Joint Security Area

National tragedy begets personal tragedy. "Joint Security Area" is an investigation of one such tragic event and its aftermath, portraying individual soldiers violently torn between their personal needs and the national political agenda they serve. It's a gripping police procedural, threaded with powerful humanism.




The film's milieu is the titular area forming the border between the Koreas. A shooting incident takes place late one night in a Northern sentry post, leaving two Northerners dead and a Southerner wounded. How did a Southern soldier end up in a Northern station - was it a kidnapping, a maverick attack, or something else? Was someone else present in the hut on that fateful night, as evidenced by a missing bullet? A Swiss national with Korean roots is assigned by the on-site international peace-keepers to solve the mystery, and thus calm a Korean peninsula tense in the wake of this cross-border aggression.

"JSA" features excellent acting by top-class talent such as Song Kang-ho ("Memories of Murder") and Lee Byung-hun ("A Bittersweet Life"). Edko's Region 3 DVD is good value, e.g. http://www.hmv.com.hk/product/product.asp?sku=220425.