It’s easy to see why this is Quentin Tarantino is a fan of this above Park’s other films, as it has the heroic bloodshed elements that involve star-crossed male friendships seen in movies like CITY ON FIRE, which was a clear inspiration for RESERVOIR DOGS. Even though it’s a South Korean film, J.S.A. comes from the Hong Kong tradition of doomed friendship, exploring relationships between men who should be enemies in the eyes of society, but bond despite the inevitability of it ending badly. The film lacks the visual flourishes of Park’s vengeance trilogy and beyond, but it really doesn’t need them since this is pretty much a straight up drama. One would expect this film to be political in nature and for it to take a side, however Park is smarter than that, instead creating a story that laments the fractured peninsula’s situation as a whole, intelligently humanizing both sides of the conflict.