Harbin Review: Hyun Bin Braves The Freezing Cold In Historical Assassination Thriller

Harbin (NC16)

Starring Hyun Bin, Park Jeon-min, Jo Woo-jin, Jeon Yeo-been, Park Hoon, Lily Franky

Directed by Woo Min-ho

In 1909, a secret group of Korean independence fighters plot to assassinate the prime minister of Japan, their hated colonial master, who’s scheduled to arrive at Harbin railway station in Manchuria.

In lowly-lit hideouts, they meet in dangerous subterfuge, bicker among themselves, traverse safe houses from China to Vladivostok in Russia, escape Japanese soldiers and smoke out a mole to execute the risky mission.

Leading them in the clandestine operation is a top general whom they have doubts about due to his act of mercy towards an enemy commander after an earlier brutally savage battle.

This Korean war-espionage flick, based on a real-life event, is exactly as you’d expect it to be if you’re into such a genre.

Respectful, atmospheric, patiently paced, visually superb (it's shot in Latvia, Mongolia and South Korea), weighed down by snow and gravitas, and hard to distinguish among the similarly-clad conspirators lurking in the shadows. Man, in two tension-in-the-train sequences, there are so many covered suspects sitting in the carriages, they look like hat conventions.

You need to be four things to fully appreciate this deal — ideally Korean, a history buff, a devotee of the cold, and a Hyun Bin fan.

Harbin is freezingly absorbing. But it’s straightforward. Too straightforward, in fact, like a railway track itself with few twists and turns. The focus here is more on the dynamics among the plotters rather than a good old spy yarn.

It’s aided by the precise K-cast here who, despite looking warily stoic, still emotes convincingly right through the frozen numbness. Reminding you of Zhang Yimou’s Cliff Walkers, but less exciting. That was a frostbitten Japanese-occupation thriller too with more fictional kicks and less factual baggage.

Director and co-writer Woo Min-ho (The Man Standing Next, Inside Men) handles his story carefully as though it’s a live grenade. Since no less than the depiction of fabled national martyr, Ahn Jung-geun (Confidential Assignment's Hyun Bin), lieutenant-general of the Korean Independence Army, is at stake.

After a hellish The Battle Of Lake Changjin-style scene that’s medieval in its stabbing and strangling carnage, Ahn, a redemptive soul, releases the cruel, vengeful Japanese major, Mori (played with venom by Park Hoon). A mistake that plagues him when his men die due to his decision. It results in a cloud of suspicion — personally and from his comrades — hovering over the man which he must put right. “If we don’t bleed, no one will remember them,” Ahn tries to make amends to his dead brothers-in-arms.

Making this pic about the avowed determination of the damaged patriot to eliminate the head of the enemy so reverential, it basically throws in only a predictable traitor-in-their-midst mystery to jazz up the proceedings.

Harbin is based on two actual historical figures, Ahn and Japanese PM, Ito Hirobumi (Lily Franky from Shoplifters), the despised “old wolf”. While the rest of the characters are apparently fictional composites.

“Korea’s common people are the most troublesome,” Hirobumi, the supreme occupier — Franky nails your attention every time he turns up — drips almost empathetic menace in the way arcane villains are car-crash mesmerising.

This whole show is a very serious drama-intrigue with extremely sombre characters so cloaked in sameness, it's hard to pick out who's who. The plotters keep their heads hidden under caps, hats and drab long coats to avoid detection.

Luckily though, one is a woman (Cobweb's Jeon Yeo-been as a resourceful ally) and another wears spectacles — Seo Bok's Jo Woo-jin as Kim Sang-hyun, one of Ahn's two closest friends — while the rest confuses us with identical long hair and beards. Both close buddies — Kim and the rougher Woo Duk-soon (Park Jeon-min from Decision To Leave) — are terrific in their scenes of doomy camaraderie together.

You sink into the tale with perhaps two puzzlements.

Why do these conspiracy folks in scary wartime danger give themselves away so openly in trains as though coached by a cinematographer? How do they keep popping up here and there out in the frozen vastness of 1909 as if they’d just taken the MRT?

But these are small matters in the big scheme of things.

And in this gripping scheme to kill a prime minister, what matters most is that Hyun Bin is in charge. (3.5/5 stars) out in cinemas

Photo: Shaw Organisation