Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA (2000)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Chan-wook Park

Writers:

Seong-san Jeong (writer)
Hyeon-seok Kim (writer)

Release Date:

9 September 2000 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller | War

Plot:

In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier...

Plot Keywords:

Soldier | Dmz | Friendship | South Korea | International Tensions

Awards:

9 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Yeong-ae Lee	...	Maj. Sophie E. Jean
Byung-hun Lee	...	Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok
Kang-ho Song	...	Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil
Tae-woo Kim	...	Nam Sung-shik
Ha-kyun Shin	...	Jeong Woo-jin
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ju-bong Gi
Christoph Hofrichter	...	Maj. Gen. Bruno Botta
Myoeng-su Kim
Tae-hyeon Kim
Herbert Ulrich	...	Swedish soldier

Also Known As:

J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (USA)
JSA: Joint Security Area (UK)
Joint Security Area (International: English title)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

English | Korean

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Australia:MA (TV rating) | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:16 | Sweden:15 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-15 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Ireland:15 | South Korea:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Asan, Choongchungnamdo, South Korea

Company:

CJ Entertainment

Trivia:

Since filming at the real JSA is impossible, an exact replica was built at the studio, which still stands.

Quotes:

Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil: Your shadow is over the line. Watch it!

Movie Connections:

References Vargtimmen (1968)

Well done!

Expecting an Asian remake of A few good men, I was pleasantly surprised to find a well acted movie with a different storyline. It expressed the feeling of absurdity that exist in such places as a DMZ, with nice attention to details. Anyone who has been in places or situations like these will recognize the cigarette rituals and so on.

I think the movie excellently describes the stupidity and rigidity of war and the military life - just like in the movie, all it ultimately leads to is friends killing each other for no good reason.

The people who are complaining about the bad English in the movie obviously never heard Swiss and Swedish people speak English - none of the "foreigners" are supposed to be native English speakers, so it makes perfect sense for them to speak as they do!

All in all, a visually beautiful movie with a nice but slightly over-obvious script, nice acting from the four main Korean characters, some very funny scenes that gives comic relief to fend off the impending doom of the inevitable end, and actually quite realistic, in my opinion.

Now I am going to check out Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Old Boy!