Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Joint Security Area / Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA (South-Korea, 2000)




Joint Security Area (JSA) is a really impressive film about the aftermath of (how we would call it) the ‘forgotten war’ (Korean war).
This a film abAfbeelding toevoegenout friendship, that when you expect it the least there are possibilities to make new friends, even in the madness of the thing called war. Two countries who are just being divided by a drawn line, standing towards each other and hating each other while they are both Korean.

To me, this was a really interesting film about the tension between North- and South-Korea, a tension that still is far from gone. It is interesting that the director, Park Chan-wook, doesn’t talk about good or wrong. He just wants to focus on the story of soldiers of both sides and how they became friends. Maybe to some people the pace of this film is to slow but all the time the director seems to create something like suspense which keeps it all the time very interesting.
The acting in it is often great, especially Kang-ho Song is brilliant as the North-Korean soldier.

A dramatic, but magnificent anti-war film.

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