The Movie:

Before Bong Joon-ho would take home an Oscar for Parasite, his second film, 2003's Memories Of Murder would put him on the map and quickly declare him one of the most interesting filmmakers on the international scene. While on the surface the film may sound like one of countless other pictures about cops tracking down a serial killer, the director's unique touch is all over the picture which helps to set it apart from the pack.

The story is set in the 1980s and revolves around Detective Park Doo-man (Parasite star Song Kang-ho). He works for the police department in South Korean town of Hwaseong in the Gyeonggi Province where he also lives. He's hardly the top detective on the department's roster, but he does okay. He's perfectly average, though he isn't the most experienced man on the force. When the department is tasked with investigating a series of brutal rape and murder reports occurring in the precinct's jurisdiction, Park immediately gets a bad feeling about this, assuming that there's likely more to it than his fellow officers realize.

As the cops set out to investigate, a series of bumbling mistakes alter evidence and crime scenes, making their job much more difficult for themselves than they understand. The crew really is just taken aback by the scope and scale of what they have to sort out, and initially things do not go well for them. Soon enough, Seo Tae-Yoon (Kim Sang-kyung), a more experienced homicide detective from Seoul, arrives to help out where he learns that Park and his crew are trying to coerce possible culprits into confessing. When Seo finds out that they've done this to a young and obviously mentally handicapped man from town named Baek Kwang-ho (Park No-shik), he figures out that it would have been impossible for him to have done it and he tries to set things right. Eventually they start coming up with some patterns that fit the crimes but even armed with these new clues, it soon becomes clear that the killer is smart and faster than Park and the police and that it's entirely possible they simply won't be able to catch him.

Memories Of Murder is remarkably well-directed. Based on the Hwaseong serial murders, the true case of what is believed to be South Korea's first serial killer, a murderer who at the time of the film's release had not been apprehended (though the killer, Lee Choon-jae would be caught in 2019 and confess to murdering fourteen people and raping over thirty), it presents a police department in way over its head. Park and his company have no idea what to do, not because they're specifically incompetent or malicious but because they just do not have the experience or even the scientific equipment needed to catch the killer (for example, when they find DNA evidence it has to be sent away for analysis, which obviously takes time which in turns winds up hurting their efforts to expedite capture). You really feel for Seo in particular, as he tries to ensure that things are done properly, clearly seeing the more than obvious problem in how the officers from Hwaseong are attempting to coerce false confessions. The man has his work cut out for him!

The acting is very strong here. Star Song Kang-ho delivers great work as the principal figure in the Hwaseong-based effort to bring the killer in. Although it hardly excuses his behavior, we can feel his character's frustration as he goes through all of this. Kim Sang-kyung is every bit as good as his co-star, bringing a weariness to the part that goes a long way towards making it as believable as it is. Kim Roi-ha is also very good as Cho Yong-koo, Park's abusive partner while Song Jae-ho does great work as Park's boss, Sergeant Shin Dong-chul. Park No-shik is excellent in his small role, which is quite hard to watch because of how convincing he is during the scene where he's harshly interrogated.

Bong Joon-ho's direction is excellent even this early in his career (Memories Of Murder was only his second feature film). He shows expert control over the pace and the tone of the movie, adding occasional elements of dark humor to the story that never seem out of place but which instead humanize the events just that much more. The film is also quite stylish without ever feeling like that style takes away from the film's substance. The movie still feels fresh and unique, never succumbing to genre stereotypes and positing its story against an increasingly tumultuous political landscape to good effect.

The Video:

Memories Of Murder arrives on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection taken from a "new 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Kim Hyung Ku and approved by director Bong Joon Ho" in AVC encoded 1080p high definition and framed at 1.85.1 widescreen with the feature taking up 42.3GBs of space on the 50GB disc. Those who have seen the movie before may be a bit surprised by how dark the transfer is, with much of the movie having a dark green hue to it. We can assume, given that this was approved by the director and the cinematographer, that it is how the film is intended to look and it does suit the tone of the story well enough, just don't go into the movie expecting a particularly colorful experience as this doesn't really deliver that. As to the quality of the image, it's quite strong. Detail is nice, there's good depth and texture here. The disc is well-authored and free of any noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression artifacts. The color scheme is definitely going to rub some people the wrong way, however, even if it is what the filmmakers apparently intended.