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.

Great Japanese Cinema, Part 1 of Many

I saw a lot of films in 2008, and none impressed me more than this one: "Hara Kiri" (a.k.a. "Harakiri") (1963), by Masaki Kobayashi.

Hara Kiri is set in 17th Century Japan: the consolidation of power within the Shogunate is causing many clans to disintegrate, leaving many former Samurai doomed to subsist as desperate Ronin. The film is a dark, stirring, and far-reaching commentary on society and societal institutions: hypocrisy, shallowness, and abuse of power are powerfully addressed.

The acting is superb, with a tremendous lead performance from Tatsuya Nakadai, one of the greatest of Japanese actors and a long-time collaborator with Akira Kurosawa (e.g. Ran; Kagemusha). The music, composed by Toru Takemitsu, is particularly effective and yet another reason to see this film.

The film scooped the Cannes Special Jury Prize, which (at the time of the award) was the second most important award of the Cannes Film Festival.

I recommend Criterion's DVD, which is typically excellent, and comes with many extras.