Joint Security Area (film)
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Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since July 2007 | Articles with trivia sections from February 2008 | 2000 films | Korean-language films | South Korean films | Detective films | Korean Demilitarized Zone
Joint Security Area (2000) is a South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook.
PlotThe film begins when two North Korean soldiers are killed in the DMZ at a North Korean border house. Alarms begin to ring on both sides as soldiers from both sides arrive and begin to shoot each other. 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 firing continues. Two days later, the fragile relationship between the two Koreas now relies on a special investigation conducted by investigators from the two neutral nations Sweden and Switzerland to ensure that this incident does not trigger a wider 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 understand 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 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. SignificanceBy 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] Main cast
RemakeA 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] Trivia
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