Joint Security Area

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[edit] Profile

  • Movie: Joint Security Area
  • Revised romanization: Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA
  • Hangul: 공동경비구역 JSA
  • Director: Chan-wook Park
  • Writer: Seong-san Jeong, Hyeon-seok Kim
  • Producer: Dong-jun Seok
  • Cinemotagraphy: Sung-bok Kim
  • Release Date: September 9, 2000 (South Korea)
  • Runtime: 110 min.
  • Production Budget: $3M
  • Language: Korean
  • Country: South Korea

[edit] Intro

Based on Park Sang-Yeon's novel DMZ - short for De-militarised Zone, the no-man's-land between North and South Korea for the past half-century - Chang-Wook Park's JSA - short for Joint Security Area, as that zone is known to Koreans - was breaking home box-office records when the news broke that South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Part courtroom drama, part forbidden comraderie between young border guards on both sides, with plot twists and surprise comic moments, it was such a daily cinema attraction during the Pusan festival last October that foreign guests were simply advised to see it on their own at a local venue, particularly as the story is easy to follow and much of the dialogue is in English anyway. The lead figure, a female Swiss army captain of Korean descent, has been sent to Panmunjom to investigate the death of a North Korean border guard, apparently shot in the line of duty by a South Korean guard. At first, neither army officers from the South nor communist officials from the North will cooperate - until it is obvious to all that the truth must come out to defuse a potentially explosive international incident.

[edit] Plot

Nothing is more symbolic of the division of Korea into two countries as the ‘Bridge of No Return’ in Panmunjom, the demilitarised zone on the border between the two states. One day, a border guard is killed by a rifle bullet; the suspected marksman is a South Korean soldier, who is found wounded in the middle of no-man’s-land. This incident will have grave repercussions. Both North and South Korea regard the incident as an act of deliberate provocation. The North accuses the South of having committed a ‘terrorist attack’, whilst South Korea suspects the North of having attempted an ‘abduction’. Both sides appeal to the authorities of the neutral states (NNSC)for help and ask them to investigate the affair.


[edit] Cast

[edit] Trailer

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