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Brotherhood in spite of bellicosity

Lee Byung-hun, center, plays a South Korean border sentry who befriends his Northern counterparts in JSA. PHOTO COURTESY OF MATA

For sentry soldiers at the border of North and South Korea, there is a fine line between brotherhood and war. The film JSA, or Joint Security Area, has fully grasped and portrayed these subtle emotions and relationships between the two sides.

With yet another military conflict between North and South Korea killing five and injuring 18 South Koreans in the seas off their coastline just this week, the tension described in the film is made even more convincing and vivid. The soldiers are always facing each other down and their rifles are always loaded. A war could potentially be triggered at any moment.

But as the film's lead actor, Lee Byung-hun, tells it, JSA is more about human emotion than political confrontation. Director, Park Chan-wook, slowly instills a human look at what's behind a terrifying murder which took place in the demilitarized zone along the 38th Parallel.

Lang (Lee Yeong-ae), a Swiss-born Korean attorney is sent as a neutral party to Panmunjom to investigate the murders of two North Korean soldiers. On a freezing winter night, South Korean Sergeant Lee (Lee Byung-hun) ran back to his base from the North, having allegedly killed the two North Koreans and injuring another.

Film Notes: JSA Directed by: Park Chan-wook, With Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Yeong-ae Running time: 110 minutes Taiwan release: today Language: Korean and some English, with Chinese subtitles

But as Lang shuttles back and forth between the borders, talking to the two sides, she discovers a true friendship that was somehow built out of an unstable mutual trust. Lee plays spitting games across the border with his Northern counterparts. He shares chocolate cookies and pop-song cassettes with his Northern friends. And on some nights he crosses the line, walking into their shack to drink tea with them.

The result of the story is inevitably tragic, but what stays with the viewers is the emotional residue between the soldiers. A scene of American tourists taking a photo while visiting the border ends the film with a powerful image. A tourist's hat is blown across the border to the northern side where a soldier picks it up to hand it back. Lee is seen trying to stop the photo from being taken, while another rifle-holding sentry glares at the tourist. The image goes beyond simple film narrative to show what a smartly told story JSA is.
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