Review: Memories of Murder (2003)

It’s 1986 and the province of Gyunggi is in the midst of a crisis when young women begin turning up dead, ritualistically raped and murdered in the fields that populate its landscape. To make matters worse the top two detectives in the area, Detectives Doo-man Park and Yong-koo Cho, are as brutal as they are stupid, cutting corners in the investigation by beating confessions out of suspects and planting evidence at crime scenes in an effort to get the case closed as quickly as possible. The situation is devolving with every passing day until a glimmer of hope appears in the form of Tae-yoon Seo, a detective from Seoul that volunteered to leave the big city to help the investigation in Gyunggi, convinced that the collection of rural villages has a bona fide serial killer on their hands, he quickly gets down to the business of creating a profile for the killer and mapping his patterns. Tae-yoon’s methods are met with more than a small amount of resistance by the bumbling officers working the case but as the body count rises everyone involved in the investigation realizes that a new brand of thinking may be needed to catch this monster, touted at the time as the first serial killer South Korea has ever had.

As depraved a story as Memories of Murder seems to possess, the first half of the film is wrought with moments of random hilarity. That is, if watching Korean people surprise each other with drop kicks is your idea of funny. The film’s exposition is overall a well handled affair, and as unsettling as it is to see the detectives responsible for solving the case rounding up clearly innocent suspects, it sets the stage for the film’s second half shift towards serious police work. It’s a balancing act that is perfectly embodied by the film’s centerpiece, Detective Park, who undergoes a gradual transformation through the story that is defined by its urgency. It’s a subtle performance that is masterfully played by Kang-ho Song who lends the character a humorous intensity, punctuated by moments of fragility brought on by his character’s own intellectual shortcomings.

Director Joon Ho-bong doesn’t pull in the reigns for any of his actors. Some of the scenes more poignant moments are prone to succumbing to the much beloved Korean film practice of melodrama (the purposely sentimental music is particularly abrasive) and more often than not, it’s a poor fit for the rest of the movie. I won’t fault Ho-bong too much though as the technical aspects of Memories of Murder are just spot-on. The movements of the camera in even the most chaotic moments of the film are noticeably fluid, letting the audience see the scenes play out, unlike the experience offered by the hindered vision of Hollywood’s go-to style of smash cut heavy action cinematography. There is a chase scene in the midsection of the film that is just beautifully put together by all involved. Beginning in a dark forest, twisting and turning through a small rural village, and ending dramatically with a moment of silent suspense in a crowded rock quarry, it’s an amazing set piece that serves not only to excite but also section the film’s opposite halves.

Memories of Murder is not the most in depth police procedural. Much like the borderline crooked cops tasked to solve the case, the screenwriters also cut corners trying to get through the investigation as quickly as possible, dropping a few too many coincidental breaks to move things along for my taste. On the flip side, I appreciated that the writers avoided the tendency that these types of movies have to spoon-feed the audience all relevant information, leaving the responsibility of keeping up with the rapidly moving story up to the viewer. Technical details aside, this movie has more heart than your typical serial killer flick and late in the movie when things are really going south, I found myself pulling for my favorite characters to keep the ship afloat. Memories of Murder is a borderline great film held back by a bit of lazy writing, but despite that, it’s a film I’m very fond of and can’t recommend it enough to fans of the genre or cinema fans in general.