Rashomon

"Men are only men. That's why they lie. They can't tell the truth, even to themselves."

Release Year: 1950
Country: Japan
Genre: Psychological drama
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Screenwriter: Akira Kurosawa, Shigeki Hashimoto
Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa
Music: Fumio Hayasaka
Editing: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura

One of the greatest movies of all-time.

The first Japanese movie to ever got massive international recognition, just a few years after the Hiroshima-Nagasaki nuclear bombing.

The pinnacle of black-and-white cinematography, art of story-telling, and cinema in general.

Yup, Rashomon is kind of special.


Adapted and developed from a couple of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's classic short stories (the setting from 'Rashomon' and the basic story concept from 'In A Grove'), the film's outer narrative frame takes form as a conversation between a commoner, (Kichijiro Ueda) a woodcutter (Shimura), and a priest (Minoru Chiaki); all are taking shelter from the rain under the gate of Rashomon. The woodcutter and the priest had just given testimonies in the court for a case involving a bandit (Mifune), a samurai (Mori), and the samurai's wife (Kyo), where the samurai is dead and the wife is (possibly) raped. The woodcutter recounts to the commoner the strange circumstances surrounding the case: there are four radically different testimonies, four different versions of what had happened and who is responsible for the tragedy, and absolutely no way to prove which one of them is the truth.

By far, the most famous aspect of Rashomon is its multiple-perspectives storytelling; a repeated narration of a single event with variations on each version, as seen and reiterated by multiple characters. The purpose of this approach is to highlight the central themes of both the film and the original story by Akutagawa; the nature of perception, manipulation of information to fulfill one's subjective desire, and the non-existence of an objective truth. It also touches upon morality of mankind, and the reason on why it is so easy for us to resort to lies and deception.


The way the narrative unfolds, we are presented with a set of facts:

~The bandit caught glimpses of the samurai and the samurai's wife in the middle of a forest
~The bandit was instantly attracted by the wife, and managed to subdue the samurai while in the process of romancing the wife
~The samurai is later found dead by the woodcutter, who was also the one to notify authorities

Afterward, the bandit and the samurai's wife were brought to the court, where the ensuing claims and contradictions in their testimonies naturally gave rise to lots of questions.

The brilliant thing is, Rashomon does not provide answer to those questions. We do not get to see what had really happened; the truth is too muddled up and there is no detective-type character to sort everything out. While this may sounds frustrating (when watching movies, we generally expect the movie to give a clear definite answer to the nature of its conflict), the movie does provide a closure in another way while still preserving the air of mystery and uncertainty that surrounds the whole thing. As emphasized by Kurosawa himself, the point of the story is not about the truth itself, but rather on how easily it can be bend and perceived subjectively to whatever reason (although it is certainly a lot of fun to speculate and develop theories on what really happened!).

The actors' performance is another a key part in enhancing the story, especially by Mifune, Mori, and Kyo, who played the three central figures in the mystery. They were demanded to apply subtle differences and variations to their character portrayals in each version of the story, while still maintaining the same basic characteristic. Mifune displayed the most showmanship by portraying the erratic and often over-the-top bandit, and Mori generates a lot of sympathy with his doomed character, but the best (and most difficult) performance comes from Kyo, who completely succeed in giving drastically different interpretations to the roles of her character.

In Kyo's hands, The Wife is a perfect question mark, easily the most interesting character and the hardest one to figure out.

She transforms constantly as either an innocent and graceful lady...

a pitiful and helpless victim....


...a despicable traitor...


...or a manipulative temptress.

The rich narrative is complemented by a magnificent visual, courtesy of Kurosawa's vision and Kazuo Miyagawa's cinematography. Seriously, watching the film is like having a visual orgasm: the composition, texture, and lighting just blended so well and proved once and for all that you need neither color nor fancy technology in order to create a visual piece of art (heck, after watching this, I got the urge to go out and watch as much black-and-white films as possible. Screw 3D, this is the perfect eye candy to me). Accompanied by a booming score that punctuates the many suspenseful scenes, this movie has one terrific atmosphere to boot.


The greatest joy in watching Rashomon to me is to spot differences in the multiple perspectives presented, to cross-check each character's perception of themselves and of others, and to try interpreting the motivation behind their claims and lies (for it is obvious that all of the characters had lied to certain extent, and none of the testimonies can be taken at face value). It is also a rare cinematic experience that keeps being rewarding on re-watches; there seems to always be a new piece to gorgeous scenery to goggle at, new narrative possibilities to consider, and new facial expression to interpret.

Either as a morality tale, an open-ended mystery, or a celebration of art, craft, and creative mind, Rashomon is an undisputed masterpiece born from one of the greatest film directors ever. An excellent treat for the eyes, ears, brain, and heart.

Halloween

"It was the bogeyman."

Release Year: 1978
Country: United States
Genre: Horror
Director: John Carpenter
Screenwriter: John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Cinematography: Dean Cundey
Music: John Carpenter
Editing: Charles Bornstein, Tommy Lee Wallace
Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, Donald Pleasence

Back in 1978, a man named John Carpenter directed, wrote, and provided the music for his little film project that would later had a huge impact to Hollywood's horror movie industry. The film is called Halloween, and it is about a boy named Michael Myers. A boy who killed a teenage girl at the age of six, spend the next 15 years in mental asylum, and escaped one day to revisit his hometown in Haddonfield, Illinois. A boy who then sets his sight on an unfortunate high-school student named Laurie Strode (Curtis), while being chased by his former psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasence) who refers to him as the Evil itself...


There are lots of things that set Halloween apart from the numerous slasher/splatter/serial killer thriller movies where a bunch of attractive-looking teenagers are hunted and killed by a superhuman and super-evil psychopath. It may have a superficial similarity with its contemporaries' chase-and-kill franchises (Friday The 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.), but it is a much different creature compared to the majority of them; mainly because it is just so much more elegant and accomplished. It does not provide cheap thrills and it does not have geysers of blood, random shock scenes, and excessive gorn (pornographic gore); what it does have, however, is a tremendous amount of craft, solid and memorable characters, and a very strong atmosphere.

Here, Carpenter created some of the most iconic and memorable moments in the history of American horror cinema. He used inventive set-pieces (who can ever forget the first 15 minutes of the film, where we are placed in 6-year old Michael's point of view?), tinkered with camera angles and placements to maximize tension, and utilized lighting (reportedly inspired from Roman Polanski's classic film Chinatown) to great effect. Then, there is the music, the most influential element to Halloween's mood and tension. It is a collection of dissonant and menacing ditties that hardly ever let up throughout the duration; always there, always remind the audiences that Evil is nearby, and always does a great job in scaring the hell out of me.


Michael Myers (his six-year old self is played by Will Sandin at the prologue, the face of his 21-year old self is provided by Tony Moran during a single brief scene when his mask comes off, but most of what we see of him is played by Nick Castle, eerily credited as 'The Shape') is one of a kind antagonist. The motive and reasoning behind his murderous intent are never explained here, he is simply just there to kill and violates nature; and THAT is precisely why Michael is one of the scariest character the cinema ever conceived. The way he is physically presented is just as brilliant: obscured by shadows most of the times, wearing that unnerving white mask, and the only sound that ever comes from him is the heavy and terrifying sound of his breathing. He is the embodiment of evil, and as some characters put it, the bogeyman; something that resembles human but does not posses a human's heart or emotion, an indestructible shape used by mothers to scare their kids from not staying outside too late.


On the other side, there is Laurie Strode. She is played to perfection by Curtis, an actress with great charisma and an ability to produce terrific and very convincing screams (earning her the moniker 'Scream Queen' among fans). Laurie is established early as an intelligent girl, more familiar with books rather than boys, and a much more responsible part-time baby-sitter compared to her less virginal friends, Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda van der Klok (P.J. Soles). The presentation of the characters is hardly subtle (Laurie impressively explained F.E. Samuels' concept of fate in her class, Annie remarked snidely to Laurie, "You need trolley to carry all that books", and Lynda has a long rant where she derogatorily mentions the word 'books' as many times as possible), but there is no denying that Laurie is set up very effectively as the noble heroine. If Michael is Evil, then she (along with Loomis, whose single purpose is to find and destroy Michael) is the Good.

Yes, Halloween is practically a fairy tale in modern setting, only with an antagonist much scarier than any witches or dragons could ever be.


Operating under this Good vs. Evil motif, Halloween hardly wastes any time doing unnecessary stuffs. Michael is set free, Michael comes, Michael kills, and Michael faces Laurie; everything clocks in at only 91 minutes, mercifully free from a romance sub-plot or any other irrelevant embellishments. The ending fits really well with the whole theme; while it may ends in an apparent cliffhanger, it is actually a very elegant way to wrap up the whole thing and serves as a chilling reminder that Good may be able to defeat Evil, but Evil will keep coming back since it cannot really die.

Well, in the end there may be one thing that can truly kills Evil: money. Following this movie's success, a long list of sequels and remakes were eventually born to the world; none of them ever came close to the quality of the original film. Michael's motive is explained, gleeful amount of blood and violence is introduced, and the atmospheric set-up is replaced with the good old 'kill-them-all' formula. But, while it may had devolved to a cash-grabbing and brain-dead franchise, John Carpenter's first Halloween shall always be remembered as a horror masterpiece, made with so much skill and elegance; a dark fairy tale, featuring the Virgin Princess, The Avenging Angel....and The Bogeyman.

Happy Halloween.

Leaf on A Pillow

"How come a human being lost his rights to be buried...?"

Release Year: 1998
Country: Indonesia
Genre: Social drama
Director: Garin Nugroho
Screenwriter: Garin Nugroho, Armantono
Cinematography: Nurhidayat
Music: Djaduk Ferianto
Editing: Sentot Sahid
Actors: Christine Hakim, Kancil, Heru, Sugeng

The first time I watched this movie, I was in elementary school. But, even with my limited understanding and attention-deficit tendency, the image of a kid sniffing glue near the railway was forever seared in my brain. That image is just one of the many highlights in this brutally realistic depiction of lives in the ancient city of Jogjakarta; especially the unfortunate lives of slum-dwelling, glue-sniffing, education-deprived, street children.

Leaf on A Pillow (Daun di Atas Bantal) follows the daily lives of Kancil, Heru, and Sugeng, three street children who eat and sleep under the shelter provided by Asih (Hakim), a tough craftswoman who acts as a foster mother to them. The boys spend their days hanging around the train railway, collecting a meager amount of money through various ways, and generally just try having fun in the bustling streets of Jogjakarta. However, with their lifestyle, lack of formal citizenship, and the constant danger of being targeted by organized crime, a peaceful and lengthy life will be something that they will never have.


Garin Nugroho is one of the absolute best directors in Indonesia, and his technical craft really shone in Leaf in A Pillow. His movie is not merely a conventional character drama, but an artful composition of images and impressions that portray a vibrant, living, and breathing city. In a sense, even though the focus of the narrative is Asih and her street children, this is not just a story about them--this is story of a city and its inhabitants. The way Garin constructed and framed most of his shots are really impressive, as he loaded them with so many details and sensory triggers. As a result, the setting really comes alive instead of just being a static backdrop to the characters, representing the life cycle and daily routine of Jogjakarta inhabitants through a collection of strongly atmospheric mise en scenes; whether it is a high school girl popping pills inside a public bathroom, traveling saxophonist blowing out his tunes into the dark sky, musicians gathering in the night and singing to Paul Mauriat's Love Is Blue, or a small girl waiting nervously to cross the street in the middle of a busy traffic.

The episodic feel and semi-documentary approach make the narrative a bit challenging to follow. Exposition is rare, and character interactions are based on random snippets of dialogues instead of having specific functions to drive the plot. Context is seldom stated explicitly, the audience should learn them by the process of observation and drawing inferences (except at the very end of the movie, where Garin feels the need to address and explain a specific social problem). Consequently, the script is much less memorable than the audiovisual elements that accompany it (the titular 'leaf on a pillow', Asih's keepsake which is regarded in high value by the boys, does not make much impression because of it), and there are times when I wonder if it could have been better if Garin just make it a full-documentary.


However, there is an undeniable naturalistic feel caused by such approach, which is also mirrored by the performances of Kancil, Heru, and Sugeng, who are genuine street children in real life. It is obvious that they were not really ordered to 'act', but instead to just behave as they normally do and as if there is no camera following them (Heru, who is the most dominant and abrasive, is easily the most memorable among them). The responsibility to anchor the movie's dramatic parts falls to Hakim, a senior actress who attacks her role with slow-burning vigor and intensity, especially during the final act where a cycle of tragedy is completed (ruined somewhat by scenes of a phony-looking news report and a very stiff delivery from the reporter, which are probably the only false tones in this otherwise very graceful film).

Despite a very lively atmosphere and cinematography, the thematic concerns of the film is presented in a detached way. There is no unnecessary melodrama, and this is not a story of how the power of love and friendship can fix everything. It is a portrayal of a harrowing reality, and a matter-of-fact social commentary: tragedy in Leaf on A Pillow is not treated as an anomaly, but a common and inevitable occurrence in the less fortunate lives of Indonesian street children.


Overpopulation continues to be a problem in Indonesia, as several hundred thousands street children roam every big cities in the country. According to the official law, the responsibility to nurture these children falls to the government, but it is clear by now that both the central and local governments are largely powerless (or worse, ignorant) to address this social issue satisfyingly. Kids like Kancil, Heru, and Sugeng can only depend on similarly struggling people like Asih and the occasional NGOs, and while living near the fast-moving trains, gangsters, and the many crime syndicates, every new day could really be their last.

Butterfly on A Wheel

"People said that they would do anything for their children. Anything. Well, I'm going to put a test on that."

Release Year: 2007
Country: Canada
Genre: Psychological thriller
Director: Mike Barker
Screenwriter: William Morrissey
Cinematography: Ashley Rowe
Music: Robert Duncan
Editing: Guy Bensley, Bill Sheppard
Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Gerard Butler, Maria Bello

The scariest thing that could happen to people is to lose the precious things in their possession. Family, career, money, and all the good stuffs. And yet, we are seldom grateful for having them. We keep wanting and pushing for more, feeling that there is no way we can lose what we already have. Except that we can, and sometimes we deserve that. This point is wonderfully made in Butterfly on A Wheel, a kidnapping thriller with strong plotting, nice execution of twists, and a very satisfying performance from the former Mr. James Bond.

The conflict in the movie revolves around a happily married couple, Neil (Butler) and Abby Randall (Bello). They are living a perfect life: a nice house, a cute little daughter, and a bright future with Neil closing in on a big promotion. Then one day, they left their daughter with a baby-sitter, take a leave on a car, and a mysterious man (Brosnan) jumps on them from the backseat. The Mystery Man has a gun, and he orders Neil and Abby to follow everything he says, otherwise he will tell the "baby-sitter" (who is apparently his accomplice) to kill the daughter.


It does not take long for the movie to kick up the suspense; only fifteen very efficient minutes to establish Neil and Abby's domestic life, Neil's office, and small (but very noticeable) details that would contribute to the story later. From there, we are very effectively placed in the perspective of Neil and Abby. We have no idea about The Mystery Man's identity or motive, and besides one suggestive shot, we also do not get to see their kidnapped daughter and her situation. And as they scramble up to do everything The Mystery Man wants, cracks started to show up: perhaps they are not really living the perfect life, after all.


A lot of the scenes depends on Brosnan's performance, and boy, he really nailed this one. The plotting of the movie is built around his character, and he is also a powerful magnet that draw all the audience's attention toward him (which serves an even more important purpose than it sounds). Instead of playing a stereotypical evil villain, Brosnan embodies a man with strong authority, cold menace, and a VERY strong will to get what he wants. It turns out that, unlike a regular kidnapper, it is not money The Mystery Man is after. For a while it seems that he is a madness-driven sociopath who just want to systematically destroy Neil's and Abby's lives, and yet there is a certain method in his madness.


The titular phrase 'butterfly on a wheel' is an allusion to Pope Alexander's poem ("Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"--usually interpreted as an unnecessarily radical action to achieve something minor) and metaphor of the situation that The Mystery Man creates. Neil and Abby are seemingly the butterflies, being crushed by the Mystery Man. Essentially, it all boils down to a question: why? And the answer comes to us in a terrific revelation, which shifted the audiences' perspective, shatters our perception, and force us to re-evaluate how we feel about the characters and how we interpret the events that happened. Finally, let's also say that the ending sequence after the revelation is one of the most satisfying I have seen from this kind of movies.

It is quite easy to make a story with a twist ('aliens did it! it is all government conspiracy! the guy is a ghost the whole time!'), but you cannot make a good twist/revelation by just forcing the most surprising thing you can think of into the end of your story. The principal rule is to play fair with the audience without being too obvious, and Butterfly did just that. It drops many clues, but also maintains layers of deception and distraction to obscure the answer--which feels obvious in retrospect. It has no complicated trick (like the backward-plot in Memento, a very good movie in its own right), just a very basic, effective, and logical set-up that clicks together by the very end and offers significantly different (and just as enjoyable) re-watch experience once you already knew everything.


This is probably my favorite kidnapping thriller, and while it is not some art masterpiece or an excellent technical achievement, I really can't help but adore its elegant narrative structure. Most of all, it has a strong emotional impact to me. It conveys the feeling of being so close to lose something precious. It makes me cherish what I have and reminds me not to take them for granted--after all, I may someday find myself as the butterfly, being crushed to pieces by the wheel.

Infernal Affairs

"I am a cop."

Release Year: 2002
Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Crime drama/action thriller
Director: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
Screenwriter: Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Cinematography: Andrew Lau, Lai Yiu-fai, Christopher Doyle
Music: Chan Kwong-wing
Editing: Danny Pang, Curran Pang
Actors: Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang

Conciseness is a beautiful thing. If you can effectively express your idea in five sentences, do not add unnecessary sentences that contributes nothing much. The same principle also applies to movies: you want to engage, entertain, and get the point across in as short time as possible. Infernal Affairs, a thrilling cop drama that rejuvenated Hong Kong cinema at the time of its release, is a huge success at that aspect: even with its relatively short running time (101 minutes), there are enough actions and ideas that make it feels like a three-hour epic.


The premise: a cop is sent undercover to a triad organization, while a member from that triad is planted in the police department. A simple hook, yet so undeniably attractive and lead to numerous complex consequences. Tony Leung plays the cop-in-the-triad Chan Wing-yan, Andy Lau as the triad-mole-in-the-police Lau Kin-ming, while Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang are Superintendent Wong Chi-shing and triad boss Hong Sam, the two men who sent them on their missions. From there, it is a race for Chan and Lau to uncover each other while struggling to preserve their sense of identity.

The story unfolds like a chess game between two huge risk-takers, with a series of maneuvers and counter-maneuvers initially canceling each other. Then, first blood is drawn, and from there the chess pieces are rapidly decimated until it peaks in a climactic showdown and an outcome that should not be easily predicted by any viewer. The whole thing is paced and edited so well, making sure that there is never any lulls or drawn out moments during the time it steadily builds up tension, pressure, and stakes. Even the romantic sub-plot of the two main characters, which is possibly the only part of the movie I found unnecessary (mainly because the female characters are not written really well), could still work as a stop-gap to enhance the leads' character development and highlight the mental anguish they have been experiencing.


Overlying the thrilling cop vs. gangster action, there are open-ended philosophical questions regarding morality and identity. If you are A but spent so much time pretending to be B, does it mean you are practically turning into B? Similarly, if you are A but no one knows or acknowledges that you are A, are you still A? On top of them, there is also an integrated concept from Buddhism belief: living itself is a perpetual hell, thus death is actually a merciful end to that suffering. It may be a common conception that characters who survived at the end of the movie had better fate than those who did not, but Infernal Affairs subverts that and implicitly points out that the survivor of the whole mess still has to live and suffer.

Of course, all that psychological and thematic depth would be useless if the characters failed to make us care about them. Fortunately, it is yet another successful aspect of the movie, thanks to the performances from Lau and (especially) Leung. Both actors are great in portraying increasingly conflicted (both against the other men and against themselves) men, and makes for two hugely sympathetic leads. The supporting cast, while not as developed, also play their crucial parts in impacting the mental progress of the two main characters.

To summarize, Infernal Affairs raises adrenaline as effectively as it provokes thought and strong emotional impact; smoothly getting from point A to point B while also optimizing its time for detours that enhance the whole journey. It had spawned two sequels that I have not watched yet, as well as a Hollywood remake in 2007. The remake, Martin Scorsese's The Departed, is a fine movie in its own right; but it is far less effective than this movie, mainly because (to underline my previous point about conciseness) it runs for an hour longer and consequently reduces the original story's impact and fast-paced feel. Again, if something already works great with less, why add the unnecessary?

Hunger

"I have my belief and in all its simplicity it is the most powerful thing."

Release Year: 2008
Country: United Kingdom/Northern Ireland
Genre: Political drama
Director: Steve McQueen
Screenwriter: Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen
Cinematography: Sean Bobbitt
Music: David Holmes
Editing: Joe Walker
Actors: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, Liam McMahon

A bit of context: in 1981, a hunger strike was conducted by the paramilitary prisoners from Irish Republican Army and became a crucial part in the propaganda war staged by IRA against the British government (in particular, the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). The aim is for the prisoners to be granted back their political status, which would enable them the rights not to wear prison uniforms and to have free association with other prisoners, among other things. The strike is the second attempt following the first one a year ago, which ended prematurely and unsuccessfully for the prisoners.

Steve McQueen's Hunger, a dramatization of the event, focused strictly on the chronological happenings inside the Maze prison. The key figures are Bobby Sands (Fassbender), leader of the strike, Father Dominic Moran (Cunningham), a priest coming to the prison to argue with Sands about the moral implications of the strike, Raymond Lohan (Graham), a prison officer under perpetual threat of murder by IRA assassins, and a handful other IRA prisoners doing various acts of political statements in the decrepit prison.


Wisely avoiding any political discourses about IRA, the British government, or even the national impact of the strike itself, the movie is interested in doing only one thing: to objectively examine an act triggered by overwhelming determination. Neither the act nor Sands are painted as heroic (consider the words from Thatcher herself, "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organization did not allow to many of its victims"), but they are also not portrayed as misguided or hypocritical. Instead of presenting the situation as a huge political battle between Sands vs. Thatcher or IRA vs. British government, it simply gives a personal, visceral, and matter-of-fact reenactment of the condition and happenings inside Maze prison.

The filming style is distinctively artistic: lots of long shots, heavy preference on images over words or dialogues, and a loose continuity editing that defies conventional plot structure. In this regard, the approach is a hit-and-miss: it does achieve a strong and raw impact, but the manner in which it is assembled (especially in the beginning) feels rather haphazard, does not lend much narrative depth, and perhaps leaned too much toward the prisoners' side (the viewpoint from the other side, as represented by the character of Lohan, does not work as effectively as the images of the prisoners scrubbing their feces on walls or struggling against the officers' violent conducts). The movie, however, picks up some serious momentum on 'the conversation' segment and onward.

'The conversation', a single uninterrupted 17-minute shot where Bobby converses with Father Dominic, is easily the highlight of Hunger in both narrative and technical aspects. Not only it really stands out in a movie with so few words and dialogues, but it is very well-acted (Fassbender and Cunningham reportedly had to live together and practice this scene for at least twelve times a day) and does a great job in underlining the whole point of a hunger strike from Bobby's perspective and Father Dominic's counter-perspective.

And then, after showing us the mindset of someone brave/determined/crazy enough to do the act, Hunger proceeds to show what happened to a human body when denied food for a very long time. Internal bleeding. Kidney failure. Low blood pressure. Ulcer. All those look very realistic, stark, and affecting, as we see Sands' slow and painful suffering in horror. Fassbender's commitment must be heavily praised, and while I don't exactly know just how far he went for this whole segment (he lost LOTS of pounds, that's for sure) and how much is the contribution from the make-up department, he certainly did a very convincing job portraying a man slowly dying of starvation.

Even with the closing narrative text detailing the aftermath of the strike, Hunger did not end with a sense of triumph or defeat on either side. It is not meant to generate sympathy for the cause of the hunger strikers, or condemn them for doing such an act, but to show just how far someone can go for something he truly believes in.

Memories of Murder

He could be anyone. Could be anywhere. Could be you.

Release Year: 2003
Country: South Korea
Genre: Procedural suspense/psychological thriller
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Screenwriter: Bong Joon-ho, Shim Sung-bo, Kim Kwang-rim
Cinematography: Kim Hyung-ku
Music: Tarō Iwashiro
Editing: Kim Sun-min
Actors: Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung, Kim Roe-ha

In most fictional stories about murder investigation, it is always made clear to the audiences that the killer, no matter how smart or cruel he/she is, will always be captured by the end of the story. Body is found, clues are gathered, investigation is conducted, and a couple of red herrings later (or if this is a particularly blood-thirsty killer, another murdered body or two), the crime-fighter (either police force, forensic team, private detective, or even a civilian) will reveal the killer's identity in a dramatic fashion. Justice will always win.

Needless to say, murder cases in real life rarely work as smoothly as that. They often went unsolved, either through incompetence, bad luck, or just the fact that the killer had outsmarted the investigators. This harsh reality is magnificently illustrated by Memories of Murder, a depiction of real life murder investigation between 1986 and 1991 in Hwaseong, South Korea (a stage play version of the events was also made, whose screenplay is adapted for this movie).


In a sleepy village during the period of military dictatorship, bodies of raped and murdered young women are found and sparked an investigation for a potential serial killer. Bumbling local detectives, Park Doo-man (Song Kang-ho) and Cho Yong-koo (Kim Roe-ha) are in charge of the case, and they are soon joined by Seoul detective, Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung)--whose refined method and no-nonsense attitude cause him to butt heads often with Doo-man. However, as bodies continue to pile up and clues lead to nowhere, desperation mounts on the investigators.

The most remarkable thing about Memories' narrative is how well it juggles its duality of tones. Its beginning is surprisingly funny and comical, showing how out of depth Doo-man and Yong-koo are: they can't properly secure a crime scene, they conduct unethical interrogation techniques (Yong-koo is seemingly more adept in drop-kicking suspect than in doing any real detective work), and Doo-man likes to make ridiculous deduction and later even consult a paranormal. At first, Tae-yoon's arrival and his much more professional background seem to be the key to crack the case wide open and help the incompetent detectives, which is likely to happen in a more generic and less realistic movie. But, not even him could yield a significant breakthrough, as the tone and mood of the movie becomes increasingly dark and desperate.


Memories' real focus is not in the who's, how's, or why's o the murderer. It is about the investigators and their mental states: how they went from comical arrogance and dogged determination to growing impatience and anxiety, and finally to a soul-crushing sense of resignation and defeat (similar theme can also be seen in David Fincher's 2007 movie Zodiac, also based on an unsolved real life serial murder case). The actors' performances are wonderful and natural, most especially from Kang-ho as Doo-man, the chubby detective whose silly and comical attitude is a perfect mask for his inner turmoil and frustration.


Another highlight I would like to mention is Kim Kung-hyu's cinematography, which is often stunning. One such example is the darkly gorgeous landscape shots of a sprawling paddy field near the crime scene, which often becomes the backdrop for the investigators flailing their way around, just like some blind hunters in the killing field of a predator way too smart and elusive for them. While the movie does not have many action scenes, the framing of those scenes are very well-done. There are two exhilarating chase scenes that play out in a very realistic manner, and one particularly memorable scene where the shady killer ambush one of his victims--a very scary moment that builds up dreadful anticipation way better than most thriller movies.


While it looks like Song Kang-ho above is just making a slightly lost expression, when taken in context it makes for one of the most perfect and haunting final shot I have ever seen. That shot pretty much represents the whole movie. Do not watch Memories if you want clear definite answer for the question. Do not watch it as well if you want to see savvy genius detectives figuring out everything. Watch it if you want to see an excellent portrayal of a harsh and bleak reality, where sometimes there is no closure at the end of the road.

Justice cannot always win.