More information about the “Crime Scene: Four Films by Bong Joon-ho” @ Wisconsin Film Festival 2010
Wisconsin Filmfestival 2010 Double Feature Preview: Bong Joon-Ho’s “Memories of Murder” and “The Host” by Adam Schabow at dane101.com
Memories of Murder
Bong Joon-Ho’s Memories of Murder is a beautiful piece of storytelling that wraps suspense, comedy and film noir into a complex investigative detective story. The movie is based on South Korea’s first known serial murders that occurred from 1986-1991.
The film follows Detective Park Doo-man and Detective Seo Tae-Yoon, two drastically different detectives willing to do whatever it takes to catch the murderer. Park (wonderfully played by Song Kang-ho) is in love with being a detective, but may not have the chops for it, while Tae-Yoon calmly and constantly proves Park wrong on his findings.
If this film was made in America, Detective Tae-Yoon, the good looking, genuinely cool handed detective would have been the lead. But instead, in South Korea, Jun-Ho takes a less traditional approach and rightfully hands the lead off to the more interesting character, Parks, who constantly comes to wrong conclusions and is repeatedly willing to plant evidence and beat and coerce confessions. Even the local mentally handicapped boy isn’t safe from his misguided efforts. [read more on dane101.com]
admin, april 14th 2010 |
Posted in news, review
This a review of Memories of Murder from the website Left Field Cinema by M. Dawson.
‘Over the past decade one nation has emerged as the leading force for cinematic innovation, and originality – South Korea. It came to wider notice with Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy in 2003, and outstanding and elaborate vendetta movie which presented a distinctive visual style with squirm inducing violence. Preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and followed by Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Oldboy was the centre piece of what is now known as the Vengeance trilogy. Continuing with Wook’s filmography there is his feature debut Joint Security Area and his latest release I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Okay. Both of which are excellent in their own right for different reasons. Wook brought South-Korean cinema to a wider audience but it is the output of his contemporaries which strengthens the reputation: Ji-woon Kim’s ultra violent action thriller A Bitter Sweet Life; Ki-duk Kim’s meditative, spiritual and deeply philosophical Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring and his follow-up Three Iron. The list goes on and on, and if we dig a little deeper then we discover a relatively unsung talent, that of director Joon-ho Bong, director of the 2006 world cinema stealth hit The Host. But before The Host comes his sophomore film Memories of Murder, released in the same year as Oldboy, it was unfortunately eclipsed by Wook’s massive success. A shame as it is a far subtler film, which challenges the conventions of its genre in unexpected ways as this episode will hopefully illustrate.’ [read more on leftfieldcinema.com]
admin, april 14th 2010 |
Posted in review
The blog Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist posted a new review about Memories of Murder. It’s never too late to discovery this movie!:)
‘Despite my disappointment in Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s latest movie Mother, I was so impressed with The Host, the one that preceded it, that I was determined to look further into his work, especially since I found him such an intriguing personality when he spoke at The Korea Society about a month ago on a publicity tour for Mother.’ [read more on louisproyect.wordpress.com]
admin, april 10th 2010 |
Posted in review
