{"id":22028,"date":"2021-01-21T15:43:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T23:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=22028"},"modified":"2021-01-21T15:43:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T23:43:34","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-jsa-joint-security-area-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=22028","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: JSA: JOINT SECURITY AREA (2000)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Special Edition Blu-ray is now available from Arrow\nVideo.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The recent success of films like Parasite<\/em> (2019) has brought\na lot of added attention towards South Korean cinema. One of many notable moviemakers\nfrom the country is Park Chan-wook, who has been making incredible films for\ndecades, including Oldboy<\/em> (2003), Thirst<\/em> (2009), Stoker<\/em> (2013)\nand The Handmaiden<\/em> (2016). Distributor Arrow Video have secured the rights\nto a new Special Edition Blu-ray of one of his early titles and debuted it\nearlier in the week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike some of the director\u2019s other works that have a more fantastic slant, JSA: Joint Security Area<\/em> is a real-world drama that deals specifically with the tense relations between North and South Korea. After gunfire involving the deaths of multiple guards at a border station in the demilitarized zone is reported, Swiss Army Major Sophie Jean (Lee Yeong-ae) and a Swedish official (Herbert Ulrich) are sent to investigate the incident and keep the peace. Jean interviews the survivors, but is taken aback when they tell conflicting stories. Eventually, flashbacks reveal the true nature of the relationship between South Koreans Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun) and Private Nam Sung-shik (Kim Tae-woo) and North Koreans Oh Kyung-pil\u00a0(Song Kang-ho) and Jung Woo-jin (Shin Ha-kyun). What follows is a tragic tale involving two pairs of strangers who accidentally cross paths, become friends and eventually are forced into violence by forces beyond their control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The history of war between the two countries as their eventual\narmistice in 1953 is long (there\u2019s too much to go into here) and incidents\nstill occur on the borderline. The subject matter is of particular cultural\nsignificance in South Korea, where the movie became the highest grossing film of\nall time for several years. Thankfully, this tale isn\u2019t exploitative and is a\nvery good feature told by the director in a more reserved manner than his later\nproductions. Cinematically, it doesn\u2019t possess the same flash and pop that Park\nChan-wook\u2019s later works do, but then again, this is a different kind of story\nthat would be negatively impacted by an overabundance of camera and editing tricks.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, it is a performance-based film that focuses primarily\non the guilt and torment of the lead characters over a mysterious, undetermined\nevent. Admittedly, early sequences do feel a bit stiff, especially those\ninvolving the investigators awkwardly trying to deliver certain lines in\nEnglish. However, once the interviews start and feature gets deep into flashback\nmode of the four men and their personal relationships, the story really comes\nto life. We see the soldier\u2019s attitudes towards each other morph into mutual respect\nfor one another. And as the military figures begin hanging out together, there\nare some excellent scenes between them as they joke about their different political\nideals and share their life experiences with one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s a real humanist streak to this feature and it doesn\u2019t\ntake sides or go out of its way to cast any of its characters as a villain.\nInstead, the cast and filmmakers do an excellent job of building a sense of\nbrotherhood between the men. They all speak the same language and are from the same\npart of the world, yet a violent history, tensions between the countries and the\ndemands of their superiors offer nothing but a grim future for the individuals\ninvolved. This makes the events that follow all the sadder and more\nheartbreaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This movie is also impressively photographed. The recreation\nof the rigid, blue demilitarized zone outpost and stern guards are effectively\ncontrasted with the area where the leads are stationed. They are backed by a more\nnatural and picturesque stone bridge with overgrown brush. The cutting and\ntransitional scenes, which occasionally switch from a quiet exchange to a louder\nand more jarring sounds like gunfire or military exercise are also effective\nand ominous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while some of the wraparound elements involving officials\ntaking among themselves aren\u2019t always engaging, the heart of the movie involving\nthe soldiers themselves is consistently gripping and compelling to watch. And one\ncan certainly see the director\u2019s stylistic editing skills and shot selection in\nlater films being slowly honed here and there along in this production. It is easy\nto see the filmmaker beginning to find his own voice and narrative approach that\nwould lead him to the next (and more well known, at least internationally) phase\nin his career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Arrow have done another impressive job in bringing this feature\nto Blu-ray in North America. It\u2019s a newer, popular film in its homeland and as\nsuch likely didn\u2019t have a great deal of issues with the source materials to begin\nwith, but it is still worth noting that the image quality on display looks wonderful\nand is crystal clear. The movie also sounds great, with the isolated music\nscore and effects available to listen to on their own on a separate channel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, the crisis between the two countries may not be\nas familiar to those in this part of the world and so there are numerous\nbonuses that are informative and provide plenty of background information. The\nfirst is a commentary track with a writer and critic who gives behind-the-scenes\ndetails about the film and its production team and cast. He does a good job of explaining\nsome of the themes, as well as the mindset of South Koreans watching the film\nand how some of the movie\u2019s ideas and messages are communicated cinematically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The disc also contains archived featurettes on the\nproduction featuring the cast and crew (as well as some old introductions to\nthe movie from the participants) that share more insight. Those looking for even\nmore information on Park Chan-wook\u2019s film career and South Korean cinema in general\nover the past 20 years with enjoy the lengthy discussion withAsian\ncinema expert Jasper Sharp. It contains clips and analysis of the director\u2019s\nflicks as well as other notable South Korean titles and will most certainly\nleave many viewers adding some of those featured to their watch lists. There\nare also videos featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the movie in addition\nto other movie-related clips contained on the disc. All kinds of publicity material\nrelated to the feature is on Blu-ray too, including trailers and stills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned, there\u2019s a lot of backstory to unpack regarding\nthe complicated situation between North and South Korea, but even without that\nbackstory, JSA: Joint Security Area<\/em> is an effective drama that attempts\nto help bridge the gap between the two very different sets of people. Arrow Video\nhave done an exceptional job with this Blu-ray, giving the movie a sharp\npresentation and providing plenty of details about the movie and the political issues\nbeing addressed that will certainly be of interest to fans of world cinema. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Special Edition Blu-ray is now available from Arrow Video. The recent success of films like Parasite (2019) has brought a lot of added attention towards South Korean cinema. One of many notable moviemakers from the country is Park Chan-wook, who has been making incredible films for decades, including Oldboy (2003), Thirst (2009), Stoker (2013) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[148,2923,2939,3073,6251,10953,10954,10955,11095,15042,18753,23959],"class_list":["post-22028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-148","tag-blasts-from-the-past","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-2","tag-blu-ray-review","tag-drama","tag-joint-security-area","tag-joint-security-area-blu-ray-review","tag-joint-security-area-review","tag-jsa-joint-security-area","tag-north-korea","tag-south-korea","tag-war"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}