DIRECTOR: Park Chan-wook
PRODUCERS: Shim Jae-myung, Lee Eun ​    
PRODUCTION CO: Myung Films
​​SCREENPLAY: Kim Hyun-seok, Jeong Seong-san, Lee Moo-yeong, Park Chan-wook 
PHOTOGRAPHY: Kim Seong-bok
EDITOR: Kim Sang-bum
MUSIC: Jo Yeong-wook, Bang Jun-Seok
WITH: Song Kang-ho (Sgt Oh Kyeong-pil), Lee Byung-hun (Sgt Lee Soo-hyuk), Lee Young-ae (Maj Sophie E Jean), Kim Tae-woo (Pvt Nam Sung-sik), Shin Ha-kyun (Pvt Jung Woo-jin), Christoph Hofrichter (Maj Gen Bruno Botta  

FESTIVALS: Berlin, Seattle

REVIEWS

“Park Chan-wook’s career was launched with the blockbuster success of his timely and taut thriller set on the tense demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. Joint Security Area follows the urgent investigation of the mysterious death of two North Korean DMZ guards and the South Korean soldier immediately suspected. Park’s meticulous attention to accuracy extends to the film’s expanded set of the DMZ—recreated at tremendous expense just miles away from the actual site—as well as the methodical procedures of the Swiss Korean UN investigator tasked with untangling the complex web of friendship and betrayal uncovered as she learns more about the soldiers and the strange symbolic space they inhabit and dutifully guard with their lives. With its questioning of dehumanizing military authority Joint Security Area recalls classic military dramas such as The Caine Mutiny (1954) or Breaker Morant (1980). Park, however, brings another more intimate and poignant dimension into his depiction of the soldiers themselves whose loneliness and confusion embody the strange miasma and ominous immobility of the Cold War stalemate still dividing the Korean peninsula.”

– Harvard Film Archive

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Westport
Tuesday, 13 February, time tba

Bigger Picture Ōamaru   
Thursday, 29 February, 7.00pm​

Nelson     
Wednesday, 13 March, 6.00pm

​Whanganui   
Monday, 25 March, 7.00pm

Auckland
​Monday, 8 April, 6.15pm

Wellington  
Monday, 22 April, 6.15pm

Timaru  
Tuesday, 30 April, 6.30pm

Tauranga  
Wednesday, 15 May, 6.00pm

Queenstown 
Tuesday, 25 June, 8.00pm

Carterton 
Friday, 26 July, 7.00pm

Canterbury    
Monday, 12 August, 7.00pm
​
Dunedin
Wednesday, 28 August, 7.30pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 11 September, 6.00pm

Hamilton
Monday, 30 September, 6.30pm

Palmerston North
Wednesday, 6 November, 6.00pm
KOREAN CINEMA  selection >> ​