Showing JSA to a North Korean Soldier

What would a North Korean soldier think if he saw the popular South Korean film, `Joint Security Area`?

The Japanese civilian `TV Asahi` recently showed this film to North Koran officers and aired the coverage of their responses as the top news story on the news program `News Station` on August 27.

The TV Asahi coverage team showed a part of this film on a digital camera to North Korean officers at the Panmungak for five minutes.

``Both the ones showing the film and those watching it had to be conscious of others noticing, which placed a limitation to the time.`` said the anchor. The North Korean officers watched a scene where the wind sweeps off the hat of a foreign woman touring the Panmunjum and which Sergeant Oh Kyung Pil (Song Kang Ho) returns when it falls on the Northern JSA side.

One North Korean officers asked, ``Who and when was this filmed?`` When the coverage team told him that it was a movie, the officer responded that ``it could never happen.`` Another officer responded, ``Of course we belong to the same race (as the South Korean soldiers) and we can communicate with one another. But if we said a single word, the American troops will notice and send the soldier to some other place that very day because the North would have seen it.``

They said further, ``They are so scared of the American troops that they can`t even say a word to us when we are one and the same people. If they really want reunification, they shouldn`t make these movies but get rid of the American troops first.``

The TV Asahi team revealed that they discovered a `North Korean JSA` film at the Pyongyang International Movie Theatre. Made in 1986, the movie is titled `Outpost Line.` In this movie, a South Korean second lieutenant named `Byon Chi Paek` also encounters a North Korean officer at the DMZ and says, ``There are genuine officers among our troops too. Let`s get to know each other.`` But in the film the North Korean side discerns that the South Korean officer`s friendship is a trick and intercepts it by engaging in battle.

Shim Kyu-Sun ksshim@donga.com