A Japanese documentary released Saturday depicts the life of a Korean student who sacrificed himself to rescue a Japanese man in a subway station in Tokyo in 2001.

Lee Soo-hyun died aged 26 while trying to rescue the man, who had fallen onto the track at Shin-Okubo Station in downtown Shinjuku while drunk.

The film comes out at a tense time in Korean-Japanese relations after official protests from Tokyo over statues set up in Korea to honor the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army's drafting of Asian sex slaves in World War II.

