Independence Fighter An: the Musical
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The year 2009 will mark the 100th anniversary of Korean independent activist An Jung-geun's assassination of Japan's first Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi on a railway platform in Harbin, Manchuria Oct. 26 in 1909. This was after Japan forced the Eulsa Treaty on Korea in 1905 with Korea on the verge of annexation by Japan.
An was then executed in Ryojun, China in 1910 for the incident. His remains are yet to be brought back home.
However, the story of his dreams and spirit with which he fought for the independence and peace of Asia will be revived next year in a musical, ``Hero.'' There have been several films and dramas about An, but never has there been a musical.
The epic musical, based on An and Ito, will be produced by Acom International with production costs of about 5 billion won. Acom International produced the widely successful ``The Last Empress.''
Production began in 2004, and the crew is gearing up to stage it next year with prominent creative team members. The creative team took a field tour of Vladivostok, Ryojun and Dalian, March 18-22, to look around the real sites where An was held.
``It was not easy to make the story of nation's hero into a musical as the story is full of historical facts and less dramatic elements. An was a devout Catholic and so he didn't have love affairs,'' Yun Ho-jin, director and head of the company, told reporters at a press conference at Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Tuesday.
Yun said that he worried because many history-based dramas could be boring because of its heaviness. ``But I think it is an important project to incarnate the activist as a musical hero because his story will inspire many young people today and his views were so great, even now,'' he said.
The musical will portray the two historical figures but also focus on An's way of thinking, ``Pan-Asianism,'' and the ideological conflict between An and Ito.
An strongly believed in Pan-Asianism in which three countries in East Asia ― China, Korea, and Japan ― should work in unision in order to counter and fight off the ``White Peril,'' being the European countries engaged in colonialism, to restore peace in East Asia.
``We will depict An as an international figure who not only fought for Korea's independence but also as an international hero who sought for peace in Asia,'' he said.
The musical will also shed light on another side of Ito, who was seen as an enemy of Korea, but actually was a historically influential figure from the Japanese point of view. Yun said that the musical will depict his human side and inner struggles.
``The hero depends on the eyes of beholder. The musical targets the international audience, especially the Chinese and Japanese. So we will describe every character given the nature of each nationality,'' he said. The musical has diverse characters, such as Chinese woman Ling Ling, a fictional figure and Japanese detective Wada, he said.
The musical will present the major incidents and various episodes with dramatic additions from the period between January 1909 and March 1910.
The highlight of the musical will be the scene when An assassinates Ito, in which 3D effects will be used, Park Dong-woo, stage art director, said.
The musical will be staged on Oct. 26 next year.