Kwon Sang-woo to play activist assassin?

13 August 2, 2014August 1, 2014

by awcoconuts

Kwon Sang-woo is being courted to play a famed activist for Korean independence, Ahn Jung-geun, in a joint Chinese-Korean production with a notable director attached — renowned helmsman Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero, To Live). Kwon has confirmed receipt of an offer to lead the biopic, titled Jibi Jibi (the Chinese word for “shoot dead”), but has not made a decision yet.

Ahn Jung-geun is most known for his assassination of Ito Hirobumi, a prime minister of Japan and former resident-general of Korea, in 1909. While Ahn believed in a friendlier relationship between the countries, he felt Ito was responsible for the tension between Korea and Japan, and blamed him for several injustices, including the massacre of Korean civilians, the dissolution of the Korean military and the seizure and burning of textbooks.

Ahn was lauded by both Koreans and many Chinese for his actions, as China was also fighting back against Japanese invasion at the time. On January 19 of this year, an Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Hall was erected in Harbin, China, to Japanese dismay (here’s an interesting TIME article on it). The project may not-so-delicately be traversing Asian political waters, but it has the potential to be a blockbuster in the Chinese and Korean markets, with powerhouse Zhang Yimou overseeing direction and Fan Xiuming (The Prince of Han Dynasty) actually behind the camera.

Kwon Sang-woo is still in the middle of shooting Temptation and has said he has not had a chance to review the details, but will consider the offer carefully.

Via StarNews

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Tags: Kwon Sang-woo

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1 diana

August 2, 2014 at 9:25 AM

I tried to like him but he's really just meh for me.

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Nesma Kazem

August 2, 2014 at 9:57 AM

i loved him so much in sad love story but he always now the maltreat guy that i wounder how come he didn't
sick of that

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jangeusu

August 2, 2014 at 10:58 PM

He's great in the movie My Tutor Friend

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2 Rachel

August 2, 2014 at 9:38 AM

The story sounds pretty damn exciting. Also, Zhang Yimou. Will definitely keep my eyes on this movie!

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eny

August 2, 2014 at 7:07 PM

agree, the story seems really interesting, i just watch temptation, so far i like it the story is complicated n interesting

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3 pogo - now sailing HMS Queen of Tears with Corn Salad on deck🍉

August 2, 2014 at 10:38 AM

Zhang Yimou?! I'm on board.

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4 alua

August 2, 2014 at 12:50 PM

I know nothing of Kwon Sang-woo, but I'm somewhat interested in this because of the connection to the person he kills.

The name Ito Hirobumi rings a bell for me, because he was one of the Chosyu Five – a samurai of the Chosyu clan who snuck out of Japan when doing so was prohibited. The Chosyu five were the first Japanese people to study in the UK (at UCL, my own uni :-) ).

In Japan, he's celebrated as part of the Chosyu Five and as the country's first prime minister.

I guess this film will reveal about another side of him – probably not going to go down that well in Japan. If either Ahn Jung-geun or Ito Hirobumi were admirable men... who knows.

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Requiem

August 2, 2014 at 4:01 PM

Very interesting, alua.

The part I'm curious about is if actors are concerned about their images in foreign countries, as I don't think it'll go over well with Japanese citizens, and I wonder if he takes that into account when considering the part.

Of course, he's not like an idol, so maybe that's a secondary concern....

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Firdhiye

August 2, 2014 at 5:26 PM

Interesting info about Ito because someone's hero is the often other ones conqurer, hated enemy. Specially in colony, World Wars era.

It would be interesting to see a film from the Korean POV of the hated enemy that someone became a hero for by killing him. Also at the same time a japanese film from their POV about him as the famous minister.

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alua

August 3, 2014 at 2:43 PM

You can watch Chosyu Five (I'm linking my review), a film about the legacy of the Chosyu Five.

It's not focused on Ito Hibumi but tells the story of all the Chosyu Five, with the latter half of the film telling the story of Yamao Yozo (founded ministry of industry and petitioned what later became the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo). The film gives a strong sense of the legacy of these men – i.e. that the highly developed, modern, technologically pioneering of robots and super trains Japan of today would not exist without them. It celebrates them, though there are hints at contradiction (i.e. them proclaiming how others are barbaric when they are just as barbaric; how they were somewhat blindly / naively pursuing their goals in England, full of admiration of the wonders of the industrial age, oblivious to the class system and the divide between the rich and the poor).

The film is hard to come by though, esp. with subtitles. Matsuda Ryuhei plays Yamao by the way.