10 Things I Learned: Memories of Murder

By Curtis Tsui

Production Notes—

Apr 22, 2021

10 Things I Learned: <em>Memories of Murder</em>

10 Things I Learned: Memories of Murder

By Curtis Tsui

Production Notes—

Apr 22, 2021

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1.

Memories of Murder (2003) is based on what director Bong Joon Ho has described as “the first real case of serial murder in Korea”: between 1986 and 1991, the rural area of Hwaseong was terrorized by the killings of ten women. As he explained to critic Tony Rayns in 2004, Bong wanted his second feature film to be a crime picture because “there’s an old tradition of crime movies in Korean cinema which are rather different from plot-oriented Hollywood thrillers, and I wanted to make something of that sort. The old-style Korean movies are essentially humane and emotional—that’s what I like about them . . . I like seeing how people behave when they’re caught up in crime.”

2.

Although it’s not a direct adaptation, a significant model for the film was a 1996 play called Come to See Me, by Kim Gwang Rim (who is credited with Memories’ “original story”). Two actors from the play were cast in the movie: Ryu Tae Ho (pictured below), who plays the second suspect, Jo Byung-soon, and Kim Roe Ha, who portrays Inspector Jo Yong-gu. Though some core details from that dramatization of the Hwaseong murders are reflected in Memories of Murder—such as the use of the questioning of three different suspects to structure the narrative, and the importance of a particular song as a clue—most of the film sprang from the imagination of Bong, who collapsed the timeline into a much shorter period, scripted situations of his own design, and put his own spin on the cast of characters, all while incorporating factual details about the killings that he had uncovered during six months of research.

3.

Because the real-life murders had not been solved by the time he was undertaking to make the film, Bong was flummoxed by the challenge of telling a story with no definite conclusion. His solution arrived in the form of a gift from Rayns: a copy of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s graphic novel From Hell, a tale of Jack the Ripper that not only details the killer’s crimes but places equal focus on the societal maladies of Victorian England. Bong was subsequently inspired to shape his narrative to cast a critical eye on South Korea’s military rule under President Chun Doo-hwan (in office from 1980 to 1988) by depicting the corruption, shortage of resources, and results-driven ineptitude that allowed the Hwaseong killer to flourish.

4.

Bong wanted to accentuate the somber mood of the film by maintaining a costume and set-dressing palette that was devoid of most primary colors (aside from the occasional red, as with the clothing of the initial victims). In addition, he and cinematographer Kim Hyung Ku decided to print most of Memories of Murder using a “bleach bypass” process, in which the regular bleaching step of film processing is skipped, thus allowing color dyes to be retained in the emulsion and creating a more desaturated image. Only the opening and closing scenes, set among the amber rice fields, were processed normally, so the golden hues could be showcased.

5.

To add to the dreary atmosphere of the film, Bong and his collaborators waited for cloudy days to film exterior shots. If there were no clouds, or if the sun happened to reappear, Bong and the crew members on location that day would simply while away the hours by playing soccer until filming could begin or resume.

6.

Bong, who has been nicknamed Bongtail by his crew because of his microscopic attention to detail, wanted Memories of Murder to be filled with period-accurate props, costumes, and set dressing. His art department, led by production designer Ryu Sung Hee, was particularly challenged by his request for newspapers, which are occasionally used in the film to convey information to the viewer. Because the fonts and paper employed in 1986 were no longer in use by the time the movie was filmed in 2002 and 2003, the art department had to source the correct paper stock and design each font by hand, character by character.

7.

Verisimilitude extended to some performance details, such as the first meeting between Inspector Park Doo-man (Song Kang Ho) and Inspector Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang Kyung). Bong avoided rehearsals to preserve the awkwardness between some characters, and that initial encounter, a fight, was the very first time the performers worked together. Much to Kim’s surprise, the professional-wrestling-style dropkick by Song that sends the former rolling down a hill was unplanned and full-contact. In a 2003 commentary included on our Memories edition, Kim exclaims, “I was beat up by the Foul King!” referencing Song’s star-making role in the 2000 film of the same name.

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8.

Because Inspector Seo’s nerves become increasingly frayed as setbacks and failures in the case mount, Kim drastically lowered his food intake and the amount he was sleeping as filming progressed to give his character a suitably gaunt and haggard appearance.

 

9.

As focused as he may be on realistic details, Bong is never shackled by them when he devises ways to heighten a scene’s impact for viewers. When the set for the basement boiler room was created for the interrogations, the director requested an unusually steep staircase leading to it, mentioning his admiration for the long and narrow staircase in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). The production-design crew was initially confused by his insistence upon this feature, but its visual purpose is clear in the film: when Chief Shin Dong-chul (Song Jae Ho) kicks Inspector Jo down the stairs, the nine-meter height accentuates the startling image of the tumble.

10.

In depicting the as-yet-unidentified killer in 2003, Bong strove to keep him as anonymous as possible. One way the director fulfilled that goal was by having multiple actors of similar physicality (including Park Hae Il, who plays the third suspect, Park Hyun-gyu) appear as the murderer interchangeably, often only framed on their hands, so the viewer would never be left with clearly defined characteristics. The identity of the real-life killer finally came to light in 2019, when Lee Chun-jae, already serving a prison sentence for an unrelated murder, confessed to the Hwaseong homicides.

Curtis Tsui is a producer at the Criterion Collection.

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