The True Story of the Epic Korean War Uprising on Netflix

RiseNetflix's new Korean action war epic takes place over decades and depicts the tense friendship between Cheon-yeong (BrokerDong-won Gang), a for us a slave with a talent for swordsmanship and Jong-ryeo (Performance 8Park Jeong-min), the son of a noble family struggling to reconcile their ideals with privileges. The two men grow up in the same household – side by side, but are never equal in their access to comfort, freedom and opportunity in the neo-Confucian society of late 16th century Joseon.

When Japan invades the Korean Peninsula in 1592, starting a seven-year conflict known as the Imjin War, both men become soldiers. Cheon-yeong joins the Righteous Army, an informal militia composed of civilians. Meanwhile, Jong-ryeo is at King Seonjo's side as he flees the capital and largely abandons his people to their fate. Rise is titled “Jeon, Ran” in Korean, meaning “War, Chaos.” “This story can be divided into the war and what happens after it,” explains Korean cinema legend Park Chan-wook (Maid, A sympathizer), who produced the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Shin Chul, according to press notes. “I wanted the title to reflect the zeitgeist of this story, which is not about 'the chaos caused by war' but about 'war and the resulting rebellion.'

Every Korean learns this Imjin war in school, but it is not part of the American curriculum. “The Imjin War continues to influence the way Koreans view themselves, as well as Japan and its people,” says Professor Nam-lin Hur, who teaches pre-modern Japanese history, Korean-Japanese relations, and Joseon Korea in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia . In 1592, East Asia descended into war when the Japanese Hideyoshi regime invaded Korea, perhaps as part of a larger plan to conquer China. (Although not depicted in the film, China's Ming dynasty was also drawn into the conflict, sending tens of thousands of soldiers to Joseon's aid. “It was a rescue operation and the Ming suffered heavy losses,” says Hur. “The Ming played a key role in end of the war.”) At this time, the Korean Peninsula was already in the phase of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled from 1392 to 1910 and brought significant cultural developments such as the invention of the Korean phonetic alphabet, known as Hangulin 1443.

Another event that characterized the Joseon dynasty was the creation of a class of scholars and nobles known as Jangban. It consists mainly of government and military officials Yangban-the class to which Jong-ryeo would belong was the highest rung of a rigid caste system. Though Jangban While men were technically subject to military service and held prestigious command positions in the military, the government did not force this class to serve even during war, Hur says. Around this time Jangban this class constituted approximately 5 to 10% of the total population, with for us class constituting about 30 to 40%, Hur estimates. King Seonjo believed in maintaining the division between Jangban AND for us class as an integral part of maintaining his dynasty. According to vernacular records from the era, Seonjo said of the system: “The distinction between slaves and masters is like the path of heaven and earth, therefore it should not be neglected or compromised.”

There is a lot of Korean history inside Riseit lasts two hours, but its action makes it non-didactic. The film's drama rests on its central relationship, which is influenced by the film's rich, historical setting. “All Koreans know about the existence of this war and the existence of the volunteer militia,” actor Park told TIME through a translator, “but I think by joining this project, I learned the emotions behind the facts. It's not just about knowing the facts, but about taking a deeper look at what happened.

By the time Japan withdrew its troops from the Korean Peninsula in 1598, as many as 500,000 Japanese, Chinese, and Korean fighters had died. Although Joseon won the war, the land and its inhabitants were destroyed. According to Aftermath, an academic project that seeks to understand the regional legacy of the war, some estimates put Joseon's death toll and civilian abductions at 2 million people, or 20% of the population. Between 20,000 and 100,000 Koreans were captured and taken to Japan, further changing the war-ravaged social structure of Joseon society. Despite this, the Joseon era would continue for another 300 years until Japan occupied the peninsula in 1910.

RiseThe main theme of the film is the class unrest that increases during the war, as shown by the main characters of the film, especially Cheon-yeong. During the war, Cheon-yeong hides his slave status and uses his warrior skills to help Joseon win the war, hoping to gain permanent freedom. “He becomes a hero and lives in freedom,” says Gang. “But after the war, ironically, he has to go back to the bottom class, right? When the system returns, you will not be able to change it. He still wants to change it, but he realizes he can't change it. That's why he decides to break the system.

While the Japanese forces that invade Korea are the antagonists in this film, represented by the cruel commander Genshin (PraiseJung Sung-il), Rise paints King Seonjo, a frequently depicted figure in Korean pop culture, and the caste system he represents, as the main antagonist. “King Seonjo worked hard to save his kingdom. To this end, he wielded power and mobilized all the resources at his disposal, including people,” Hur says of the historical figure. “He cared little for anything other than his royal power; he didn't even care how many people died in the war to save his kingdom. This was the nature of the power under which men had to survive.”

For Kim, who had not directed a film for almost a decade before this project, the focus was on internal conflicts Rise outside of the traditional war movie. “There have been a lot of movies where the antagonist attacks, right?” says Kim. “That's why I didn't want to make a film telling this story. An invasion from outside acts as a catalyst that, in a sense, destroys the internal, established system. This is the story I wanted to tell.”

Although the Imjin War did not overthrow the Joseon caste system, it temporarily weakened it, leading to moments of total rebellion. As shown in Riseit was the citizens of Joseon, angry that King Seonjo had left the city and burned the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul by the Japanese invasion force. “The class system weakened during the Imjin War amid chaos, but after the war, the ruling class made efforts to successfully restore the class system,” Hur explains. After the war, the ruling class was able to restore and in some cases increase its power in the social order.

Still, Kim hopes the theme of class consciousness will help international audiences who may know little or nothing about the Imjin War connect with Rise. “The reason why people resonate so much with these themes is that in this day and age, even though it's not blatantly described or limited based on social systems, there is still class stratification,” Kim says. “Whether it's based on economics or generational power, I still think these themes are very much alive and that's why they resonate.”

For actor Park, there is a second, deeply resonant international topic. “Almost every country has experienced war at some point in its history,” he says. Whether it happened centuries ago in Korea or is currently taking place on another continent, “wars are only losses for the country, and no one really wins in war.”