The bloody brilliance of Park Chan-wook’s 'JSA'

A behind-thes-scenes photo from 'Joint Security Area' / Captured from Lee Byung-hun's Instagram account

Park Chan-wook is a genius. But more than being a master technician, he is also easily one of the most ballsy artists Korea has ever produced. Throughout a career that’s as bloody as it is beautiful, he’s tackled the "Big No-Nos": incest, religious mania, scorched-earth revenge, lesbianism, colonialism, North Korea, suicide and the soul-crushing weight of capitalism. He doesn’t pander to the masses, and he sure as hell doesn’t bow to the media. While other people are busy making "content" for the lowest common denominator, and we’re told to reflect on the supposed depth of a K-pop performance, Park has been busy expanding the culture.

Listen to him speak on his first major movie, “Joint Security Area”: “Even when I make movies that delve into the internal mind of individual characters, I always think about that character’s relationship with the society they belong to and how they interact with others. I believe that is the most important duty of art.”

And thus when this movie was released in 2000, it presented us with a psychological treatment of what goes on in the heads of soldiers stationed at the world’s most militarized and dangerous border: the DMZ. There against their will, pawns of a larger system, possessing no state secrets or the ability to affect the international relations that have set them against each other, two South Korean soldiers and two North Korean soldiers find themselves, absurdly, doing the one thing they are not allowed to do: becoming friends.

In doing so, Park Chan-wook humanizes the people of North Korea. He shows their love of choco pies, their knowledge of gonggi-nori and dak-ssaum, their farts, the kimchi stuck between their teeth, and their love of Kim Gwang-suk. They behave, act, and laugh just like their South Korean counterparts. And in a country not long out of dictatorship and with a strong anti-communist bent running through it was something incredibly dangerous.

“My mum really doesn’t like that film. She said it’s too ‘jin-bo’ (progressive) and I shouldn’t watch it,” one student confided in me the day after our university screening. “But I liked it. I want to learn more now,” she continued.

Of the 60 students that watched and then discussed the movie with me this week, only one had seen it before. A movie about soldiers released 26 years ago is obviously not top of the to-watch list of 20-something young Korean women. But they sat transfixed throughout. Having survived the rather brutal English at the start (some things haven’t changed in the decades since!), they found themselves clutching their seats when Kim Tae-woo’s character commits suicide at the end of part one; breaking into smiles and laughter as the friendship between the soldiers develops; and then wanting to cry as Kim Gwang-suk’s haunting “A Letter From a Private” plays over the movie’s denouement. In a way they finally understood what was actually happening 50 kilometers north of them.

One girl said, “I forgot we were even at war until I watched this.” And right, I get it. When you’re in a Seoul cafe worrying about your GPA or your phone case, perhaps without a brother or boyfriend, the idea of guys standing in the snow pointing rifles at their own ethnic brothers feels like ancient history. But for my Russian students, it hit way too close to home. They saw their own nightmare with Ukraine reflected on screen. People once friends, brothers and sisters, those who enjoyed the same music, food, and laughter, now forced to kill each other on the whims of others. They told me it was uncomfortable to watch.

That is the Park Chan-wook magic. He doesn’t lecture you. He just demands that you feel. There is nothing more soul-sucking than a movie that leaves you shrugging your shoulders when the credits roll. That’s just "killing time." The great stuff grabs you by the throat and forces you to think your own thoughts. Not the director’s. Your own thoughts. Spurred and whipped into existence by a combination of sights, sounds, and faces. Contrast that with Bong Joon-ho’s largely forgettable recent exploration of Sci-Fi and politics, “Mickey 17”. It was simply too on the nose. Mark Ruffalo’s character was Trump and Trump is a bad man. Not really the most insightful observation, is it?

Instead, Park Chan-wook uses art to allow individual psychological exploration in all the subjects he covers. “One must be careful,” he says, “not to handle major social issues in an overly dogmatic way. If someone wants that, then I don’t think they really need to watch my films. An individual is always an independent person, with unique characteristics and their own inner world. They should be portrayed as such.”

Modern Hollywood doesn't have that kind of backbone. Usually, they just hit you over the head with a "Message" until you're too dizzy to argue. But on a subject as explosive as a fratricidal civil war that claimed 3 million Korean lives, Park lets you decide. And then, he pulls the rug out.

Well, if you’re a fan of Park Chan-wook, you know something’s coming at the end of the movie. You know that “Oldboy,” “Decision to Leave,” and many others finish in a way you didn’t expect. “JSA” is no exception.

The incredibly talented Lee Byung-hun, our handsome, friendly, and virtuous South Korean protagonist, the one virtually 99% of the audience would have identified with, decides that he can no longer live with himself after everything that has transpired. He puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. The credits roll. Bang!

I can’t imagine how audiences would have reacted to that in Seoul 26 years ago. But react they did because this movie became the country’s biggest-selling movie when it was released. You’ve got the legend Song Kang-ho playing the North Korean survivor, walking into the sunset with a cigarette, while the South Koreans are both dead. It forced a whole nation to look in the mirror and ask some very uncomfortable questions. Not only about what side they were on, but why there were sides at all.

That’s why the guy is a titan. “JSA” might be Park finding his voice, and it might have more rough spots than his later excellent work, but it remains essential viewing, no matter where in the world you come from. And especially now, as the bombs continue to fall.