|
Memories of Murder
 It
is with an utter lack of abashedness that I proclaim my great
adoration of the Korean horror film, The Host. Truly one of the
greatest monster movies I’ve ever seen. Besides the appearance
of the Steve the Monster (- check the forthcoming
FilmStarrr section for the Bong Joon-Ho interview and
“Steve” origin!), the toothy, tentacled, slimy beast brought
to enthusiastic and athletic life by three different special
effect houses; The Host differentiates itself through the deft
and original direction of Mr. Bong Joon-Ho. The careful balance
he achieves in directing his actors to great performances,
giving us a believable and scary monster and a “hey, it could
happen” plot, and an amazing slice of dark humour raises the
film to something much more than your average monster movie. I
believe we are lucky to see the beginnings of what will be a
long and impressive career for this young director.
It was
with this momentum in mind that I sought out his earlier
feature, 2003’s Memories of Murder. During my interview with the
director, I asked him about the black comedy that permeates The
Host and made me feel guilty at times for laughing out loud.
Director Bong told me that it simply his natural sense of humour
that he injected into his screenplays, and he told me that
Memories of Murder also bore the same sense of dark comedy. Bong
said Memories of Murder was available domestically on DVD
through the kind offices of Palm Pictures, so I immediately
snatched one up.
Memories
of Murder, like The Host, is loosely based on a real-life
incident. In a small town in South Korea, in the days before the
demilitarization, the body of a bound woman, raped and strangled
is discovered in a small tunnel. It isn’t long before more cases
of sexually assaulted and murdered women are found throughout
town. In the mid-1980’s, these sorts of crimes simply didn’t
happen in this part of the country, and the small, rural police
force, headed by big man about town (- at least in his own
mind) Detectives Park, and hair-trigger tempered Detective
Cho, are woefully unprepared. There’s no procedure about careful
forensics or preserving the crime scenes. At the first crime
scene, children playing around the dead woman’s body run off
with possible pieces of evidence. By the time the 2nd
murder is discovered, clueless officials, bystanders, and even a
tractor are all trampling (- or tumbling) through the
area where the bound and gagged body is found, and it’s enraging
and somehow bitterly hilarious. You can’t believe the officers
don’t know better, but they simply don’t.
The
rampant ineptness of the country cops calls for the arrival of a
more sophisticated Seoul officer with experience in serial
killer cases. We experience Detective Seo’s shock as he
witnesses his rural colleagues’ interrogation tactics, which
mostly involve Detective Cho leveling a flying side kick at the
suspect, of which there are dozens. One such suspect is a
mentally-retarded man, who is beaten and coerced into giving a
confession scripted by Detectives Park and Cho. Another suspect
is a hard-working, frustrated family man with a hidden porno
stash, which immediately fingers him (- NPI) as the
killer (- Because all men who have hidden porno stashes are
inherently eeevil). The lengths that the small-town
detectives will go to, especially after the arrival of Our Man
from Seoul, and the rising body count, grows increasingly more
desperate. Detective Park isn’t fooling anyone anymore with his
“eye” that he insists is a mystic lie-detector, and Detective
Cho’s wire-worthy side kicks finally catch up with him.
Detective Seo slowly ends up mired in the muck of corruption and
amateurishness of this backwater investigation. His finer
instincts dulled by anger and lack of sleep; his frustration
reaches a boiling point as the murderer continues to elude him.
The
talent for achieving great acting performances that Bong Joon-Ho
showed in The Host is more than evident in Memories of Murder.
When the case singles out a final suspect, one Hyeon-Kyu Park,
his cold, androgynous, emotionless demeanour manages to bring
out the worst in each of the detectives and gives us all a look
into the character’s souls. Though often painted in broad
strokes, Memories of Murder gives a compelling look into the
lives of these police officers at a pivotal time in Korea’s
evolution and in each of the characters’ lives: You have your
beat cop who joined the force to count the years in a nice, safe
doorway somewhere, your corrupt cop who enjoys his a authority
way too much, your bureaucrat to whom the high public profile of
the case and the ineptness with which his top men are handling
it become a nightmare, and your earnest officers idealistic in
their desire to help solve the crimes. Director Bong fleshes out
each of these types and makes them all sympathetic, sometimes
injecting a dark laugh into an unlikely place (- just before
interrogating an uncooperative suspect, Detective Park always
hands Detective Cho a lovely slip cover for his workboot.).
There’s a lot of humour, but you never lose the weight of the
premise, and it’s that balance of dark comedy and the gravity of
the plot that keeps Memories of Murder from being a sordid,
depressing film, but retains the frustration that must still be
felt by those affected by the real-life serial killings which
are still unsolved.
In many
ways, you can see that Memories of Murder is yet an early
exercise for Bong Joon-Ho but it’s apparent that his style is
well on its way. All the touches are already there; great acting
performances, wonderful cinematography by Kim Hyung-ko (- the
“umbrella” scene will give you shivers for days), and the
score by Iwashiro Taro haunts and
mesmerises.
The faulting points would be the bouts of unevenness in the film
(- it really didn’t need to be over two hours long, did it?),
and dwelling too long on characters who in the end are
superfluous. All that said it’s a truly creepy affair and a
promising early effort.
The DVD
release from Palm Pictures is a true joy for the fan who may be
just discovering Bong Joon-Ho’s work through The Host. The
extensive interview footage with ALL the major members of the
cast and the director himself will give you more insight into
making the film, working with Director Bong and the cast’s
unanimous affection for the director; dangerous stunt work (-
flying side kicks galore!), and more about life as a Korean
actor than you ever thought to ask. Some of the best moments are
with Song Kang-Ho (- star of The Host), where it is
revealed that most of the dialog in his scenes is actually
ad-libbed while the cameras rolled, because he felt it kept the
scene fresh. The collaboration and chemistry between Bong
Joon-Ho and Song Kang-Ho will be something to watch if Bong is
wise enough to employ Song for subsequent films. Byun Hee-Bong,
who played the tough rifle-toting grandfather in The Host, is
also featured in Memories of Murder. There are deleted scenes
which aren’t particular show-stoppers, but flesh out the
characters even more. Some of the ripest scenes are in the
outtakes shown during those peachy interviews, so don’t miss
out. You get both the Korean theatrical trailer and teasers.
And, yes, for those for whom reading is not fundamental, there
is an optional English dub track, along with the original Korean
audio. Use at peril of missing the joy and edge of the brilliant
dialog (- the English subs lose none of the bite). Could
Palm have made it any easier to enjoy this movie?
Well Done
All Around.
~ Mighty
Ganesha
April 21st,
2007
For those
interested in purchasing Memories of Murder go to:
http://store.palmpictures.com/ppalmdv3114.html
Check out
some of their other sweet titles, as well.
©2006-2007 MightyGanesha.com
|
