One of Park Chan-wook’s (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave) greatest films, Joint Security Area stages a kind of Rashomon-style mystery at the tense border between North and South Korea. One night, two Northern soldiers are shot dead while a wounded Southern soldier is rescued from the Bridge of No Return. As the two nations teeter on the brink of conflict, Swiss Army Major Sophie E. Jean (Lee Young-ae) leads an international investigation into what really happened and why. While South Korean Sergeant Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun, I Saw the Devil) admits to shooting three North Korean soldiers, including surviving Sergeant Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho, Memories of Murder), Sophie discovers contradictory accounts from all parties that point to a heartbreaking truth.

A few years before Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, Park Chan-wook made his breakthrough with this critically adored and truly remarkable political thriller which also set the record for highest grossing film in South Korea for a time. Complex and empathetic, Joint Security Area finds humanity in one of the most militantly segregated places on earth and examines the situation like a mystery procedural – how did we get here and why should we continue this way? The legendary Song Kang-ho and Lee Byung-hun are particularly brilliant in this twisting tale of camaraderie and betrayal, imbuing emotional depth and confliction into a geopolitical dichotomy.