Why filmmakers keep returning to the inter-Korean border

Ah, the Korean demilitarized zone: a 160-mile-long strip of land that spans rocky, heavily forested mountains and wetlands, where there’s no shortage of trouble, thanks to its occupants in the North (though Pyongyang undoubtedly has its own complaints about the South).

Just last month, a North Korean soldier crossed the mine-strewn frontier and arrived in Cheorwon County, Gangwon, to defect. Long before that, multiple South Korean civilians — and even a former president — sent drones to the North, which sent balloons filled with trash in return. On a slightly more absurd note, Seoul often blasts K-pop over the border as an act of pro-South propaganda, and Pyongyang retaliates with metal-scraping noises.

But the dangers of the DMZ remain very real. Soldiers have been maimed after stepping on land mines, and civilians have been killed on nearby mountains and the border islands.

As a result, the heavily fortified zone and its bordering towns and army bases have proven to be fertile ground for filmmakers.

Some use the fact that the man-made border is the only place where North and South Korean soldiers can interact. Others take inspiration from the dramatic tension in the relatively underdeveloped communities around the DMZ — largely farmland and mountain villages shaped by strict military restrictions, where spies and infiltrators are never too far from wary residents’ minds. 

Most recently, Cannes-selected “Hope” follows the secluded and resourceful locals of a fictional border town as they battle an alien threat.

The DMZ’s lush, largely untouched landscape has also served as the backdrop for many movies, such as the mossy creeks in Bong Joon-ho’s “Okja” (2017) or the rugged basalt cliffs in “Kundo: Age of the Rampant” (2014).

Here are eight films that show how the DMZ’s isolation and military tension have shaped stories across genres.

'Hope'

The setting: A fictional harbor town near the DMZ

In Na Hong-jin’s sci-fi action thriller, an unknown monster rampages through Hopo, a fictional port village near the DMZ, populated mostly by older residents. 

Until the audience gets its first glimpse of the creature about an hour into the film, “Hope” takes viewers on a wild ride as police chief Bum-seok, played by Hwang Jung-min, tracks the monster through shabby houses, dried seafood markets and narrow alleyways.

The police and other locals — ever vigilant and accustomed to handling firearms because of the constant threat of North Korean infiltrators — are ultimately left to fend for themselves against the increasingly dangerous creature after a wildfire cuts off communication, leaving them unable to call for outside help.

Na said in an interview that he chose to have the story take place near the DMZ because the community needed to feel “isolated” for the plot to work — and because the setting could support a potential sequel. He also “wanted to tell a story that begins in a tiny, humble place, […] a speck that gradually expands in a manner that cannot be contained and into a story of the entire universe.”

'Joint Security Area' (2000)

The setting: Panmunjom

The film takes place in Panmunjom, the truce village within the DMZ that sits directly on the military demarcation line. It is one of the rare places where soldiers from the two Koreas stand within sight — and sometimes within speaking distance — of each other.

That proximity is what makes the secret friendship at the heart of Park Chan-wook’s film possible. After two North Korean soldiers are killed in a shooting at a guard post, a neutral Swiss and Swedish investigation team is sent in to determine what happened. The team’s line of inquiry gradually reveals that South Korean soldiers have been slipping across the dividing line at night to drink, play games and spend time with their North Korean counterparts.

The setting is both intimate and unforgiving: A narrow concrete line divides people who share a language, history and culture, but the slightest misunderstanding leads to gunfire and risks an international crisis.

In real life, Panmunjom has hosted some of the most closely watched diplomatic encounters in modern Korean history. Former President Moon Jae-in met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un there in April 2018, and U.S. President Donald Trump also met Kim at the village in June 2019.

'The Front Line' (2011)

The setting: Aerok Hill, a fictional battlefield inspired by the fighting around Cheorwon County

“The Front Line” is a film about the DMZ before the DMZ even came to be.

Set during the final weeks of the 1950-53 Korean War, the movie follows a South Korean officer, played by Shin Ha-kyun, who is sent to investigate the suspicious death of a member of a battalion, which is fighting over Aerok Hill. The strategic patch of land changes hands repeatedly as negotiators elsewhere attempt to determine where the future dividing line between the two Koreas will fall.

The hill — named after “Korea” spelled backward — is fictional, but its battles recall the real clashes in the mountainous territory around Cheorwon. Both Koreas considered control of such peaks important because their troops’ locations at the moment when the armistice took effect would help determine the new boundary.

'Escape' (2024)

The setting: A North Korean military camp near the DMZ

The DMZ is usually imagined as a barrier that prevents an invasion. But for North Korean Sgt. Lim Kyu-nam, played by Lee Je-hoon, the area represents both his greatest obstacle and his only apparent route to freedom.

Stationed at a North Korean military camp near the zone, Kyu-nam has spent years secretly mapping a path to the South. His plan begins to unravel when another soldier attempts to flee first, drawing the attention of State Security Department officer Ri Hyun-sang, played by Koo Kyo-hwan.

Much of the film’s tension comes from the geography of the escape. The South may be visible in the distance, but Kyu-nam must cross forests, muddy fields, fences and heavily guarded stretches of land, where one wrong step could trigger a mine or expose him to pursuing soldiers.

'The Guard Post' (2008)

The setting: An isolated South Korean guard post inside the DMZ

The DMZ lends itself naturally to the horror genre: It’s remote, enclosed, heavily armed and largely inaccessible to outsiders.

In “The Guard Post,” also known by its Korean title “GP506,” military investigator Sgt. Maj. Noh Seong-gyu, played by Cheon Ho-jin, is dispatched to Guard Post 506 after almost the entire platoon stationed there is found mutilated. One apparent survivor is discovered clutching a bloody ax, while another seems determined to prevent investigators from learning what happened.

As the bunker-like post is cut off from the rest of the country, fear, distrust and infection spread among the soldiers who cannot simply leave. Both they and the investigation team are further isolated by a storm, turning a military installation built to keep enemies out into a claustrophobic trap.
  

'6/45' (2022)

The setting: Opposing military posts along the DMZ

A gust of wind accomplishes in “6/45,” the only comedy on this list, what decades of diplomacy could not: It brings North and South Korean soldiers together.

The film begins when South Korean soldier Cheon-woo, played by Ko Kyoung-pyo, finds a lottery ticket worth 5.7 billion won ($3.8 million), only to watch it blow across the MDL into North Korea. Soldiers from both sides then begin secretly meeting to negotiate how to claim and divide the winnings.

The soldiers shout insults and blast propaganda through loudspeakers but also devise elaborate plans to meet face-to-face — not exactly bonding, but for sure coming together, even if over greed, desperation and lottery fever.

'Dream House by the Border' (2013)

The setting: Civilian villages under military control in Cheorwon County

The border is simply a place where people have built their homes in Kim Lyang’s documentary.

“Dream House by the Border” visits villages in Cheorwon near the Southern Limit Line, where civilian access is restricted, and daily life unfolds beside fences, military checkpoints and land shaped by the Korean War.

The residents include original settlers, their children, people displaced from the North and families whose roots in the region predate the division of the peninsula. Their houses preserve personal memories of resettlement and survival while collectively telling the history of a community formed under military control.

'Old Marine Boy' (2017)

The setting: Daejin Port in Goseong County, near Korea’s northeastern frontier

Another documentary, “Old Marine Boy,” follows Park Myong-ho, a former North Korean soldier who escaped with his family and settled in Daejin, a fishing village in Goseong County near the northern end of South Korea’s east coast.

There, he makes a living as a meoguri, a deep-sea diver who descends about 30 meters (100 feet) underwater in a roughly 60-kilogram (132-pound) diving suit, breathing through a single air hose connected to the boat above.

The setting connects the two defining passages of Park Myung-ho’s life. He once crossed a maritime boundary to escape North Korea; now, off the coast of a South Korean border community, he repeatedly crosses another invisible line between safety and danger to provide for his family.

Although his history as a defector hangs over the film, the documentary is less about inter-Korean politics than about work, fatherhood and the life of one man.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]