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Memories of Murder (2003)

Harsh methods were used by the police in Korea at the time when it suffered under the hard regime of dictatorship. Citizens of an area in the countryside are scared by a series of rape-cases resulting in murder. The killer does only murder women wearing red, on rainy nights and when a certain song is playing in the radio. As the local police, including inspector Park (Song Kang-ho), is helpless to a level that he even pays a visit to a shaman, Inspector Suh (Kim Sang-kyung) from Seoul comes to help with the investigation.

With his more gallant methods of investigation, he criticises the methods of the local police as they are forcing confessions out of suspects held as prisoners in their basement. The reason: the press wants to see successes concerning the search for the killer. A young retarded man suffers from such brutal methods of interrogations, as he seems to know details of a murder case. Being put under pressure, he confesses to the murders, but it is later cleared up that he is not the killer. A new suspect is the target of the constantly quarreling law enforcers. The chase begins since the beast keeps on murdering although being observed by the cops.

Korea has an unpleasant past. Between 1980 and 1992 a resolute military government has ruled the now highly-civilised Asian country. Using this background, the story of a true murder-series, which scared Korean citizens between 1986 and 1992, was impressively put to film in a commemorative way. With Memories of Murder the director and scriptwriter Bong Joon-ho suceeded in making a film that not only reaches a high artistic level, but also broke all the box office records in South-Korea. It outdid films like The Matrix 2, Terminator 3 and Pirates of the Carribean. This aspect is of course irrelevant, but absolutely utilisable as an explanatory power.

You could argue about the reasons for the film's success. Is it due to the superstar-bonus we get by Song Kang-ho, who is known from films like Shiri, JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Foul King? Or is it rather due to the urge of coping with a past of restricted freedom of opinion? One could argue about that, but to me it is way more the first-class way this masterpiece was made.

First we are treated to very good acting, but the set-up of the story was masterfully approached as well. During the first few investigations, situations of black humour are included, then the film deals with the personal strokes of fate of the characters, who tie themselves to theseries of murders. The viewer is drawn into their world and follows their investigation. Every now and then it might happen that you will get goose bumps, not because of horror moments, but rather due to sympathies. Just by remembering the last shot of the film showing Inspector Park's face, which says more than a thousand words, sends shivers down my spine. In addition to this it also becomes clear why the film is called Memories of Murder.

To sum up, Memories of Murder is a very strong movie. With this film I wish I could watch it for the first time again and again in order to re-experience the great amount of suspense, the sheer desperation of the officers and the ingeniously plotted story. Unfortunately, this does only work once with a film where the best part is its closure. Hence, I hope you have a great time watching this film and I envy you for the first time of experiencing it.

Written on November 13th 2004

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