J. S. A.: Joint Security Area (2000)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

J. S. A.: Joint Security Area (2000) – C.-W. Park

No time like the present to watch this mystery-drama that takes place in the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea.  However, despite the apparent focus on the tensions between the two states, threatening to ensnare the whole world, the movie is actually a John Woo-styled look at male bonding across an insurmountable divide (political rather than legal).  Director Chan-Wook Park (whose biggest hit is the notorious Oldboy, 2004) plays with both time and truth, delivering us different versions of the pivotal event (the killing of two soldiers in the North’s gatehouse by a lone Sgt from the South) in flashback based on the legal depositions of those who survived and then on both memories and confessions.  A half-Korean member of the Neutral Nations investigation team (from Switzerland) interviews all of the men involved on both sides of the border; she follows the usual rulebook but is compromised in the end.  Park’s direction is always stylish and he uses a variety of camera moves to keep things interesting (such as a quick pan from character to character).  There’s less action than you would think but tension is maintained until we reach the requisite five-way armed stand-off.  Apparently, Tarantino loved this film and you can see why in the plotting (but not the dialogue).  Kang-Ho Song (excellent in Joon-ho Bong’s Memories of Murder, 2003) is charismatic as the North Korean Sgt but all of the four male principals are solid.