Indie Gems: Memories of Murder

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Inept Police Officers is a world wide thing. 

When a series of rapes and murder occurs in a small down in Korea in 1986, the two police officers put in charge, Detective Park (Kang-ho Song) and Detective Cho (Roe-ha Kim) being looking in all the wrong places. They don't have the resources to solve this murder, and their stuck in old school methods of looking for people easy to bully into statements. There's also those rumors of them beating suspects. Trust me, you'll see Cho throw many a drop kick. But all of that is changed when a detective from Seoul arrives, Seo. (Sang-kyung Kim) He's quite and thoughtful and does not accept any of the easy suspects Park and Cho bring in. He gets them deeper into trying to solve this.

Director Joon-Ho Bong has made some great movies of the past few years. Two of which I loved, Snowpiercer and Okja. I wanted to go back into his filmography so I started here and I'm glad I did. This was incredible. His style is here, dark, hard to watch at times, but with bits of quick humor thrown in. He thankfully spares us from any rape scenes, which I can never express enough how much I appreciate not seeing that in film. 

Sang-kyng Kim is magnetic. I loved when he was on screen. He had to whip everyone into shape but I was memorized when he was on screen. He makes you want to know more about Seo, even though the movie doesn't have the time. Our eyes belong to Kang-ho Song though, and he goes through a wonderful arc from bumbling to serious. 

I kind of had a moment when I put in this DVD, it started as an English dub and I was immediately irritated, but thankfully I found the spot in the options to change it back to the subbed version. It's better that way. If I have one complaint about the film, I was a little confused on one of the witnesses. I kept questioning myself if I had looked away for a moment.

The ending is rough, but the journey there is absolutely worth it.

Grade: A

Watched on: Netflix DVD

Memorable Quote: "Do you see this kind of thing in Seoul often? - Detective Park (Kang-ho Song)

Comments

  1. thevoid99January 5, 2018 at 2:16 PM

    This is definitely one of the best films of the last decade that I've seen as it shows why Bong Joon-Ho is so fucking awesome. I know people compare this film to Zodiac but I think this is a much better film. I've seen all of Joon-Ho's film with the exception of Okja but I can totally say that his body-of-work is incredible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJanuary 5, 2018 at 4:18 PM

      I didn't think of Zodiac once while watching this. That's interesting. I kept thinking about how I never see many non-American movies with inept cops.

      Delete
  2. UnknownJanuary 19, 2018 at 1:55 PM

    Oh man I really want to see this one. Looks different from Okja and Snowpiercer but actually like something I'd love more. I've seen The Host, also better than I expected (not that big fan of monster movies usually), and Mother sounds good too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJanuary 20, 2018 at 6:41 AM

      I definitely need to go through the rest of his films after seeing this. They're great. I hope you like this one!

      Delete

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