Humanity between Trust and Distrust
- Secret Reunion (2010)

By Heo Si-joon, Tribune Reporter
 

 Korean, whoever South Korean or North Korean, has the matter of tragic division of the Korean peninsula. Nowadays, there are many films dealing with ideology of South Korea and North Korea such as Swiri (1998), Joint Security Area (2000), Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005) and so on. Until today, these films have shown national opposing situation and made me sad. However, Secret Reunion (2010) starring Song Gang-ho and Gang Dong-won is different from these former films. Getting out the theater, I concluded that Secret Reunion has touches of humanities.
 

 Two Leading casts are opposed to each other. One is an agent of South Korea National Intelligence and the other is a spy sent by the north to the south. They bump up against each other because of their occupation. When there are similar scenes in other related movies, character’s political creed is most important. They should obstruct each other, even if lose their life. In this point, I can found the first different thing compared with former movies. In this film, motive of casts is not ideology but their family. The agent of the South works to support his wife and daughter. The spy also has wife and daughter in the North. He should complete the mission to meet his family but failed and has the stigma of betrayer.
 

 After few years from the first encounter, they meet by chance again. That time, the agent was dismissed shoulder the responsibility for failing mission and the spy was on the run with undercover. They become aware of each other at the first sight. However they have a different plot in mind each other, so they start work together disguising as co-worker. The agent wants to get reward by capturing the spy ring and the spy wants to go back to the North using the agent as bait for accomplishment. Progressing on the screen, two opposite casts are getting closer. Working together, they gradually understand mutual circumstance and feel humanity. This is the second different point. At first they treat counterpart as an enemy who should be eliminated. However getting knows circumstances of each other, they are closer more and more.
 

 I usually read reviews of professional movie critics before going to the movie. Sometimes their analytical criticism is helpful to understand movie well, but sometimes it does not. In this time, reviews were useless. In other word, there is no way to understand hidden meaning of trifling articles, under plot and historical background. Conversely, just following the plot without analyzing is enough to enjoy the movie. There is our life came to the front from acting of actors and it is kind human’s identity. Audiences can easily sympathize with them, so they laugh, smile and weep. Finally, they could leave theater with happy thought.
 

 The movie was very interesting and I have impressive scene. After two leading casts getting closer, the agent told like this. “Hey, let you call me brother.” The other said, “No way.” In that scene, there are surely close relationship through gesture over words. Watching them, this reporter thought that maybe this movie can be a solution for the division of Korea. Until today, South and North Korea have been in confrontation because of difference of ideology. However is it possible to respect each other with ‘humanely’, without considering political creed? Wherever live in the south and the north, we are the Korean race.