The long-standing tension between North and South Korea threatens to boil over into an international incident in this thriller, which was a major box office success in its native South Korea. A North Korean soldier (Shin Ha-kyun) is shot while manning his guard station near the demilitarized zone along the border of the two Koreas. Maj. Sophie Jang (Lee Yeong-ae), a member of the DMZ Neutral Supervisory Committee who was raised by Swiss and Korean parents, is brought in to investigate the incident. Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-heon), a member of the South Korean army, is considered the prime suspect in the attack, but Jang soon finds that getting to the truth is no easy task. Lee refuses to answer questions about the incident, and the investigator, in a territory considered a "trouble spot" since the killing of two United Nations soldiers 25 years earlier, faces anger and suspicion from both North and South Korean military representatives. Gongdong Gyeongbi Guyeok Jsa is based on the novel DMZ by Korean author Park Sang-yeon.