Joint Security Area

My roommate this Jan Term is enrolled in a Korean history and culture class, and for this class he was required to watch a movie that had been produced in Korea. So, being a swell roommate I told him that I would watch it with him. He had picked a movie called Joint Security Area, a story about two South Korean soldiers working in the demilitarized zone who find themselves making friends with a pair of North Korean soldiers working their own side of the border. The movie is focused around a trial taking place after the group is found out and three men are killed, two from the North and one from the South. The movie was entertaining from a viewer's standpoint, with nicely done thematic effects and lots of high tension situations, but the movie also spoke volumes about the relationship between North and South Korea. It was among the first that portrayed both North and South Koreans as equals, as both groups were breaking protocol and laws just to hang onto a thin strand of friendship. The movie perfectly captured how two groups of individuals are more than the specific governments that control them, and that even in places that seem to permeate hatred for each other there are people who know that friendship can help alleviate some of the hatred that emanates from times of hardship. After all, throughout the movie, the characters seem to think that the hatred between the coutries is misguided. Later, we learned that it was highly unique for its time, because of the lack of propaganda for either the North or the South, and instead showed both countries as lands of equals who are trying to survive. Overall, the movie opened up a whole new way of looking at two countries that I had little understanding of, and is worthy of the highest praise.