Skip to main content

SAM Films: Korean Cinema's Got Style - Joint Security Area

Nov 13 2024

6:30–9:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Emma Baillargeon Stimson Auditorium

Have you heard? Korean Cinema’s Got Style!

Expand your Korean art horizons with four contemporary films that epitomize the charm, style, and innovation of Meot: Korean Art from the Frank Bayley Collection. This two-week fall series of evening and matinee screenings will genre-hop through horror, comedy, mystery, and even the Western, proving Korean cinema is anything but predictable. Showcasing a few modern masters’ early works, this series engages with Meot’s contemplations on Korean artistry through time. Join us for community activities accompanying each screening.

Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area

When two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea known as the Joint Security Area (JSA), an international investigation uncovers contradicting stories that challenge the very notions of truth, nationhood, and brotherhood.

The breakout feature from director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave), Joint Security Area cemented his status as a modern auteur. It made history in 2000 as the highest-grossing film yet at the Korean box office. Park showcases a star-studded cast alongside his mastery of dazzling cinematography, time-jumping editing, and equal doses of pathos and humor to create a mystery-thriller-crime drama for the ages. Content Advisory: Mild gore and depiction of suicide.

6:30-7:30 pm - Gallery access and special programming

7 pm - Theater opens for seating

7:30 pm - Showtime!

Join curator Hannah Baek for a post-screening lecture and discussion on how the film cinematically reckons with the relationship between the two Koreas.

Korean Cinema’s Got Style! is guest curated by Hannah Baek.

Photo: Natali Wiseman

SAM Films

Get your ticket, grab your seat, and explore a diverse roster of film screenings and series that present everything from feature releases to rarely seen prints.

view program

What’s on at Seattle Asian Art Museum