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MEMORIES OF MURDER ‘Salinui chueok’ (2003)

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Song Kang-ho is definitely my favourite South Korean actor.

If he is in a film I will take a look. His talent is immense and his capacity for comedy and drama is always a joy to behold.

Directed by Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother and the highly anticipated Snowpiercer), this cops vs serial killah thriller is a beautifully composed film that highlights the ineptitude of the South Korean police system during the mid 80’s.

Mood and atmosphere are key; the cinematography is both luscious and epic.

The police are frustrated by the lack of facilities available to them but are driven by the need to catch the killer. Kim Sang-kyung plays a detective dispatched from Seoul to this country town who looks on the methodology of the local cops as both ridiculous and as backwoods as it clearly is; here is where the contrast between the differing tactics makes for a lot of the humour in the film, and there is quite a bit.

Loosely based on Kim Gwang-rim’s stage play Come to See Me and starring Ryoo Tae-hoo as the second suspect (interestingly, he originally played all three of the suspects on stage) who is truly excellent as are the other two suspects, Park No-sik as the mentally challenged first and Park Hae-ill as the blank-page third suspect.
Everybody is brilliant, the mood and pace of the film is truly engaging, but it is Sang Kong-ho who anchors this film with the emotional journey that drags you in.

Another one of the South Korean 2003 heavy hitters.

3.9/5

BUY IT ON DVD HERE

WOLF CREEK 2 (2014)

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How do you keep the wolf from the creek?

Avoid the creek like the plague.

This film shouldn’t have been made. It really is irredeemable, offensive and unnecessary.

Recently in Australia, Margaret & David, the hosts of ABC’s At The Movies, refused to review it. They totally should have and ripped into it and talked about how racist, misogynistic and downright nasty it was. But then that would have opened them up to criticism and maybe they just didn’t have the bottle. They represent middle Australia (if that phrase even exists). I don’t watch their show, I don’t have a television in my house, but it comes to something when they refuse to review something. Most of their viewers will probably not watch it, fair enough, but if you refuse to review a film, surely we all know that that will give it more publicity.

My fear with a film like this is that it perpetuates a stereotype in the way that Mick Taylor thinks and I have to ask where does his drive come from? I’m not over thinking this, merely asking questions.
Pure xenophobia?
It seems that way.

Especially in this second outing, there were racist undertones in the first one but not dwelled upon. Not against people of colour, against anyone who wasn’t Australian.

He is in the same league as Freddy Krueger (burned to death by the parents), Jason Voorhees (rage at drowning as a child), Norman Bates (mother issues), Michael Myers (pure evil bogeyman)…Mick Taylor (racist/misogynist/death merchant).

We were sat behind a young man and his girlfriend and he was laughing a lot at the quips Mick was coming out with during excessive violent behaviour. It was seriously weird. The tone wasn’t tongue in cheek enough for it to be funny, just disturbing.

Like I said at the beginning-Avoid.

UPDATE-Almost 9 years after seeing this film I may have been far too harsh in this review and overly influenced by the experience of sitting behind the couple in front of us and being offended by their ignorant amusement of racist tropes. The point is that Mick is a nasty bastard and represents all the ignorance and small mindedness that exists not just in Australia but the world over. The 1/5 was too harsh.
The film may not have been as bad as I said…….The 2 television series were both great.

1/5

BUY IT ON BLU-RAY DVD HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE