Harbin

Harbin (하얼빈) is a 2024 South Korean historical thriller directed by Woo Min-ho, set in 1909 as Korea faces annexation by the Japanese empire. Hyun Bin stars as Ahn Jung-geun, the real-life Korean independence activist who leads a small resistance unit. After a military operation in which he spares Japanese prisoners of war, his comrades question his resolve, pushing him toward a far more drastic plan: assassinating Ito Hirobumi (Lily Franky), Japan's former Resident-General of Korea, who is travelling to negotiate terms that would seal the country's fate.

Ahn's group, including Woo Deok-sun (Park Jeong-min), Kim Sang-hyun (Jo Woo-jin) and the operative Ms. Gong (Jeon Yeo-been), travels from Korea through Vladivostok to intercept Ito at Harbin railway station in Russian-controlled Manchuria. The mission nearly collapses when an explosives shipment is destroyed in an ambush and suspicion falls on an informant inside the group, straining trust among the conspirators as Japanese agent Tatsuo Mori (Park Hoon) and rival operative Lee Chang-seop (Lee Dong-wook) close in on them.

At Harbin station on 26 October 1909, Ahn moves through the crowd gathered to greet Ito and shoots him, reportedly shouting "Long live Korea!" in Russian before he is arrested on the spot. He was executed in March 1910, an outcome the film presents as history rather than a twist, closing on the independence movement that continued after him.

Released in South Korea on 24 December 2024 after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Harbin opened at No. 1 domestically and passed 3 million admissions within its first month, going on to gross more than $33 million worldwide against a budget of roughly $20.6 million. Critics singled out Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography, and the film won Best Film and Best Cinematography at the 2025 Baeksang Arts Awards.