Director: Chan-wook Park

JSA starts out fairly cluttered and looks dated – the now incredibly polished Chan-wook Park here turns in a film that plays like a 90s television drama – but once it’s established its format of flashbacks and, as an ignorant American, it sinks in that the North / South Korea conflict is not going to be explored beyond the assumption that we know about it – the flick finds a pretty good groove of mystery and story reveal, before sort of fizzling when it’s finally revealed its hand. Plot-wise, this will remind you of many military mysteries, where pride and duty prevent some simple truth from reaching the surface, a naive third party coming in to investigate or expose the flaw… The truth, this time, is hidden away by Byung Heon Lee and Kang-ho Song, both familiar faces in the Korean world – Byung turning in a more fragile performance here than his tougher characters, and Song really surprising as a stern North Korean Sergeant. Some of the stylistic tricks Park employs here feel telling of being an amateur director at this point, but that also makes his progress to his next film that much more surprising. Plus, during that middle chunk when the film is firmly on its feet, Park relaxes and just tells a story, and this portion feels more confident, less forcefully flashy. The social dynamics and mixed-language style (Tarantino, according to wiki, liked this flick… perhaps an influence on Inglorious..?) are interesting, and the core friendship bonds explored are very well acted and captured. But JSA is sort of pointlessly fractured by its flashback setup, and seems to be heading for twists which aren’t really there. More of film of note – for Korean film, for its director – than a standout in any particular way.