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Hyun Bin recently made his return to the big screen with his latest films - Confidential Assignment 2: International and The Point Men.
The latter was released on January 18 in South Korean theaters, featuring Hyun Bin, Hwang Jung-min, and Kang Ki-young. The crime thriller film presents the story of a South Korean diplomat and an agent from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) who put their lives on the line to protect the South Korean citizens who were abducted and held hostage by the Taliban.
Interestingly, the storyline of Hyun Bin's crime thriller film The Point Men is partially based on a true and painful story from the 2007 South Korean hostage crisis that occurred in Afghanistan.
Hyun Bin's The Point Men was inspired from a real-life incident that occurred in Afghanistan in 2007
As mentioned earlier, Hyun Bin's recent film, The Point Men, was inspired by the true incident that occurred in 2007 in Afghanistan, where a few innocent South Korean missionaries were abducted and held hostage by the Taliban. The incident occurred while the missionaries were traveling through the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan.
The missionaries consisted of sixteen women and seven men, who were responsible for a mission sponsored by the Saemmul Presbyterian Church. The group was commuting on their bus from Kandhar to Kabul when the bus driver allowed two locals to enter inside.
The Taliban disguised themselves as two locals to board the bus, and as soon as they entered inside the bus, they started shooting to halt the bus. After the Taliban abducted the Korean citizens, they traveled through several locations in a group of two or three people over the next month.
Later in July, the Taliban took further steps to execute their hostage plan and demanded that the South Korean government withdraw their armed forces from Afghanistan within the next 24 hours.
Back in 2007, Afghanistan was still fighting a war with the Taliban who wanted to capture the entire country. As South Korean forces were pre-scheduled to withdraw their military proofs from Afghanistan by the end of that year, the Taliban made additional demands. They asked former Afghani president Hamid Karzai to release the Taliban prisoners.
The cruelty in the Taliban people were seen when they executed a 42-year-old South Korean pastor, Bae Hyeong-gyu, from the Saemmul Church even before the negotiations started. They also shot dead a 29-year-old South Korean man, Shin Seong-min.
The negotiations began with the Taliban providing many different deadlines for the release of the remaining hostages. They soon started threatening that they would kill them. On August 1, South Korea formally began negotiations with the Taliban. Representatives from South Korea met with Afghanistan's kidnap experts from SCG International Risk in Washington, DC.
The two parties started having serious conversations face-to-face on August 10. Following this, they reached an agreement that the Taliban would release two female hostages named Kim Ji-na and Kim Gyeong-ja on August 13. However, the talks failed when a representative from the Taliban informed him that talks had failed and the release of the two hostages was uncertain.
On August 28, the release of the remaining 19 hostages were secured with the help of Indonesia’s participation as a neutral country. The hostages were set free between August 19 and 30. After the release of the hostages were completed, the Taliban informed the media that the South Korean government came to an agreement with them by paying $20 million USD as ransom to free the citizens.
South Korea responded and told the media that no statement regarding the ransom would be made public as they had promised to the Taliban. The response to the abduction news from the South Korean citizens was quite shocking.
The then-South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, announced the abduction news of citizens through a nationally televised speech. Since then, South Koreans have held many public gatherings to pray for the safety of the hostages. Even the Muslim community residing in the country condemned the actions of the Taliban and stated that it goes against the teachings of Islam. Moreover, many protests and demonstrations were held outside the Seoul Central Mosque.
The families of the hostages were heartbroken and desperate to know the conditions of their loved ones in South Korea. Many criticized missionaries, including the bishop of Taejon and the chairman Yoo Heung-sik of Korea, Caritas Lazarus.
Additionally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had repeatedly warned the misssionaries that the Taliban were planning to abduct netizens to free their inmates, so they should not go to Afghanistan. However, they didn’t give any kind of heed to them.
When the hostages arrived back in South Korea, they apologized for causing trouble for the people of the country. In the end, Hyun Bin's film successfully portrayed the story of those hostage and struggle in a realistic manner.
Hyun Bin is majorly known for his performances in K-dramas
Hyun Bin recently became the father of a healthy baby boy and celebrated the joy of becoming a parent with his wife, Son Ye-jin. The actor is well-known for his dramas and films in South Korea, including K-drama hits Crash Landing on You, Memories of the Alhambra, Secret Garden, and many others.
Hyun Bin recently attended the stage greetings for his film The Point Men where he talked about his films and conveyed love to his fans. They also appreciated the storyline of Hyun Bin's recently released action thriller, which is based on an real-life incidents.
