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The film "Miljeong" released ahead of the Korean holiday Chuseok in 2016, titled "The Age of Shadows" in English, introduced its audience to the key figures of the righteous patriotic corps called Uiyeoldan that engaged in intransigent, activist independence movements. One of those key figures was Hwang Ok, the lead in the film. Featured in the film under the name Lee Jung-chool played by the actor Song Kang-ho, Hwang Ok was an enigmatic character who made it difficult to tell whether he was a Japanese cop or an independence activist.

A Double Agent in the Goryeo Communist Party

Born in 1887 in today’s Mungyeong of North Gyeongsang Province as the 19th generational descendant of Joseon's High State Councilor Hwang Hui, Hwang Ok grew up in an affluent family and began working as a court clerk and translator while the Japanese Residency-General governed Korea. However, after the March 1st Independence Movement occurred when he was thirty-three in 1919, Hwang Ok went over to Shanghai to join the Korean Provisional Government. He subsequently returned to take charge of arresting independence activists from March 1920 when he became especially hired as a gyeongbu (equivalent to the rank of inspector) by the Gyeongi Provincial Police. That marked the beginning of Hwang Ok's life as a double agent. While maintaining his identity as a policeman, he went on to join the Goryeo Communist Party based in Irkutsk of Russia's Primorsky Krai. From there on, he informed the independence movement camp about the police's inside movements, while he reported on independence movements to the police. At the same time, he made passports for independence activists and provided them with travel expenses. His generous financial support and assistance was also extended to the provisional government in Shanghai, for which he earned looks of suspicion that eventually made him leave Shanghai. And a similar situation unfolded with the Goryeo Communist Party as well. Pressured by suspicion from his comrades, he ended up leaving the party. In the film, he becomes a double agent after joining the Uiyeoldan, but in reality, he had already been leading that life since he joined the communist party.

After leaving the Goryeo Community Party, Hwang Ok became associated with a righteous patriotic corps called the Uiyeoldan. He joined the corps from meeting Kim Si-hyeon, who appeared under the role of Kim Woo-jin played by Gong Yoo in the film. The bomb smuggling attempt Hwang Ok made after joining the Uiyeoldan is what served as the film Miljeong's subject matter. Through his first meeting with the Uiyeoldan's head Kim Won-bong in early 1923, Hwang Ok joined the Uiyeoldan's operation to smuggle bombs to instigate a nationwide insurrection. Though he appears to have joined the operation from being tricked by Kim Woo-jin and Kim Won-bong's fictional incarnation Jung Chae-san played by Lee Byung-hun in the film, he actually actively participated in the operation from beginning to end. Throughout the operation, Hwang Ok reported the Uiyeoldan's movements to the police, but at the same time informed the Uiyeoldan of the police's movements. So, it had been Hwang Ok who had set up a showdown in which both sides had been well aware of one another's situation. And since the operation was carried out under the police's radar, the odds for the operation to succeed were low from the start. Hwang Ok and Kim Si-hyeon succeeded in bringing the bombs into Korea, but failed to use them for their cause from being arrested by the police.

Because the police arrested Uiyeoldan members based on Hwang Ok's reports, it seems reasonable to conclude that he was a spy for the Japanese. Yet, as shown in the film, his conduct appeared suspicious to the Japanese police as well. The Japanese police suspected that he purposefully withheld crucial information from being reported on time. This was why the Japanese police took him to court along with the other Uiyeoldan members where he was sentenced to ten years in prison. And that is how Hwang Ok officially became known as a person who went to jail for participating in independence movements.

Enigmatic Choices and Appraisal of Kim Won-bong

However, the execution of Hwang Ok's sentence became suspended for health reasons after a year and a half and he was released six months after he returned to confinement. And serving only a total of two years out of his ten-year sentence intensified the suspicion that he had in fact been a Japanese spy. Nevertheless, while being interrogated, he remained silent when it came to key information involving Kim Won-bong and the Uiyeoldan. And that was what prevented the righteous patriotic corps from disintegrating. Hwang Ok was unable to go back to working for the Japanese police after his release. When Korea regained its independence, he briefly participated in the special committee to investigate anti-national activities until he became a North Korean once the Korean War broke out.

Many accused Hwang Ok for being a Japanese spy, but he received an unexpected appraisal from Kim Won-bong who he once worked with. According to the Source Book on Korea's Independence Movements published by the National Institute of Korean History, a 1934 interrogatory to question a follower of Kim Won-bong named Hong Ga-geun at the Jongno police station included the following answer when Hong Ga-geun was asked as to whether he had heard anything about Hwang Ok from Kim Won-bong: "I heard Kim Won-bong say that Hwang Ok had been an officer of the Gyeonggi provincial police who unfortunately got arrested for joining as a member of the Uiyeoldan." So, although contemporary scholars still have their suspicions when it comes to Hwang Ok, he doesn't seem to have been doubted by Kim Won-bong. Perhaps that is what makes Hwang Ok seem all the more enigmatic.

Hwang Ok, Kim Si-hyeon, and Kim Sang-ok

In the film Miljeong, Kim Si-hyeon, who got Hwang Ok involved in independence movements, treats Hwang Ok as an elder brother, but he had actually been four years older than Hwang Ok. Kim Si-hyeon in the film meets Hwang Ok when he visits his photo studio and the two agree to call each other brother as they become good friends over drinks, but in reality, the two met through an entirely different occasion. Kim Si-hyeon joined the Uiyeoldan after the March 1st Movement of 1919 and got arrested by the Daegu police in Miryang of South Gyeongsang Province for secretly bringing bombs into the country. The police officer who escorted Kim Si-Hyeon to Seoul at the time was none other than Hwang Ok. On their way from Miryang to Seoul, Hwang Ok used his natural affability to befriend Kim Si-hyeon and went on to support him by making him a passport and providing travel expenses once he was released. These built a trust between them that later launched the bomb smuggling attempt in 1923.

Although not a figure as central as Hwang Ok or Kim Si-hyeon, the feats achieved by the Uiyeoldan member Kim Sang-ok was in fact greater than the brief feature of him as Kim Jang-ok played by Park Hee-soon early on in the film. Shortly before the bomb smuggling attempt was made, Kim Sang-ok infiltrated into Korea in January 1923 and became pursued for throwing a bomb at the Jongno police station as a tryout for bombing the government-general headquarters. He fought 21 Japanese policemen on his own in Huam-dong near Seoul Station, killing one and injuring three of them. He was then surrounded by 500 policemen at Nam Mountain, but managed to escape. A few days later, he wound up in a street fight for nearly three hours with about 1,000 Japanese soldiers and policemen in Hyoje-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul where he was born. After killing 16 of his enemies, Kim Sang-ok found himself left with one last bullet, which he used to shoot himself in the head. His noble choice to die as a patriot was much more spectacular than his end in the film. Choosing to treat such a spectacular figure as a cameo appearance is perhaps how the film Miljeong managed to solely focus on carefully shaping a depiction of the double agent Hwang Ok's conflicts and conducts.