The General's Son III (장군의 아들 3)
The General's Son III (장군의 아들 3) is a 1992 South Korean action film directed by Im Kwon-taek and the third and final installment of his General's Son trilogy about the colonial-era street fighter Kim Du-han1 • 2. Park Sang-min returns as Kim Du-han, with Oh Yeon-soo as the singer Jang Eun-shil and Shin Hyun-jun as the Japanese gang leader Hayashi1. The film follows Du-han into exile in Wonsan and Manchuria and back to Jongno for a final confrontation with Hayashi's gang2.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | July 11, 1992 (South Korea)1 |
| Director | Im Kwon-taek1 |
| Runtime | 110 minutes, 35 mm2 |
| Series position | Third and concluding film of the General's Son trilogy (1990–1992)2 |
| Main cast | Park Sang-min (Kim Du-han), Oh Yeon-soo (Jang Eun-shil), Shin Hyun-jun (Hayashi), Lee Il-jae (Kim Dong-hui), Kim Seung-woo (Twin Blade)1 • 3 |
| Admissions | 162,600 recorded by Cine211 |
| Production | Taeheung Pictures; producer Lee Tae-won; original novel by Hong Seong-yu; screenplay adaptation by Kim Hong-jun4 |
Spoilers
Plot
Du-han leaves Jongno and goes to Wonsan, where he clashes with Shirai, who harasses the touring troupe singer Jang Eun-shil, and then moves on to Manchuria1. There he reunites with Twin Blade (쌍칼), who hosts him while he lives without purpose, and he helps the smuggler Dong-hui before realizing that his true home remains Jongno and returning1. He gathers his followers again to revive the flagging Jongno scene8.
Meanwhile Jang Eun-shil, parted from Du-han in Wonsan, has become a popular singer. When Du-han is chased out of her performance hall after beating members of Hayashi gang's Uda, he hides in her lodging; the two are seen together, Eun-shil is arrested, and Du-han decides to surrender to the gendarmerie1. He wins a martial-arts match and is released, then summons his men for the final showdown with the Hayashi gang, who are simultaneously moving to eliminate Du-han and destroy the Jongno gang1. A fuller synopsis adds that Hayashi's brother-in-law Uda mistreats people at the Myeongwolgwan restaurant, that the gendarmerie detain Du-han's associates after naming him a murderer, and that a correspondent for the Mainichi Newspaper's Seoul bureau proves to the gendarmerie chief that Du-han is not the culprit9.
Production and place in the trilogy
The trilogy adapts Hong Seong-yu's novel about Kim Du-han, the real-life gang leader who dominated the Jongno district of Seoul under Japanese colonial rule and who was presented in the films as the son of the independence activist General Kim Jwa-jin5 • 6. The first film (1990) drew 690,000 admissions in Seoul and set a Korean box office record at the time, and the second (1991) was the top-grossing Korean film of its year despite drawing roughly half the first film's audience5.
The Korean Film Archive describes the third film as the conclusion of what it calls the most famous Korean action series, noting that while the first two films covered Kim Du-han's rise as a legendary street figure of Jongno, the third follows him as he wanders through Manchuria, Wonsan, and Fengtian (봉천) while evading the police, then returns to Jongno to take revenge on Hayashi's gang2. Kim Hong-jun, who had worked on Im Kwon-taek's directing staff, adapted the screenplay2. According to one retrospective account, the third installment had no remaining material from the original novel to draw on, so the scenario had to be written from scratch, with shooting proceeding while the script was written day by day7.
Reception and box office
The third film performed markedly below its predecessors. Cine21 records 162,600 admissions1, and a retrospective on Korean film series notes that although it opened the following year after the second film, its results fell far short of the earlier entries5. It was beaten at the 1992 box office by Marriage Story, a romantic comedy10. A review on Modern Korean Cinema states that, unlike the previous two installments, it was not the year's highest-grossing film, and that Im stopped making action films afterward; his next film, Sopyonje (1993), surpassed the trilogy's records and became the first Korean film to cross one million admissions in Seoul11. The series ended with this installment5.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 5.4 out of 10 from 100 user votes3.
Awards. Oh Yeon-soo, the third leading actress of the series after Bang Eun-hee and Song Chae-hwan, drew wide attention for the role and won the Best New Actress award at the 13th Blue Dragon Film Awards2.
Censorship and release details
Korean sources differ on the film's rating: Cine21 lists it as suitable for general audiences (전체 관람가)1, while the Korean Film Archive and the Cinematheque database list a rating for viewers aged 15 and over2 • 4. IMDb lists a South Korean release date of September 11, 1992, and notes the film's languages as Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean3; Korean databases give the July 11, 1992 opening date1. Plex lists a runtime of 1 hour 53 minutes12, against the 110 minutes given by Cine21 and the Korean Film Archive1 • 2.
Legacy
The trilogy is credited with reviving the Korean action genre in the early 1990s and with launching the careers of its then-newcomer leads, including Park Sang-min, Shin Hyun-jun, and Kim Seung-woo10 • 5. Its large-scale sets recreating the Jongno streets of the 1930s are cited by the Korean Film Archive as one of the film's particular attractions, along with the chance to watch Park Sang-min's transformation into a star through the series2. A 2015 study of Korean action cinema places the series among films that build their narratives on values such as nationalism and honor against the backdrop of the Japanese colonial period, constructing fight scenes around distancing and tempo rather than close-up intensity13. A proposed fourth film, developed around 2008 by Kim Du-han's eldest son Kim Kyung-min through the production company Pine Tree Entertainment, was reported to be in the scenario stage with a different director, and no casting had been confirmed14.
References
- 장군의 아들 3 상세정보, 씨네21
- 장군의 아들 3, 시네마테크KOFA, 한국영상자료원
- General's Son III (1991), IMDb
- 장군의 아들 3, Cinematheque
- <범죄도시> 말고 또 무엇? 3편 이상 제작된 한국 시리즈 영화, 씨네플레이 (2023)
- <장군의 아들> 3부작 세트, 임권택 감독이 빚어낸 한국 액션영화의 자존심, joynews24 (2006)
- 임권택 감독의 액션 3부작, Pressian (2006)
- 장군의 아들 3 다시보기, 키노라이츠
- 장군의 아들 3, 왓챠피디아
- The Birth of the Modern Korean Gangster Movie: The General's Son Trilogy, cityonfire.com (2019)
- Jopok Week: Im Kwon-taek's The General's Son 3 (1992), Modern Korean Cinema (2011)
- General's Son III (1992), Plex
- 김영빈 (2015). 2000년 전-후 한국 액션영화 격투씬 축조의 변모양상, 씨네포럼 20
- 故김두한 실제 아들 '장군의 아들4' 제작 화제, 뉴스엔 (2008)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released in the 1990s
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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