Joint Security Area (2000)

This was one of the first films by Korean director Chan-Wook Park to be shown in the West, but I only came to it after seeing his "vengeance trilogy" movies.  It is probably just as well, since if I had not thought that the later films were something special, I might not have chosen to see this soldier story.  It is not a war film as such (which is just as well from my point of view, since that is my least favourite genre) but it is a story of the war between ideologies and the tragedy that this can create.  Effectively it focuses on the soldiers from both the South Korean and the North Korean armies who patrol the no-man's land of the Joint Security Area between the two countries.  After two North Koreans are found murdered on their side of the border, we and the U.N. inspectors need to solve the mystery of their death.  One of these was a simple soldier whom we have come to know and who together with his shift partner has become friendly with two of their South Korean counterparts.  Against all regulations they socialise and begin to realise that they have much in common as human beings.  They are all at heart still boys but the powers that be have so shaped them that  tragedy inevitably follows.  All four actors were familiar to me from various other Korean films I've seen over the last few years and all of them were successful in convincing me that war and ideological hatred is a true waste of time.  But people never learn, do they?