Actor Song Il-gook on great-grandfather Gen. Kim Jwa-jin: 'There's no greater enemy to a family'

As controversy swirls over actor Ha Young's great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho and his alleged pro-Japanese collaboration, remarks by actor Song Il-gook — a descendant of independence fighter Gen. Kim Jwa-jin — about the hardships faced by families of independence activists have resurfaced and drawn renewed attention.

Song appeared on MBN's "Kim Joo-ha's Day and Night" in May, where he spoke about what it meant to come from such a family. Song is widely known as the great-grandson of Gen. Kim Jwa-jin, the celebrated commander of the Battle of Cheongsan-ri during the Japanese colonial period.

Speaking about Gen. Kim, Song said: "To the outside world he was a hero, but as the head of a household, there is no greater enemy — truly no greater enemy than him." He continued: "He lived in a grand mansion in Hongseong, South Chungcheong Province — by today's standards, he would have been the head of a mid-sized company. Overnight, he just disposed of all his assets. Turned the house into a school. The family was suddenly left out on the street, just like that. How could you not resent him?"

Gen. Kim was born into a wealthy yangban family but freed the family's servants and distributed farmland to them at the age of 17. He also established Homyeong School, a modern private school, inside the family's 90-room estate, aiming to lay the groundwork for national independence through education.

Song said there is a photograph of four women in his family — his great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and one other — taken together just before the Korean War. "When I look at these women, I think, what turbulent lives they led," he said. "All because of the men they ended up with."

He went on to say: "The irony is that pro-Japanese collaborators were attentive family men — they made sure their children got a good education, even sent them abroad to study. But the descendants of independence fighters could barely put food on the table, let alone think about schooling. That's exactly why I believe we need to do right by the descendants of independence patriots."

Song added that he grew up hearing one phrase drummed into him: "Never do anything to shame your grandfather's name." Now a parent himself, he said he finds himself repeating the same words. "Once you become a parent, you can't help it. There are lines that must not be crossed," he said, adding with a laugh: "I tell my kids — the moment you do something wrong, five generations go down with you: Gen. Kim Jwa-jin, grandfather Kim Doo-han, grandmother, dad, and mom — who is also a senior public official."

Meanwhile, Ha Young has come under fire after boasting in recent broadcast appearances that her family has produced doctors for four generations, only for her great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho's pro-Japanese record to come to light. Ahn joined the Daejeong Chinmok-hoe, a pro-Japanese fraternal organization, and treated Yi Wan-yong — one of the most notorious collaborators of the era — after Yi survived an assassination attempt. In a press interview at the time, Ahn also declared that he had abandoned the Korean language and all Korean ways of life in favor of Japanese customs, leading some to characterize him as a poster figure for "naeseon ilche," the Japanese colonial ideology holding that Korea and Japan were one.