The Soviets immediately conscript the prisoners-of-war and shoot those who refuse or are too slow to don the Red Army uniform. Later, a work accident incites a riot, which nearly leads to the execution of Tatsuo and Jun-shik by firing squad, but news comes that Germany has declared war on the Soviet Union. Jun-shik humiliates Tatsuo in a sanctioned fight to the death, but Jun-shik suddenly refuses to kill Tatsuo, and both get punished together.
Under the name of Anton, Jong-dae has become a work-unit leader, helps his Korean friends, and abuses the Japanese, but it becomes clear that his ultimate allegiance now lies with the Soviets. In February 1940, Jun-shik and Tatsuo end up in Kungursk prisoner-of-war camp north of Perm, in the Soviet Union, in which both Koreans and Japanese are incarcerated together. During the one-sided battle, a tank shell explodes near Tatsuo and Jun-shik, which knocks them unconscious. Jun-shik returns to the base and manages to warn the Japanese forces that a large-scale Soviet tank attack is coming, but Tatsuo refuses to order a retreat. During his return, he is attacked by a Soviet I-16 Ishak, and is saved by Shirai, who dies after shooting down the plane. Jun-shik, seeing the tanks on the horizon, attempt to return to base to warn the Japanese forces. After refusing to join a suicide squad, organized by Tatsuo, to fight the Soviets, Jun-shik is imprisoned with Shirai but escapes with her, Jong-dae, and two other friends to the River Khalkhin. Tatsuo, now a colonel, arrives and takes command and forces the existing commander, who is far fairer to the Koreans, Takakura (高倉 Shingo Tsurumi), to commit seppuku. In July 1939, they find themselves, along with 100 other Koreans, in the battle at Nomonhan, on the border with Mongolia, where a Chinese sniper, Shirai ( Fan Bingbing), avenging the deaths of her family at the hands of the Japanese, is captured and tortured. A riot by Korean spectators ensues, and as punishment, those who started the riot are forcibly drafted into the Japanese Army, including Jun-shik and his friend Lee Jong-dae ( Kim In-kwon), who has a crush on Eun-soo. Sohn secretly backs Jun-shik, who wins the race, but Tatsuo is awarded the medal when Jun-shik is disqualified for allegedly cheating. He has been accepted by a medical college in Berlin, but Tatsuo decides to stay in Korea to run in the All Japan Trials for the marathon. Koreans have been banned from taking part in sports events, and Tatsuo ( Joe Odagiri), now a fierce Japanese nationalist, has sworn that a Korean will never again win a race. In May 1938, Jun-shik ( Jang Dong-gun) is working as a rickshaw runner. Tatsuo's grandfather (Isao Natsuyagi) is killed in a bomb attack by a Korean freedom fighter, and a Korean runner, Sohn Kee-chung (Yoon Hee-won), then wins a marathon race against Japanese competitors, which further inflames Korean-Japanese tensions. When they are teenagers ( Do Ji-han, Yukichi Kobayashi), they have become fierce competitors. Both Jun-shik and young Tatsuo Hasegawa ( Sung Yu-bin) are interested in running.
Young Kim Jun-shik (Shin Sang-yeob), his father ( Chun Ho-jin) and sister Eun-soo ( Lee Yeon-hee) work on the farm of the Hasegawa family (Shiro Sano, Kumi Nakamura) in Japanese-occupied Korea. The year is 1928 in Gyeong-seong (present-day Seoul), Korea. ( November 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)
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