Harbin

This gripping historical thriller from director Woo Min-ho (Inside Men) dramatizes pivotal events in the arduous struggle for Korean sovereignty. Starring Hyun Bin, Jeon Yeo-been, and Park Jeong-min (TIFF ’22’s Decision to Leave), Harbin depicts the complexities of heroism in a time of merciless subjugation.

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) 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?

Woo fills Harbin with striking, emblematic images — no single moment encapsulates Ahn’s journey like that of him crossing the frozen Tumen River. But this is, above all, a film that alternates between argument and action, with the Righteous Army gathering in gloomy hideouts to hash out high-stakes logistics, then hurtling themselves headlong into harm’s way on the promise of some remote triumph.