s novel unique.
Also, as Kim Gu was real figure who organized Korea Patriotic Organization and planned for assassinations. As the fact that Lee Deok-joo came to Joseon in an attempt to eliminate the administrator of the Joseon Governor-General is publicly known, the court said that these sets, slight variations of historical facts, cannot be considered as the unique traits of Mr. Choi’s novel.
“The court’s consistent judgement for the event was that historical facts have to be available to any producers and cannot be exclusively available to a particular individual. With the Supreme Court’s decision, we wish for no more suffering producers due to imprudent accusations of plagiarism,” said the producer Caper Film.
(END)
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