Joint Security Area (Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA)

Released 2000
Stars Song Kang-Ho, Lee Yeong-Ae, Lee Byung-Heon
Directed by Chan-wook Park

I rented this movie because of its timeliness due to the escalating North Korean conflict. I had rented the great Deterrence shortly after 9/11, and the timing made the movie very powerful. I tried to do the same thing with "JSA," but it's not the political thriller about war between North Korea and the U.S. that I expected. Instead, it's a murder mystery set in the Korean DMZ (if you don't know what that is, you and your schooling have failed you). It's about a South Korean soldier who escapes from the Northern side after shooting three North Korean soldiers. He claims he was kidnapped while the other side claims he was an infiltrator, and a neutral Swiss team is dispatched to determine the truth.

I was worried as the movie opened, because it initially felt like a cheap, South Korean, B-movie import due to the horrible acting from the Swiss team. Most of the movie is in Korean with English subtitles, but for some reason they chose to have the Swiss team speak in English. The result is painful and difficult to understand. I stuck with it, though, and I found it's actually a pretty gripping mystery that slowly peels back the layers to reveal what really happened. It's also pretty funny. It initially creates a a super soldier image for Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok, but we eventually see the truth. Then the soldiers revert to little boys playing silly games as they giddily blow off steam from their tense situation in the DMZ.

I expected this movie to be an allegory about how the two countries must learn to reconcile before they mutually destroy each other, but it's more of a longing for the two countries to reunite. This movie takes the approach of showing the soldiers as "brothers" who want nothing more than to reunite, but they can't shake their deep mistrust of each other. Even when they become friends, they continue to fear each other, and that leads to tragedy. Now that North Korea no longer has a communist country (China or the USSR) subsidizing their non-existent economy, it won't take long for them to fall. The question is will they fall peacefully or in a bloody war? Also, will they resort to selling weapons to terrorists for desperately needed cash? North Korea needs to wake up, because communism doesn't work. Along with Cuba, they're the last isolated communist countries, and neither one can even feed their people. It's an unfortunate fact, but as long as Kim Jong Il's regime is in power, the two countries will remain on the brink of war.

Summary by Bill Alward, June 20, 2003