page_title: An Emissary of No Return
section_title: Historical Secret Emissary Affair
hierarchical_section_title: An Emissary of No Return / Historical Secret Emissary Affair
caption_attribution_description: (한국어)w:ko:헤이그 특사 사건에서 역할을 한 이준, 이상설, 이위종(왼쪽부터)English: Yi Tjoune, Sangsul Yi and Tjyongoui Yi (Hague Secret Emissary Affair)
context_page_description: An Emissary of No Return is a 1984 North Korean historical drama film directed by Shin Sang-ok, co-directed with his wife Choi Eun-hee. It is based on Bloody Conference, a play allegedly written by the country's leader Kim Il-sung during his guerrilla years.
  The film retells the dramatized story of the Hague Secret Emissary Affair. The affair ensued when the Korean emperor king Gojong sent three unauthorized emissaries to the talks of the Hague Convention of 1907. The film focuses on the deeds of Ri Jun, one of the emissaries. The emissaries were to protest against Korea's occupation by Japan to the international community in order to get the great powers to overturn the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905. The emissaries were refused because Korea had lost its sovereignty and its external affairs were now handled by Japan. Although in reality the Hague affair was an unremarkable diplomatic effort, a commonly believed myth among Koreans is that Ri Jun committed suicide inside the conference hall. An Emissary of No Return portrays this dramatized version in the form of a nationalist melodrama.
context_section_description: An Emissary of No Return retells the story of a real historical event in 1907 known as the Hague Secret Emissary Affair. Korea had been colonized by Japan. In order to protest to the international community, the Korean emperor king Gojong sent three secret emissaries to the talks of the Hague Convention of 1907. Their mission was to get the great powers to overturn the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905. The emissaries were refused on the basis that Korea had lost its sovereignty and its external affairs were now handled by Japan. In reality, the incident was "quick and quiet". The emissaries worked behind the scenes, and one of them died of illness during the trip. Korean nationalist historiography, however, presents the affair in "mythical proportions". Even many South Koreans continue to believe in the dramatic suicide of one of the emissaries, which in reality, did not take place. An Emissary of No Return presents the dramatized story, resulting in a "typical nationalist melodrama", and, partly, a boring "lecture" on fictionalized history.
caption: The three secret emissaries of Korea, whose dramatized story the film tells, focusing on Ri Jun (left)
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