Part of the local law enforcement’s failure to apprehend the killer, however, stems from the fact that they have been spread too thin as a result of having to quell political protests. (Elsewhere we see how kicking suspects with a shower cap stretched over his boot, so as not to leave incriminating marks, is Cho’s preferred method of “enhanced interrogation.”) Shortly afterwards, Detective Seo uses more logical methods to discover that the killer’s modus operandi is only to attack women wearing red and only on rainy nights. Detective Cho, in particular, can be seen stomping with relish on a hapless victim with his combat boots. In one of the film’s most telling scenes, the local cops can be seen violently cracking down on a pro-Democracy protest in the rain. Memories of Murder is, however, perhaps most interesting for how it deviates from the murder mystery and police-procedural genres - Bong’s point is not to put his characters through the paces of a routine plot but rather to paint a trenchant portrait of life under a military dictatorship in the mid-1980s. Completely out of their element because they have no experience in such matters, the brutal, quasi-fascist tactics of these characters soon come into conflict with the patience and reasoning of Detective Seo (Kim Sang-kyun), a cop from Seoul who voluntarily moves to rural Gyunggi province in order to help with the investigation.
Memories of a murderer lifetime cast serial#
Specifically, the plot details the investigation into a series of serial murders by two dumb local-yokel cops, Detective Park (the brilliant Song Kang-ho) and Detective Cho (Kim Roe-ha).
Memories of a murderer lifetime cast movie#
As such, some of the most familiar aspects of the movie are the scenes depicting the tensions and hostilities between various members of a police department - most of which result from their differing crime-solving methodologies - in the small town in which the movie is set.
Like many Hollywood films that came out in the wake of the success of The Silence of the Lambs, Memories of Murder is ostensibly a murder mystery about the exploits of a serial killer. Korea in the past as well as the present. adopts the form of a political thriller in order to express a plea for tolerance and a desire for reunification between the two Koreas, so too does Memories of Murder resemble a murder mystery but only as a means for conveying a far-reaching social critique of S. In much the same way that Nowhere to Hide uses the action-movie framework as an excuse to stage highly experimental set pieces, or Failan begins as a gangster film before daringly transitioning into an unabashed melodrama, or J.S.A. Korean cinema is the way Bong offers a refreshingly original spin on well-worn genre elements. Also marking it as a quintessential work of the new S. Korea in the early 21st century, is a young man’s movie: it was only Bong’s second film, following the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite in 2000, and he completed it when he was just 33-years-old.
Memories of Murder, like most of the exciting films to come out of S. It is certainly my personal favorite Korean movie of recent decades. Yet, as good as that film undoubtedly is, his even earlier Memories of Murder (the local blockbuster that made the monster Bong hit possible) still probably stands as the ideal introduction to this unique auteur‘s filmography as well as the S. īong Joon-ho is best known in the west as the director of the internationally successful monster movie The Host. Part two of my Spotlight on South Korean Cinema series is a look at Bong Joon-ho’s 2003 masterpiece Memories of Murder.
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