The 2015 film titled Assassination is an exciting movie that stipulates that struggle that Korea endured before gaining independence from Japan (Viki, n.d.). It begins with a ploy by a resistance fighter called Yem Sek-jin who unsuccessfully tried to murder Kang In-guk, who was a pro-Japanese businessman and the governor-general (Viki, n.d.). Kang later realizes that the wife was part of the scheme to assassinate him which, makes him kill the wife with whom they had twin girls. A nurse, however, happens, to escape with the twin girls who later play starring roles in the film. By 1933 more than 30 factions located in Manchuria, China, and Korea had been formed to agitate for independence. Yem became the captain of one of the wings but unknown to them he had been tortured into submission by the Japanese, thus making him a spy for them.
It is evident from the movie that collaboration is one of the significant issues that has affected the Korean society for decades. The pro-Japanese partnership led to the overexploitation of the Koreans by the Japanese and was also a hindrance in the democratization of Korea in the 1980s (De Ceuster, 2001, p.207). Japan exploited Korea for 35 years in which it served as its colony (Kang, 2016, p.226). However, after gaining independence it failed to resolve the issues that had resulted from the colonization. There are many Koreans who are currently collaborating with the Japanese and other foreign nationals and this seems to be hindering the democratic and economic growth of the Asian country (Kang, 2016, p.230). The government needs to seriously look into the past and present issues of Koreans collaborating with foreigners and in so doing frustrating the national dream.
References
De Ceuster, K. (2001). The nation exorcised: The historiography of collaboration in South Korea. Korean Studies, 207-242.
Kang, K. (2016). Embracing Postcolonial Potentiality: New Faces of Japanese Collaborators in Contemporary Korea. In Spaces of Possibility: Korea, Japan, In, Between, and Beyond the Nation (pp. 224-252). University of Washington Press.
Viki. (n.d.). Assassination [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.viki.com/videos/1137113v- assassination
