MEMORIES OF MURDER
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
In MEMORIES OF MURDER (SALINUI CHUEOK), Inspector Park (Song Kang-Ho), an oaf currently searching for a serial murderer and rapist in rural Korea, has an unusual and not very effective technique for "solving" crimes. After finding some impressionable person who could be guilty -- a retarded young man named Kwang-ho (Park No-shik) is his current pick -- Park plants evidence and then tortures and threatens his suspect until he can force a confession out of him. Park resents the fact that Inspector Seo (Kim Sang-Kyung), who is sent down from Seoul to help in the investigation, insists on finding the actual perpetrator of the crimes. The victims are gorgeous single women in red dresses who are killed on rainy nights -- basic facts of the crime scene that manage to escape Park's notice until Seo comes along. Eventually Park and Seo do team up more effectively, but is there first real suspect the rapist or merely a pervert who happened to be doing the wrong thing in the woods at the wrong time? The uneven movie has tonal problems, and it's never clear what it wants us to make of these strange cop buddies. Although they keep our attention, by the end, we feel like they've done little more than idle away our time. Since this film was a big hit in Korea, perhaps there is something that just doesn't transfer well for American audiences.
MEMORIES OF MURDER runs 2:07. The film is in Korean with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be an R for sex, nudity and violence and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
It will be playing as part of the 47th annual San Francisco International Film Festival (http://www.sfiff.org), which runs April 15-29, 2004.
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