No Thanks for the Memories

On another one of those "great obscure movies you've probably never seen" lists, I found out about a South Korean movie called Memories of Murder. Made in 2003, but set in the mid 1980s, the movie was a rough adaptation of real life events -- the investigation into one of the countries first serial killers.

Something about the film seemed intriguing. Crime thrillers abound, of course, even those about serial killers. But there was something inherently novel in the implied cultural differences here. To think that South Korea had never really had a major serial murderer until well after a sadly long list here in the U.S. (including the high profile examples of John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, The Zodiac, and Ted Bundy -- just to scratch the surface). This movie would surely be a real break from the established formula of more familiar crime movies.

Unfortunately, it really wasn't. Yes, there are a few key plot points surrounding the lack of experience among the detectives. But it doesn't feel like the movie makes much out of the unusual circumstances of this case. Instead, it seems to assume a 2003 audience well-accustomed to the American crime formula, and it simply delivers the "domestic" spin on that. True, the film dares to have an ending that most Hollywood films would not (but it's rather necessary, as it's true to the facts of the real-life case), but that doesn't do enough to make up for a surprisingly conventional film.

I guess I went in actively hoping for something that would feel like foreign cinema. Instead, it felt a lot like American cinema in a foreign language, with a foreign cast. And ultimately, I would only rate it a D. Perhaps that's being a bit harsh, docking the film for my own misaligned expectations. But for whatever the reasons, I found the film to be overlong, even tedious in places. It just failed to hold my interest.