Through the perspective of one of the few female characters in the film, the Korean female major Chen Sophie (played by Lee Young Ae) of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Committee, the viewers passed the Korean sergeant Lee Su-yi (played by Lee Byung-hyun) and North Korean sergeant Oh Jebi (played by Song Kangho) ) The two have completely different memories. Layer by layer, they learned about the shooting incident in Panmunjom, the "Joint Security Zone" between North and South Korea.
However, in the face of Chen Sufei's question, Sergeant Li Shuiyi and Sergeant Wu Dibi chose to keep silent, making the whole incident look even more confusing.
The strong personal style in Park Chan-wook's film can be said to be established from the beginning of this film. Although the volume of lines in this suspenseful Cold War movie is not small-it is very different from Park Chan-wook's most representative "revenge trilogy" in the style of Ximo Rujin-but Park Chan-wook's simple and ingenious shot editing The style has begun to emerge. There are also some, such as the symbolic insertion of the lens and the sudden static lens similar to Kitano Takeshi's favorite, which can easily create strong contrast and absurd effects, which will be more obvious in his future works.
The already confusing plot provided the prerequisites for Park Chan-wook to disrupt time and space. The same event is described in four different perspectives. Park Chan-yu cleverly lifted the audience's appetites, peeling back the truth layer by layer through the doubts discovered by Major Chen Sophie. However, when the audience thought they were getting closer and closer to the truth, they realized that they were wrong.
Several leading actors in the film have contributed excellent performances, and each role is full and convincing. South Korea's lonely Sergeant Li Shuiyi and the cowardly Nam Sung-sik second-class soldier, the Northern Dynasty's mature and experienced Sergeant Wu Jiebi, and the simple and kind-hearted second-class soldier Zheng Youzhen, including Chen Sufei, who insisted on finding out the truth, were all flesh and blood. Especially when the two horses met for the first time in the reed field, and afterwards in the snow, Panmunjom met again in several scenes that were impressive. The unforgettable Korean performances of Li Bingxian, Song Kanghao and Shin Ha Junjun were unforgettable.
Although they belong to the same era, 1999's "Life and Death Spy" and "JSA Common Security Area" (hereinafter referred to as "JSA") are far inferior. Although Jiang Di-kyu, known as the "Korea's Spielberg", has fully absorbed the nutrients of Hollywood movies, his films usually have Hollywood-style action scenes and macro themes. But it seems many years later. "The Spies of Life and Death" is a bit superficial in the characterization and storytelling techniques, and it simply and rudely portrays most agents from North Korea as brutal and cold-blooded killing machines-this is the comparison of "JSA" good. Of course, it cannot be denied that, as two equally important films in the history of Korean film, both of them have achieved great commercial success-"The Spies of Life and Death" has allowed Koreans to regain their confidence in Korean movies. , And "JSA", as the first film about the friendship between North and South soldiers, has won more word-of-mouth.
"JSA" was filmed in the millennium. Prior to this, Park Chan-wook only shot two small-cost productions, "The Moon is a Dream of the Sun" and "The Trio", which were little-known and had a dismal box office. During this period, Park Chan-wook wrote dozens of scripts and ran around to promote himself. At this time, I came across Mysung Picture's adaptation of the novel "JSA" looking for a director. In this way, Park Chan-wook seized the opportunity for the film company to make a "mainstream commercial blockbuster" from the script adapted from this novel on the sensitive issues of South Korea and North Korea, and achieved unprecedented success in both commercial and public praise. . The shot at the end of the film is the first time that a Korean movie was shot in Hollywood Super 35mm format, and it has become the most famous shot of the film. Taking advantage of the box office sales of "JSA", Park Chan-wook later shot a more personal and stylized "Vengeance Trilogy". His career has flourished since then, and he has become a model of Korean movie star directors throughout the world.
The Korean War brought indelible suffering to the people on the Korean Peninsula. The sorrow of family killings and family ruin enveloped the entire peninsula for a long time. Faced with such a cruel reality, the protagonists in the film can only face extreme and destructive ways in the end. When facing the irresistible reality, Wu Jibi and Li Shuiyi in the movie rescued each other in a strong and extreme way and realized their own salvation. Perhaps the director wanted to use the latter's mouth to throw out that sentence: "If people with the same blood get together, what's wrong with playing games?"
Park Chan Wook is a smart, conceited and ambitious director. In the mid-1990s, he and Feng Junhao and other directors who were born with fans for generations stood out, and belonged to the best of the "386" generation. Since his debut, Park Chan-wook's works have always focused on the choices made by the people at the bottom of the society in the face of difficult life, and this film is the same. This concern is expressed in a bloody way, and is rarely compromised for commercial reasons. This is probably what attracted us the most about Park Chan-wook and his movies.
Reference materials: "The History of Korean Films", Mtime.com
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