Film opinion: Is ‘Memories of Murder’ a modern classic?
Memories of Murder is a 2003 crime thriller focusing on the attempts by local detectives to catch a serial killer in Korea.
With it being released over 20 years ago, you can see the lasting effects of the standard-setting film by Bong Joon-Ho to this day.
Film News Blitz’s Joe Matthews had a chance to see it in the cinema, and is here to discuss what he saw.
Why the cinema?
When a local cinema does screenings of classics on a daily basis, and you see that for four days only, Memories of Murder will be up on the big screen, it’s an opportunity that you cancel plans in order to go and see.
Well, at least if you’re the type of person whose friends are sick of you talking about films they’ve never heard of.
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Now, I’m sure you can guess I tick that box, and Memories of Murder has been on my watchlist for quite some time, so I couldn’t wait to go and see it on the first of those four days.
And it did not disappoint.
What is ‘Memories of Murder’ about?
Memories of Murder follows detectives in the rural South Korean city of Hwaseong between 1986 and 1991, who are following the case of a serial killer who takes advantage of women on dark nights.
Detective Park Doo-man, played by Song Kang-ho, works alongside his brash number two, Detective Cho Yong-koo, played by Kim Roi-ha, and the Seoul-transfer Detective Seo Tae-yoon, played by Kim Sang-kyung, to decipher a confusing set of clues to work out who could be behind the brutal assault and murders of several women in the city.
The story follows them as they interrogate suspects and discover new information that seems to help them arbitrarily forward in what becomes their quest.
The deeper layers
What makes this film stand out is its insistence on adding more and more layers, to the point where, by the end, you will begin to question whether you are in the same genre as you were two hours ago.
It becomes apparent very early on that the focus of the film isn’t simply that of a ‘who dunnit’, and that it also focuses on the reality of evil, as well as the characters of the two lead detectives, Park and Seo.\
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Detective Park is initially a corrupt and arrogant official of the law, and the introduction of Detective Seo stands to challenge Park in both his morals and actions.
The final, deepest layer of the Memories of Murder rabbit hole is that of its basis.
What is ‘Memories of Murder’ based on?
Beginning in June 2003, it took Bong Joon-Ho one year to write the script, yet he has stated before that for the first six months, he didn’t write a single line and was instead researching.
Researching what you may ask?
Whilst fictional, Memories of Murder is based on the real Hwaseong serial murders that occurred between 1986 and 1991 in the Gyeonggi Province of South Korea, where an official number of 10 women were killed, often involving strangulation with their own clothing.
The murders went unsolved until a 2019 re-examination of the case used DNA evidence to tie Lee Choon-jae to the crimes, before he confessed, after being confronted whilst already in prison for another murder and sexual assault.
Chillingly, Lee said that he had seen the film and that he felt nothing watching it.
The verdict
There is no doubt in my mind that this film is an absolute classic, and I actually dragged my friends along with me for a second viewing on the fourth and final day that it was in the cinema.
Watching it for a second time revealed a whole new set of information to me, and I imagine I could watch it again tomorrow, and it would do the same again.
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