The year is 1592, and admiral Yi Sun-sin's outnumbered fleet stands between an invading Japanese navy and the Korean coastline in Hansan: Rising Dragon.
What is Hansan: Rising Dragon about?
As Japanese warships push deeper into Korean waters, Yi Sun-sin's forces are pushed toward crisis, forced to rely on innovation rather than numbers to hold the line. The film centers on the admiral's use of the geobukseon, the armored dragon-head ships built to turn a battle at sea when conventional tactics fall short. Rather than dwelling on court politics or personal drama, the film keeps its focus on strategy and the mechanics of naval combat, tracking how a smaller force uses terrain, timing, and unconventional ships to counter a numerically superior invader. It stands as a prequel to director Kim Han-min's earlier work on the same historical campaign, approaching the same war from an earlier point in the timeline.
About the cast
Park Hae-il takes on the role of Yi Sun-sin, joined by Byun Yo-han, Ahn Sung-ki, Son Hyun-joo, Kim Sung-kyu, Kim Sung-kyun, Kim Hyang-gi, and Ok Taec-yeon across the film's large ensemble of naval officers and Japanese commanders.
Context & significance
Hansan: Rising Dragon is a 2022 South Korean war film set during the 16th-century Imjin War, one of the most heavily dramatized conflicts in Korean historical cinema. Films built around this period tend to foreground naval engineering and tactical detail, and Hansan continues that tradition by treating the 1592 battle as a puzzle of geography and shipbuilding as much as a story of combat. The film drew a moderate critical reception on release, typical for large-scale historical war epics that balance spectacle against pacing.
Watching Hansan: Rising Dragon on Ktime
Hansan: Rising Dragon is available on K-Time with Persian dub and Persian subtitles, giving Farsi-speaking audiences two ways to follow the film's naval battle sequences. The film's page is free to browse for any visitor; watching it requires only a free K-Time account login, part of the platform's Persian-focused streaming library built for the Iranian diaspora.