Director: Bong Joon Ho
Writers: Bong Joon Ho, Kwang-rim Kim, Sung-bo Shim
Photography: Hyung Koo Kim
Music: Taro Iwashiro
Editor: Sun-Min Kim
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung, Kim Roe-ha, Song Jae-ho, Byun Hee-Bong, Ryu Tae-ho, Ko Seo-hie
I had a harder time than usual getting a look at director and cowriter Bong Joon Ho’s second full-length picture. It’s still, by all the markers I can find, his most popular after only Parasite. It was on Amazon last month—I know it was, because I kept checking. Maybe it rotated out with December. But the other day when I went to look at it it was no longer there, it wasn’t on the Criterion Channel (although Memories of Murder, Okja, and Parasite have all got the Criterion blu-ray/DVD treatment), it’s not on Kanopy either (a service worth checking out if you have a library card), and the youtube version seemed to be UHD only, which my system can’t handle. I finally found it on Tubi, whatever the heck that is—at least it was free and without commercial interruptions and didn’t appear to infect my computer. I got the sense—maybe it was the UHD-only avail—that Memories of Murder, a movie that has never much appealed to me, may be appreciated best for its cinematic qualities. I admit they are impressive, if you have the right setup or can take advantage of an opportunity to see it in a theater. Maybe you can luck into a double feature with something by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
“In his breakthrough second feature, Bong Joon Ho explodes the conventions of the policier with thrillingly subversive, genre-defying results,” raves the Criterion write-up. “Policier” is cineaste for “police procedural,” a favored sub-subgenre of mine; “thrillingly subversive, genre-defying” gives away that they’re doing it wrong. It’s arty to a fault—with many, many arresting and well-composed shots—and Bong’s jarring sense of humor intrudes everything. The coarse jokiness is easier to handle for me in Bong contexts that are more formally science fiction or fantasy, like The Host (still ruined for me by it, but I may owe that one another look), Snowpiercer, or, indeed, Parasite. I’ve been actively repulsed when Bong applies it to these two-thirds inept cops tracking a serial killer in a remote village. I don’t see it as anything like the right context for slapstick, however thrillingly subversive.
I had a harder time than usual getting a look at director and cowriter Bong Joon Ho’s second full-length picture. It’s still, by all the markers I can find, his most popular after only Parasite. It was on Amazon last month—I know it was, because I kept checking. Maybe it rotated out with December. But the other day when I went to look at it it was no longer there, it wasn’t on the Criterion Channel (although Memories of Murder, Okja, and Parasite have all got the Criterion blu-ray/DVD treatment), it’s not on Kanopy either (a service worth checking out if you have a library card), and the youtube version seemed to be UHD only, which my system can’t handle. I finally found it on Tubi, whatever the heck that is—at least it was free and without commercial interruptions and didn’t appear to infect my computer. I got the sense—maybe it was the UHD-only avail—that Memories of Murder, a movie that has never much appealed to me, may be appreciated best for its cinematic qualities. I admit they are impressive, if you have the right setup or can take advantage of an opportunity to see it in a theater. Maybe you can luck into a double feature with something by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
“In his breakthrough second feature, Bong Joon Ho explodes the conventions of the policier with thrillingly subversive, genre-defying results,” raves the Criterion write-up. “Policier” is cineaste for “police procedural,” a favored sub-subgenre of mine; “thrillingly subversive, genre-defying” gives away that they’re doing it wrong. It’s arty to a fault—with many, many arresting and well-composed shots—and Bong’s jarring sense of humor intrudes everything. The coarse jokiness is easier to handle for me in Bong contexts that are more formally science fiction or fantasy, like The Host (still ruined for me by it, but I may owe that one another look), Snowpiercer, or, indeed, Parasite. I’ve been actively repulsed when Bong applies it to these two-thirds inept cops tracking a serial killer in a remote village. I don’t see it as anything like the right context for slapstick, however thrillingly subversive.
Memories of Murder is based on true events, often a fatal error. A lot of the elements hit me as so familiar that I kept thinking of cases in the US, UK (Yorkshire?), or elsewhere in the West: the killer strikes only on rainy nights, all the victims were wearing red, no pubic hairs are left behind because presumably the killer shaves, a song request on a local radio station recurs on nights when the killer is active (in Memories of Murder the song is called “Sad Letter,” a detail I like). But apparently these true events actually took place in South Korea, as that country’s first widely known serial killer case. The local detectives (Song Kang-ho and Kim Roe-ha) are making a mess of the case and a more seasoned investigator (Kim Sang-kyung) is dispatched by his own request from Seoul to help. He makes some progress on the case—which is never solved—while the other two keep beating confessions out of people they suspect on hunches, but who could not have done it. Much of that is here as edgy comic relief, although it strikes me more as misplaced and not much relief.
Song Kang-ho as Detective Park Doo-man is not just your everyday hey-that-guy. He’s a Bong regular, appearing in The Host, Parasite, and Snowpiercer as well as other handsome, expensive, and/or quirky Korean productions like Howling, Thirst, and The Good the Bad the Weird. He’s fine here as the brutal rural lead detective—the problems with this movie are more with its conception. The performances and the cinematics are also fine and altogether must be why this one gets over on so many. Park’s partner Detective Cho Yong-koo is played by Kim Roe-ha as a straight-up goon prone to fits of violence. The dim-wittedness of these two is a main source of the humor here that, again, didn’t often strike me as funny.
A more standard police-procedural dramatic element comes with the Seoul investigator, Detective Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung), who patiently works with familiar urban police procedures to track down the killer. He’s the only one who seems to understand the urgency of the case, which I think may apply to Bong and crew as well. There is a surprising reticence about the crimes themselves, which reminded me of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, published by coincidence the same year Memories of Murder came out. Maybe it was something in the true-crime air. I have a hard time in this picture piecing together basic facts about the crimes and victims, how many there are, who they are, what happened to them, and more. We just don’t learn very much about them beyond suggestive details, such as where they were found. I’m sure I’ve been watching too many episodes of 48 Hours on youtube lately, but Memories of Murder struck me as a wide miss in the annals of semi-true-crime “based on real events” fare, and not that entertaining as a big boffo ticket either.
Song Kang-ho as Detective Park Doo-man is not just your everyday hey-that-guy. He’s a Bong regular, appearing in The Host, Parasite, and Snowpiercer as well as other handsome, expensive, and/or quirky Korean productions like Howling, Thirst, and The Good the Bad the Weird. He’s fine here as the brutal rural lead detective—the problems with this movie are more with its conception. The performances and the cinematics are also fine and altogether must be why this one gets over on so many. Park’s partner Detective Cho Yong-koo is played by Kim Roe-ha as a straight-up goon prone to fits of violence. The dim-wittedness of these two is a main source of the humor here that, again, didn’t often strike me as funny.
A more standard police-procedural dramatic element comes with the Seoul investigator, Detective Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung), who patiently works with familiar urban police procedures to track down the killer. He’s the only one who seems to understand the urgency of the case, which I think may apply to Bong and crew as well. There is a surprising reticence about the crimes themselves, which reminded me of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, published by coincidence the same year Memories of Murder came out. Maybe it was something in the true-crime air. I have a hard time in this picture piecing together basic facts about the crimes and victims, how many there are, who they are, what happened to them, and more. We just don’t learn very much about them beyond suggestive details, such as where they were found. I’m sure I’ve been watching too many episodes of 48 Hours on youtube lately, but Memories of Murder struck me as a wide miss in the annals of semi-true-crime “based on real events” fare, and not that entertaining as a big boffo ticket either.
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