After watching the movie Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, I was curious about other films by this director. I really enjoyed this film Memories of Murder because it was so different from his other film. (I now want to watch other films by this director!) The first thing that I noticed about this film was the grittiness of the scenery and how dark the film was. The film is loosely based on a real crime spree in South Korea in the 1980s and investigates the difficulties the small, inadequate police force have with a slew of murders. Park and Cho are two simple-minded detectives assigned to a double murder investigation in a South Korean province. But when the murderer strikes several more times with the same pattern, the detectives realize that they are chasing the country's first documented serial killer. These characters are forced to rely on their basic skills and lack the equipment and ability to really solve these murders. At every turn, these detectives are challenged by inept "crime-scene" investigators and small-minded bosses. I don't think I would have my students watch this film due to its slow moving plot -- but I would recommend it for a film class that could use this film to show the complexity of rural vs. urban crimes and crime solving. I liked that the director chose to simplify the story and to keep it dark and gloomy in this small province.
.