Joint Security Area (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Joint Security Area | |
|---|---|
 Joint Security Area movie poster |
|
| Directed by | Park Chan-wook |
| Produced by | Lee Eun |
| Written by | Park Sang-Yeon (novel) Jeong Seong-San Park Chan-wook Lee Mu-young |
| Starring | Lee Young Ae Lee Byung-Hun Song Kang-ho |
| Music by | Cho Young-Wook |
| Cinematography | Kim Seong-bok |
| Editing by | Kim Sang-beom |
| Distributed by | CJ Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | September 9, 2000 (South Korea) |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Language | Korean |
| IMDb profile | |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 공동경비구역JSA |
| Hanja | 共同警備區域JSA |
| Revised Romanization | Gongdong Gyeongbi Guyeok JSA |
| McCune-Reischauer | Kongdong Kyŏngbi Kuyŏk JSA |
Joint Security Area (2000) is a South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film begins when two North Korean soldiers are killed in the DMZ at a North Korean border house. Alarms sound on both sides, and North and South Korean soldiers are quickly deployed at the scene, resulting in an exchange of gunfire. Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-Hun) despite an injured leg runs from the North Korean side and attempts to reach the South Korean side. He is shortly rescued while the gunfire continues.
Two days later, the fragile relationship between the two Koreas now relies on a special investigation conducted by Swedish and Swiss investigators from the NNSC to ensure that this incident does not erupt into a serious conflict. The mission is led by Major Sophie (Lee Young Ae), her mother being from Switzerland and her father Korean; however, this is her first time in Korea.
As Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok (a South Korean soldier on border duties) has confessed to the shootings, it is up to Sophie to investigate why the two Koreas have contradicting accounts of events. Sophie proceeds to read the story of Soo-hyeok's experience which tell of him being knocked out and kidnapped while defecating. He then wakes up tied up in the North Korean border house, before proceeding to secretly free himself and shoot three North Korean soldiers, leaving two dead. However, Soo-hyeok is totally unresponsive to Sophie and will not answer any of her questions. On asking Soo-hyeok's comrades about him, she receives stories praising his courage defusing a mine he stepped on, or of throwing rocks at the North Korean house; however this gets her nowhere. Sophie then visits North Korea whose sole survivor of the shooting Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho) tells a different story: one in which Soo-Hyeok barges into the border house and shoots everyone before retreating when the wounded Kyeong-pil fights back.
The autopsy report shows that one soldier was shot first in the chest and then in the head, while the other, Jeong Woo-jin, was shot eight times repeatedly, more indicative of a grudge than an attempt at escape. The events that led to the killing of two North Korean soldiers are then shown throughout the film in a series of flashbacks. First, the depositions of each surviving soldier are shown, providing conflicting versions on that night's events. Major Sophie looks further into the case and discovers that things are not quite as they seem.
[edit] Significance
By early 2001 Joint Security Area had become the highest grossing film in Korean film history [1], remaining so until eclipsed by Friend, Silmido and Taegukgi. This success allowed Park Chan-wook to get the financial leeway to make his subsequent movies.
Within two weeks of its release the film had taken in one million admissions.[citation needed]
[edit] Main cast
- Lee Young Ae - Major Sophie E. Jean
- Lee Byung-Hun - Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok
- Song Kang-ho - Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil
- Kim Tae Woo - Nam Sung-shik
- Shin Ha-kyun - Jeong Woo-jin
- Herbert Ulrich - Swedish soldier
[edit] Remake
A remake of the film is in pre-production, called Joint Security America and directed by David Franzoni. The film is instead set on the US-Mexican border.[2]
[edit] Trivia
 |
Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Actor Herbert Ulrich is not actually Swedish, but German, and in the movie speaks with a heavy German accent.
- The DVD of this movie was given to North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il by South Korea's President Roh Moo-Hyun during the Korean summit in October 2007.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
- Kim, Kyung-hyun (2004). "9. 'Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves': Transgressive Agents, National Security, and Blockbuster Aesthetics in Shiri and Joint Security Area", The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema (in English). Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp.259-276. ISBN 0-8223-3267-1.
| Preceded by Shiri (film) |
Top box office of Korea 2001 |
Succeeded by Friend (film) |
|
||||||||||||||
|
|||||
