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A year after General’s Son struck box office gold, Im Kwon-taek returns to colonial Korea picking up pretty much where he left off with Doo-han (Park Sang-min) once again getting released from prison only this time to a hero’s welcome. Pushing deeper into the colonial era, The General’s Son 2 (將軍의 아들 2 / 장군의 아들 2, Janggunui adeul 2) takes place in increasingly straitened times in which the Japanese are both in control and on the offensive, using the colonial base to strike further into Manchuria while Doo-han discovers a little more about his legendary father and the fate of the Independence Movement in exile.
Like the first film, the sequel largely consists of a series of episodes in which Doo-han fights and defeats his various rivals. The major change this time is that he begins in defeat as the early celebrations of his return give way to a dawn raid by Hayashi’s yakuza after which Doo-han is dragged into the town square and forced into submission. When Doo-han’s mentor Ki-hwan (Min Eung-shik) is also released from prison, the gang opts for a truce, but Ki-hwan then absents himself after realising Hayashi has tricked him leaving Doo-han in charge.
During the first film Doo-han’s Korean gangsters had been presented as unambiguously good, standing between the ordinary people and Japanese oppression. While Doo-han was away, however, things have changed. The Japanese have infiltrated Jongno and the Jongno gang has lost the support of the merchants through pressing them too hard for collection money. Doo-han’s first task is then to get the smaller Korean gangs back on side, fighting the local Mokpo kingpin to ensure he resumes sending taxation payments back to Jongno. His main source conflict, however, is still with Dong-hae (Lee Il-jae), the Korean fighter working for the yakuza whom he defeated at the end of the previous film but who got his own back by getting the jump on him at the beginning of this one.
As a defender of Korean liberty, Doo-han’s side mission is to win back Dong-hae to the side of right, reminded of their childhood meeting by a repeat of the flashback in which he helps a starving Dong-hae cadge a meal by teaching him how to dine and dash. The Dong-hae dilemma is compounded by Doo-han’s increasingly complicated love life which begins with a brief flirtation with Setsuko, a half-Korean Japanese woman working at a gangster-friendly bar who seems to have taken a liking to him, but then later transfers to Chae-hwan (Song Chae-Hwan), a new gisaeng at his regular hangout who is sweet on Dong-hae and is also carrying baggage because her late husband was stoned to death as a traitor when the Japanese discarded him.
Through Chae-hwan, Doo-han gets to know a dissident author, Park Gye-ju, whose novel Pure Love he pays two high school students to read aloud to him because he is still illiterate. According to Gye-ju, Doo-han’s general father is dead, assassinated by communist traitors among his men including such esteemed names as Kim Il-sung, placing Doo-han at a peculiar intersection of anti-communist and anti-Japanese ideology. Despite that however, Doo-han is warned off associating with Gye-ju because of his “suspicious ideology” by his arch nemesis, Kunimoto, formerly “Lee” the Korean detective working for the Japanese who arrested him all the way back at the beginning of his journey in the first movie.
Traitorous Koreans rather than the Japanese are the main antagonists with Kunimoto first among them, but then as Chae-hwan puts it it’s not the fault of the world only the Japanese whose continuing oppression has placed them all into these perilous positions. Dong-hae weighs up his options, persuaded to end his problematic associations with Hayashi despite his previous assertion that he didn’t care where the money came from he only wanted to survive. The world abandoned us first, he explains, what else was there to do? Chae-hwan criticises Doo-han, suggesting that he’s using his fists not for the people of Korea but for himself, convincing Dong-hae that he can be “saved” if he leaves the gangster world behind. Like his nation, he decides he wants “independence”, eating his own food bought with his own money, rather than remaining at the mercy of a higher authority be that Hayashi or Doo-han.
The Japanese army, however, believe themselves above the law and answer only to the emperor. Dong-hae’s decision brings him further into conflict with Doo-han, rejecting not just the law of the street but provoking romantic jealousy. As Chae-hwan points out love isn’t a fight you win or lose, but it’s still at the mercy of the various political forces in play and in not in any way helped by Doo-han’s childish provocation of Japanese soldiers at Setsuko’s bar. In any case, Doo-han remains a folk hero, concluding his final showdown with his first show of real violence with active consequences, but in the end protected by the people of Jongno as they offer themselves as human shields holding back the forces of oppression while Doo-han remains trapped in a world of pointless gangster violence.
Windows on Worlds 