"Chunhyang-jon", a remake of Lee Kyu-hwan in 1955, broke a great track record by attracting two lakh people to move theatres in two months. The Korean miracle was beginning. Just a year later, Byung-il Lee's Comedy £The Wedding Day"received international awards, making South Korean cinema recognisable. The "Housemind" and Ki-mok Yoo's "Aimless Bullet" were produced in the years 1960-1961, the best known Korean films of all time. It was a turbulent year when the political events coincided with the rise of 1970. The single man situation brought state control and censorship mechanism in cinema. Propaganda films where released, but the expected attention was not achieved.
In 1973, Park Chung-hee took over. In this films defending state ideology, which is no different from propaganda films,were shot. This period ended in a bloody way. In 198, Im Kwon-taek reminded the South Korean film industry at film festivals, which was forgotten with the movie "Mandala"years later. In 1988, censorship was finally lifted and directors found a more free working space.In the 2000s, films like "My Sassy Girl" and "My Wife is a Gangster" fascinated American viewers and American cycles had to be done urgently. Achievements brought successes. Until 2017, South Korean directors continued to make steadily scrapped films. Let's take a look at the the "Memories of Murders" that came out in 2003 after this short historical journey to South Korean cinema and let us with witness why South Korean cinema is so successful.
I have repeatedly emphasised that the qualities of South Korean cinema, which has something to boost about. Certainly the most popular export product is thrillers, to which a group of filmmakers from that country gave their specific authorial stamp. The first part of my new blog "The Best Korean movies" starts with "Memories of Murders" which was released in 2003 and "Mother" released in 2009.
1. Memories of Murders (2003)
The movies is set in rural South Korea in 1986. Two murders of young girls have occurred investigating a tandem of local detectives Park Du Men (Kang-ho Song) and Cho Jong Ku (Rie-ha Kim). Their investigation has no technique, they do not stand for their intelligence, but they use brutality, with no practical results. A more capable and experienced detective Soe Tae Jun( Sang-kyung Kim) arrives to assist them, and a third murder case is soon underway...
Detectives have the enthusiasm to track down the perpetrator, but their efforts are hampered by sloppy police actions, unable to cope with delicate procedures for securing location and evidence. That enthusiasm over time boils down to beating suspects and drawing confessions. With the arrival of the city detective, their methods are improving, but they still have no perpetrator. Although the subject matter is dark, black scenes are flowing through the scenes, mostly based on the detritus of our detectives. A typical example is the scene when they comment that the killer leaves no hair and one of them suggests searching a Buddhist monastery for a waxing monk.
The scenario is based on the true story of the supposedly first serial killer in South Korea's history. When compared to modern forensics and criminal science, you have the impression that the operation happened a hundred years ago. This is where a lot of tension lies, because detectives cannot send each other a message during an ambush, and DNA analysis was at its inception. Our protagonists are sitting at a desk, typing reports on a typewriter, and photos of suspects are glued to notebooks with a brief description - all this does not promise great efficiency.
Moving along the line of less resistance, detectives are willing to bypass the rules to close cases. They follow local rumors regardless of the evidence and focus on a mentally ill man who was obsessed with one of the girls killed. The arrival of a city boy who has different ideas about how to investigate cases creates a rivalry between the detectives. However, it is not in the realm of a genre-cliché when the town guy discovers the quality of rural detective work. While the former are constantly throwing out ideas, the newcomer examines the evidence, stares at the photographs until late into the night, keeps her quiet and mostly thought to herself. One of the scenes breaks down that rivalry when everyone together realizes how helpless they are.
The director has created a real masterpiece of rhythm, tone and atmosphere. He used numerous landscapes of dark fields and grasses that sway slowly in the wind, as well as the surroundings of the factory and a small village with narrow streets. Mixing locations, he also mixed comic detectives with exciting scenes of police work, but also with some disturbing sequences. In the background, he also displayed a sense of threat that prevailed at that time in South Korea, where children practiced civil defense operations, in anticipation of attacks from the north. The situation was also reflected in police work, as people focused on the demonstration, as if desperately seeking a break from the homicide investigation.
It is easy to forget in thrillers that the victims were once alive. This movie is not like that, it never loses sight of that fact and that is one of the reasons it is so effective. The author masterfully captures the horror of a violent, almost surgically effective death and how detectives enter the world of victims while viewing the world from their perspective. Given that they are not accustomed to such events, the fear that the detective team feels on rainy days is almost palpable, and so stands out their humanity, which is another of the pluses of the film. The rain thus became a warning sign, bringing with it tension and death.
DIRECTOR: Boon Joon Ho
WRITER: Boon Joon Ho & Sung-bo Shim
SCREENPLAY: Kwang-rim Kim
CAST:
Kang-ho Song As Detective Park Doo-man
Sang-kyung Kim As Detective SEO Tae-yoon
Roe-h Kim As Detective Cho Yong-koo
Soe-hir Ko As Officer Kwi-ok
Hae-il Park As Park Hyeon-gyu
Woo Go-na As Kim So-hyeon
CREW:
Cinematography: Hyung-ku Kim
Music: Tarô Iwashiro
Editor: Sun-min Kim
VFX: Jong Ik Kang
Art Director: Seong-hie Ryu
2.Mother (2009)
Mother is a daring and dark portrait about this universal maternal feeling, this time accompanied by a turbulent plot that shakes the viewer and invites us to reflect and dig with detail and attention to the details of a terrible event while being guided by the Sore eyes of a mother. She is called Hye-ia and her son is her greatest treasure; that feeling is felt from the very beginning of the film when, while he deftly cuts bundles of a kind of plant, his eyes rest on the innocent fiddling his son makes with a dog; An unexpected incident occurs and she, regardless of her status, rushes to her aid. That is enough to understand the psychological development and character of the protagonist of the story. Shortly after his son (Do-Joon) is accused of committing a cruel murder, and found guilty without further formalities; It is there when the drama becomes more scary, bloody, violent and ruthless, when the deepest human resources are unraveled in order to obtain what is desired regardless of the rocks that the road offers to overcome.
The director offers us a brilliant study of characters, beings known to all who are subjected to horrific episodes; shows us a mother's dispute over her son so that he can be released from the accusations made against him; It shows us that for the love of a parent there are no limits. Yes, because that is the central issue after all. A mother who by all means looks for a way to show everyone the innocence of her son. Bong Joon-ho bets on the rescue of a battered figure by many, and relegated to the background in most Asian countries, when in fact he deserves exaltation for all that he is and represents. Through the extraordinary interpretation that Bin Won offers us we perceive the helplessness she conceives, we feel her pain and despair going through her crowded body, the fragility in the solitude of her room, the humiliation to which she is submerged, the fear of unknown, risking even his dignity and his own life without measuring the results. All this in a collage of genres that range from drama to thriller, even playing some black comedy. The approach that is given to the investigation, treating the police as morons, and which is led by the defendant's mother makes the game interesting and effective, capturing the viewer's attention, making it part of this overwhelming intrigue.
The woman walks through a thick field unknown to everyone, including her. Your mind is elsewhere, shipwrecked, transported to another time. He wants to forget. He has got there and does not want to remember how. Is mother. He is over sixty years old, and in charge of the care and protection of his only son, a twenty-seven-year-old with delayed problems that also represents a danger to an entire community. Dance to the rhythm that the melody sounds; I hadn't done it long ago, maybe I was busy unraveling for giving her offspring a better quality of life, or just following in her footsteps so she wouldn't get into big trouble or have problems with the authorities. Even at her age, she is very active, she strives to fight and not let her guard down; many, possibly, would have surrendered to abandonment, would have pronounced a strong and loud “enough is enough”; but she is still standing; Because she is a mother. What is a mother capable of doing for love? It is the first thing I wonder at the end of watching the South Korean film Bong Joon-ho, because during his more than one hundred and twenty minutes I have been shaken and slapped by his rudeness and at the same time I have admired the beauty and sacrifice of a mother to protect to his offspring to the strongest and toughest consequences.
DIRECTOR: Boon Joon Ho
STORY: Boon Joon Ho
SCREENPLAY: Eun-kyo Park
CAST:
Hye-ja Kim As Mother
Won Bin As Yoon Do-joon
Goo Jin As Jin-tae
Je-mun Yum As Je-moon
Mi-seon Neon As Mi-sun
Woo-hee Chun As Mi-na
CREW:
Cinematography: Kyung-pyo Hong
Music: Byung-woo Lee
Editor: Sae-kyoung Moon
VFX: Dongho Han; Chang-bae Kang & Domgsoo Kim
Stunts: Dong-Hyeon Baek