Actor Ha Young speaks at a press conference for the new Netflix series "This Damn Love" held at Hotel Naru Seoul MGallery in Mapo-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap/Netflix]
Actor Ha Young speaks at a press conference for the new Netflix series "This Damn Love" held at Hotel Naru Seoul MGallery in Mapo-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap/Netflix]

Just one day after dismissing online allegations about her great-grandfather's pro-Japanese activities as groundless, the agency of actor Ha Young (real name Ahn Ha-young, 33) issued an apology Tuesday, saying more careful verification had been needed.

Ha Young's agency, Bisters Entertainment, released an official statement Tuesday confirming that records exist showing Ha Young's great-grandfather, Ahn Sang-ho, appeared on the list of council members of the Daejong Chinmok-hoe in 1916.

The controversy began after Ha Young appeared Friday on the KBS 2TV variety program "Oktapbang-ui Munje-adul" and revealed that her family has produced doctors across four generations. "I heard my great-grandfather was the first doctor to study Western medicine in Japan and open a practice in Korea," she said, adding that her grandfather, father and sister are also doctors.

Ha Young did not name her great-grandfather during the broadcast, but after it aired, he was identified as Ahn Sang-ho, a physician who practiced during the Japanese colonial period, sparking online debate about his activities.

According to the Korean Historical Figures Comprehensive Information System operated by the Academy of Korean Studies, Ahn Sang-ho (1872–1927) graduated from Tokyo Jikei Medical School in Japan in 1902 and became the first Korean to obtain a Japanese medical license. Records in the Korean Journal of Medical History, Vol. 24, No. 2, show he served as an outside physician to Emperor Gojong, while the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty record him as an outside medical attendant to Emperor Sunjong.

The Daejong Chinmok-hoe, in which Ahn was active, was an organization founded in 1916 in Gyeongseong (present-day Seoul) comprising businesspeople, government officials, journalists, educators, lawyers and medical professionals.

According to a 2007 paper titled "The Daejong Chinmok-hoe and the Naeseon Convergence Movement" by Jang Shin, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Korean Historical Studies, Ahn was named one of 21 council members elected to the organization's leadership in November 1916.

The paper noted that the Japanese Government-General of Korea's Police Affairs Bureau, in its 1927 edition of "Public Security Conditions," defined the Daejong Chinmok-hoe as "a Naeseon convergence organization that endorsed Governor-General rule and aimed at the assimilation of the Korean and Japanese peoples."

However, Ahn's name does not appear in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators published in 2009 by the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities.

The agency said Ha Young had mentioned her family's four-generation medical legacy while answering questions, adding that the actor herself feels a deep sense of heaviness over the unintended controversy this has caused.

The agency added that the episode had been "a profound lesson in how much careful verification is required when conveying historical facts and an individual's record to the public," and that Ha Young "takes deeply to heart the concern this has caused and will approach all matters with greater care and humility going forward."

Ha Young made her debut in 2019 in the KBS 2TV drama series "Doctor Prisoner" and has since appeared in the Netflix productions "Trauma Center," "Monthly Boyfriend" and "True Education."

She stars alongside Jung Hae-in in the Netflix series "This Damn Love," released Friday, and is set to appear next year in the SBS drama series "Seungsan Itseumnida."


husn7@heraldcorp.com