The Chaser

This film is so Korean. The way it is shot and the way the story is told doesn't conform to the way many Americans think genre clues should be presented and adhered to. At it's heart, The Chaser is a crime drama about a serial killer and the guy who's chasing him, but it evolves from many different angles. It's a comedy of errors in the way the police and politicians are portrayed; a melodrama with its inclusion of the precocious little girl who belongs to the woman serving as the film's primary "chase" and investigative point; a psychological thriller in the way the serial killer messes with the minds of the police; a mildly gory film in the way the bad guy uses a hammer and chisel; a bit of a tragedy in the way it ends. The only thing missing from this film is romance. Thank god they didn't make one of the missing girls a love interest of the pimp—he's only after the money they owe him. That's where the brilliance of the chase begins.

There's a fight scene early on where our protagonist, an ex-detective gone bad turned pimp, is beating the crap out of some guy he thinks has kidnapped and sold some of his girls. A long uphill foot chase precedes the brawl so both combatants are extremely winded when the fighting begins—punches don't land and there's a girly incompetence to the whole thing, which is to say, it's realistic. After finally landing a few punches that subdue his opponent momentarily, the pimp gets up and starts kicking him in disgust. He's very angry, still a bit winded and out of control. One of his kicks only grazes its target causing him to lose his balance and fall on his butt, and because of momentum he begins to roll and his feet fly up in the air. It seems funny, but it's not. You have to sneak in your chuckle as he gets up and continues kicking the guy. When he's finally pummeled his adversary into unconsciousness, he uses his foot to roll him onto his side so he can get to the wallet in his back pocket and ID him. He attempts to sit on him, not to keep him down, but because he's bone tired from all the fighting. He doesn't land squarely and ends up rolling on his butt again. It seems funny but it's not.

After the fight scene both men are brought to the police station for questioning. Because the pimp is an ex-detective with a reputation, the cops initially sympathize with the other guy, thinking the pimp over-reacted—not to mention the causal fender-bender that brought the two men together in the first place. The pimp doesn't know that the other guy just took a hammer and chisel to the head of the girl he is trying to get back, he thinks she's just freshly been sold, making his sense of urgency misplaced, where it remains throughout most of the film. It's kind of awkward for the police to find much urgency in one pimp accusing another of stealing one of his girls. The bad guy insists he didn't sell the girl and then mumbles under his breathe "I killed her", and confesses in great detail how he killed her and several other girls. The pimp screams at the cops, "Can't you see he's just pretending to be crazy now?"

And so it goes. We know there's been killing going on and we know who's been doing it from very early on in the film but it manages to remain suspenseful throughout. The Chaser is a gripping thriller from the beginning until a few minutes from the end. The two main characters are portrayed with impeccable nuance. It's Yun-seok Kim's performance as the bewildered pimp that takes this film to great heights. There are so many things that don't go the way he wants them to, like people hanging up on him when he's talking to them on the phone, a little girl who startles him and asks too many smart questions, the cops can't do anything right; and every time, his subdued response of confused disbelief made me laugh. He brings a Kang-ho Song-ish melancholy humor to the film, (I can't think of an American actor to compare him to), while Jung-woo Ha as the impotent serial killer is so normal and unmoved it's creepy.

There are a handful of groan out loud plot moves in The Chaser, but so what. There are also more than a handful of plot moves this film doesn't do, moves that most people will be guessing it will do, that it more than makes up for it. This is a film I know I'll watch again just for the performance of it. The plot won't matter. It's that good.

More reviews at sitenoise-atthemovies.blogspot.com

Tôkyô Sonata

Parting the veil on a Japanese household teetering on the verge of collapse, "Tokyo Sonata" may be director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most conventional work-if conventional is the right word for a film that explores the contemporary family dynamic with such brooding fortitude. The renowned Japanese horror filmmaker has created a startlingly candid portrait of domestic life in "Tokyo Sonata," a film that, by evoking the waking nightmares of repressed souls, brims with a terror of its own accord.
Businessman Ryuhei Sasaki, victimized by economic downsizing after his company terminates his job, chooses to hide his predicament from his family by roaming the streets of Tokyo during daytime. His wife Megumi juggles housewife duties and a tenuous relationship with her oldest son Takashi, whose desire to break away from tradition echoes the detachment of Japanese youth in a society wreathed in materialism. The youngest member of the family, Kenji, rebels against authority yet displays sensitivity beyond his age when he discovers an innate passion for piano.
Juxtaposing tight interior shots of living rooms with panoramic compositions of urban sprawl, Kurosawa imbues the film with something of an otherworldly presence-a haunting, dreamlike aura that pervades "Tokyo Sonata" as its dysfunctional family continues to crumble inwardly. Conversations dissipate; lies build on previous lies; a mother's love is torn between duty and empathy. Humiliated by his jobless situation yet determined to maintain his patriarchal status, Ryuhei physically abuses Kenji for secretly taking piano lessons after browbeating Megumi for allowing Takashi to join the military. Recession-plagued Tokyo, already a landscape of existential lament, gradually takes a backseat to familial destruction.
The film's blend of domestic drama and social commentary is both poignant and timely. Office workers like Ryuhei and his colleagues are portrayed as ironic victims of the Japanese male dynamic, driven by their obligations to home and work yet completely unwilling to compromise after hitting rock bottom. In displaying the failure of authority in a culture that revolves around it, Kurosawa draws poignant contrasts. "We're like a slowly sinking ship," grieves an unemployed friend of Ryuhei. "The lifeboats are gone, the water's up to our mouths." Like a vessel slowly sliding into oblivion, ideals built around workplaces and households slowly disintegrate, replaced by coldness and bitter angst.
Tellingly, "Tokyo Sonata" eventually mirrors these systematic collapses by venturing into surreal territory. In one of the film's most affecting sequences, an afternoon nap turns into a chilling seance when Takashi returns home from the war, saying to his mother, "I killed so many people." Megumi's troubled psyche finally begins to eat away at her maternal strength. When a wayward burglar abducts her, and Ryuhei and Kenji encounter catastrophic situations, the film's quiet buildup escalates into irreversible mayhem.
When does it end, and where does it begin? The mother's catharsis, manifested in a sequence of lasting power, injects rays of hope into an otherwise miserable flurry of dead ends. The final movement of "Tokyo Sonata," uneven as it is compared to its predecessors, completes the cycle of fall and salvation with admirable finality. Powerfully acted and impeccably orchestrated, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Tokyo Sonata" is a masterful exercise in paradoxes: at one and the same time comical and melancholy, despairing and exultant, nihilistic and regenerative.

Pusher trilogy (Danish)

In the 1990's a new era in the history of Danish cinema began with movies such as NATTEVAGTEN, DE STØRSTE HELTE, PORTLAND and most importantly PUSHER. Nicolas Winding Refn was only 26 years old when he co-wrote/directed this art-house masterpiece debut. I first saw this gem when I was 12 years old. I remember being immediately stunned. It had the stylishness and brutality of Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS or MEAN STREETS, the realism and hand-held camera-style of John Cassevettes' THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE and the cool pop-culture referential dialog of Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION, although it easily exceeds being just another post-modernistic Tarantino rip-off. It portrays the milieu and characters in such a realistic and dramatic way that it feels voyeuristic. PUSHER is a docu-drama in the truest sense of the word.

Storyline: Frank (Kim Bodnia) is a intelligent, ill-tempered, young drug-dealer who can deliver just the drug for your purposes - hash, heroin, cocaine etc. Frank's everyday life consists of selling drugs with his partner-in-crime/best friend Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) in Copenhagen's underworld, and hanging out with his girlfriend, the prostitute Vic (Laura Drasbæk) in the evening. They are three drug-addicts themselves. One day two police-men interrupt Frank in a big-time heroin-deal with a Swedish customer. Frank outruns the police-men down to Søerne, where he empties the heroin-bag into the water. Frank is arrested, but the police are forced to release him 24 hours later, since they didn't get the evidence. But now our protagonist has a much greater problem, as he owes away 230.000 Danish kroner for the eliminated heroin to Milo, one of the most dangerous drug-dealers in Copenhagen's underworld.

PUSHER portrays a bunch of lost people in the drug milieu of Copenhagen (the capitol of Denmark). Nicolas Winding Refn doesn't care about the drugs or the crimes, he's interested in the humans behind them. Therefore PUSHER feels very real and heart-wrenching. In a very brutal scene Frank locates Tonny at a bar, grabs a baseball bat under the counter, and smashes Tonny to pieces, because the police have informed Frank that Tonny has agreed to witness against Frank. In another scene Frank visits his mother, which he apparently rarely does, in a desperate attempt to loan money. We discover that Frank, unlike most of the lost souls in the crime world, actually comes from a normal danish middle-class family without any negative social heritage. Combining these two scenes illustrates greatly that Frank is a three-dimensional character, because he comes from a socially positive home, and still he's cynical enough to beat up his best friend with a baseball bat. What in Frank's life made him so cold? Hatred for his parents? Boredom? Depression? The answer isn't apparent, and that's what makes it so great.

Kim Bodnia (Frank) delivers one of the best performances ever seen in a Danish movie. In fact he's often been compared to Robert De Niro, although I think that image has changed since. Mads Mikkelsen (Tonny) shows much promise in his debut role. Today he's one of the highest regarded actors in Denmark, and in 2004 he continued the Tonny character in PUSHER 2. But the biggest cast surprise is Zlatko Buric (Milo) - an actor you have to see to believe. Many of his dialog improvisations in PUSHER have become popular catch-phrases in Danish youth culture. For example: Du er min veeen, Franke" or "Så du er blevet bustet, huh?" and many more. This is something that you can't pre-invent in any manuscript. Zlatko Buric is a natural!

The PUSHER soundtrack consists of amazing 80's-style glam-rock and heavy metal by Peter Peter (ex-member of legendary danish rock group Sort Sol). The hand-held camera work and semi-expressionistic cinematography by Morten Søborg was very innovative for its time, and matched the movie perfectly. The aforementioned cast is great, but also the small cameo-roles played by Lars Bom (Cop), Thomas Bo Larsen (Junkie) and Jesper Lohmann (Mikkel) must receive credits. If you enjoy raw semi-realistic gangster-movies such as THE KILLING OF A CHINEESE BOOKIE or MEAN STREETS, you have to give this a chance. Don't forget its two sequels which, amazingly enough, are even better. 9/10

Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher 1-3 is my favorite trilogy of danish film history. Pusher II (2004) is the best part of it. I have been a follower of Refn's work ever-since I saw his directional debut Pusher (1996) the first time. It had a great dynamic, it was brutally honest and it had a documentary-style (hand-held camera, great method-acting etc.) that gave it an authentic feeling.

The story-line: Small-time gangster Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) is released from prison, but quickly returns to the criminal underworld and gets hired by his father "Smeden" (Leif Sylvester): a big-time gangster highly respected in the underworld. But Tonny has a hard time earning his father's respect, and on top of that, he discovers that Charlotte (Anne Sørensen): a girl he once had sex with, has given birth to his child. Tonny has a hard time making the right decisions, and one day he agrees to help his friend Kusse-Kurt (Kurt Nielsen) purchase heroin worth of 80.000 danish kroner from big-time pusher Milo (Zlatko Buric), but since they are high off cocaine and paranoid they accidentally throw the heroin in the toilet, as they think a police-man enters the room. Now they have a big problem. They have to get 80.000 kroner very quickly...

In 2004 Nicolas Winding Refn almost went bankrupt, because his previous film Fear X (2002) which was shot on a big-budget in Canada, did horribly in the theaters and at box-office. Refn knew that a sequel for Pusher would do very well (Pusher 1 was the most engrossing debut film ever of Denmark) and the universe of the film had lots of artistic possibilities - therefore he decided on making it a trilogy. And Refn very much proofed that it is possible to make artistically interesting films out of rather commercial interests.

It could be argued that Pusher 1 glamorized the gangster/drug underworld at times. This is NOT the case in Pusher II. Although Pusher 1 did show the decay of a cold man in a cold milieu, we never really got into his feelings. In Pusher II we get to feel the pain and coldness (even when Tonny himself doesn't). Pusher II is a docu-drama based on realism (like Pusher 1), and only three characters are real actors. The rest of the cast consists of people off the street, and this very much adds to its authenticity. They do a great job! The second half of the film has a few very beautiful artistic scenes (almost dream-like) that almost pauses the film and gives its audience time for reflecting. In the scenes we see very dominant red colors and the music is almost ambient-like. A great idea that works very well - even in such a realistic film.

Mads Mikkelsen, Leif Sylvester and Zlatko Buric do terrific jobs. They are (as usual) very professional and passionate actors. But the real surprise is the untrained street-actors. They add SO much to the realism and rawness of the film. Pusher II is shot on DV-camera with a hand-held style, but it's far from Dogme. Many scenes look terrific, and the playing with distinctive colors red and green works well. I also have to give credit to Peterpeter's great rock/80's synthesizer soundtrack. It really under-builds the scenes in a scary way.

I highly recommend Pusher II (and the rest of the trilogy) to everyone! A perfect example of an artistic film that actually works for all audiences! 9/10

Storyline: 10 years have passed since the first PUSHER movie. Big-time drug dealer Milo (Zlatko Buric) is stressed. Milo attempts to quit heroin by attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings, a shipment supposed to contain brown heroin turns out to contain 10.000 ecstasy-pills, and it's his daughter Milena's (Marinela Dekic) 25th birthday, and Milo has promised to cook food for her 50 guests. Little Muhammed (Ilyas Agac) leaves with the ecstasy-pills to sell them for Milo, but soon Milo can't find him, and the Albanian-Danish gangsters who smuggled the ecstasy-pills into Denmark are stressing Milo for their money. Conidentially Milo meets Kusse-Kurt (Kurt Nielsen) who slips him a small amount of heroin. Soon Milo's finds himself in a spiral of bad decisions smoking heroin, sniffing speed and murdering gangsters. Is Milo's drug empire finally crumbling?

Each installment of Nicolas Winding Refn's docu-drama trilogy tells a story from Copenhagen's underworld, but from three completely different protagonists' POV's. PUSHER tells the story of middle-level pusher Frank (Kim Bodnia), PUSHER 2 tells the story of low-level criminal Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen), and PUSHER 3 tells the story of high-level pusher Milo (Zlatko Buric). The clear message of the trilogy is: you live by the sword, you die by the sword. All three movies end on very ambivalent notes. Frank gets killed... or perhaps he doesn't. Tonny breaks loose of his dead-end lifestyle... or perhaps he doesn't. And Milo's drug empire crumbles... or perhaps it doesn't. That's how life is. It doesn't just stop. Each movie keeps evolving in your head even after they've ended, similar to John Cassavetes' movies or Danny Boyles' 1996 masterpiece TRAINSPOTTING. It's certainly something one doesnn't experience in braindead Hollywood blockbusters nowadays.

Nicolas Winding Refn's PUSHER trilogy is obviously inspired by John Cassevetes' movie-making style as they are more instinctive than intellectual, because the audience goes through the same turbulent emotions as Milo, whether it's melancholy, joy or bitterness. It's not a very fast-paced movie (except for a few breath-taking scenes), but Refn manages to maintain an uneasy tension that keeps the audience on the edge of the seats. It reflects Refn's love for his (three-dimensional) characters. Refn's 95% non-Danish dialog (the cast mainly consists of immigrants) is somewhere in-between Quentin Tarantino and John Cassavetes: very self-conscious, yet also natural and realistic. The foreign languages only adds to the mysteriousness and danger of these immigrant gangsters.

The cast primarily consists of unprofessional actors, some even with semi-criminal backgrounds, and, naturally the great Zlatko Buric whom Refn has called "the new Dirch Passer". Buric brilliantly brings out Milo's two-face ambivalence and vulnerability of an aging man in a constantly changing milieu. Refn gets performances from the unprofessional cast that range from acceptable to great -- they all add to the realness and authenticity. Many of them, of course, more or less play their real life-themselves. Many of the PUSHER characters keep re-occurring throughout the trilogy. For example: Milo (Zlatko Buric) has a supporting-role in PUSHER, a cameo-role in PUSHER 2 and the main-role in PUSHER 3. Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) has a supporting-role in PUSHER and the main-role in PUSHER 2. Kusse-Kurt (Kurt Nielsen) has a supporting-role in PUSHER 2 and a cameo-role in PUSHER 3. This provides a feeling of continuity to the trilogy's milieu.

Peter Peter (ex-member of the legendary Danish rock-group Sort Sol) has again composed the music in collaboration with Kyed. Although I preferred the 80's-synth-inspired score in PUSHER 2, this time it's effective, bleak and minimal. For example: When Kusse-Kurt slips Milo a small amount of heroin in the grill-bar, shortly after a disturbing, noisy, distorted guitar-riff begins clashing repeatedly with 4 second intervals. It underlines Milo's desperate mind-state. One minute later Milo walks into the restroom to smoke the heroin, where the clashing guitar sound slowly transforms into a beautiful, melancholic piano-tune to underline the heroin's effect on Milo. It's a good example of subtle use of music as a movie-language.

Refn's love for so-called trashy genre-flicks shows through-out his work. Although his movies (the PUSHER trilogy, BLEEDER and FEAR X) are more art-house than genre-pieces, they are loaded with references to his favorite obscure movies, most noticeably in BLEEDER. But also PUSHER 3 contains a subtle reference, probably not known to most audiences. The climax-scene in-which Radovan (Slavko Labovic) slices up the body hanging form the ceiling is an obvious homage to one of Refn's favorite-movies Paul Morrissey's FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN from 1973 starring Udo Kier. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN is a an original twist on the Frankenstein franchise with necrophiliac undertones. Refn borrows his climax from the climax of FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN: the music, the chains slowly pulling the body up, the depraved depiction of human-flesh etc. As they say, the best directors borrow from their favorite-directors.

Although all three installment are semi-masterpieces I personally prefer PUSHER 3 by a few inches. It's more honest, more disturbing, and more experimental. I have experienced the first-mentioned first-hand, as I spend years in the drug milieu. Refn's PUSHER trilogy is a street-level counterpart to Martin Scorsese's gangster trilogy (consisting of MEAN STREETS from 1973, GOODFELLAS from 1990, and CASINO from 1995), because both trilogies portray the crime underworld from low-level, middle-level and high-level gangsters' POV's. I highly recommend PUSHER 3 especially if you enjoyed its successors, although, the re-occurring characters aside, it's not completely necessary to watch the prequels before experiencing this gem, but I recommend doing so. Watch it! 9/10

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

Being an Asian viewer born during the 80's, without any knowledge of the Red Army Faction (RAF), it poses some challenges to me when watching The Baader Meinhof Complex. A warning to those who have no clue as to the RAF before watching this movie: Read on it first. And for heaven's sake don't watch it from the Constantin german DVD release if you don't know a word of german. The Paramount release could be an exciting alternative. I'm not saying why, just trust me, it works better that way.

Uli Edel’s "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" is an exhilarating historical picture with an intoxicating blend of fiction drama with fact-based evidence, resulting in one of the most exciting movies of the year. It is never highbrow in its approach to the subject, but it manages to curb the usual problems biographical features are associated with – chiefly the treatment of having actors introduce their characters initially in neatly composed frames, ticking all the boxes to their ideals. Edel drops us into the events at an appropriate point in history, but is determined to avoid his movie resembling a PowerPoint sermon. The first scene taking place on the sands of a nudist beach is an eye-opening introduction, and I believe Edel is challenging us straight away to look past the various human bodies on full display, and to concentrate on picking up the little details, like the magazine a woman is reading, or the question a blonde haired woman asks a gentleman, who manages an astute response despite the sheer size, and possible flaunting, of this female's naturally voluptuous breasts.

'The Baader-Meinhof Gang certainly didn’t expect to win their war by themselves. They assumed an epic proletarian backlash would be the Revolution’s true engine' explains Richard Huffman in his invaluable book The Gun Speaks. The genesis of the Baader-Meinhof group is discussed in the movie, but you have to look very carefully to find it. This is a movie that rewards attention, though, unlike "Gomorrah," it has a structure that is intricately connected. Observe the segment that develops from the garden party of two characters at this point we know little about - the husband has just received a printed note from a young student, and it is an essay written by his wife to her Majesty Farah Diba (whom we glimpsed on that cover a few moments earlier if you caught it.) As the wife, Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), reads aloud her writings, the movie intercuts to footage from a student-led protest on the streets of Berlin, where one of the signs reads: 'Autonomy for the University of Tehran'. Rather than spend time explaining to those unaware of that institutions whereabouts, the movie endures through presumed audience cooperation by connecting the words spoken by Meinhof to these images. Her angry letter is attacking the Shah of Persia (seen only from a distance in the Berlin footage but the cries of '...long live the Emperor' from supporters confirm it is he who is in their presence.)

If you know your history you will have little troubling following all this. What occurs next is an interpretation of an event in which the Berlin police implicated a new measure for crowd control. Having researched it prior to my screening, I was curious to see how the movie would display 'The Liver Sausage Method' of squeezing bodies between barricades and background buildings. Would it commit and show a few who crushed to death? As it turns out, the movie tinkers a few facts, and has mainly one man start the act of violence by throwing what appears to be a brown papered bag; upon hitting the ground a white trail of dust causes a minor explosion and a cop's patience quota is surpassed. "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" features, at this point, a superb riot sequence that is never melodramatic, never romanticised, yet, bizarrely, is observed from a close distance. The music is perhaps a little too ominous but the riot itself is deceptively pleasing - from moment to moment you feel as if you are right there on that street in 1968. None of the protestors are given room to make an impression, and hence the audience's sympathy is neutral. I liked the omission of the crushing tactic. These cops react as if they were zombies in "28 Days Later" jumping upon the pack for some lunch.

As this riot unfolds to its historically accurate conclusion, I thought to myself why these students were there? 1968 was a particularly unsettled year worldwide, but why were they so enraged with the Shah of Iran to the point they felt they could change the world? They are liberals, of course, but that is a trigger word, explaining little. Are they part of what Huffman referred to as the 'epic proletarian backlash' that generated the Baader-Meinhof's Revolution? This is the Auschwitz generation, and with that legacy fresh in their identity there was enough fuel to energise a wave of discontent against elitist society. That is another trigger word, however, and doesn't really get to the bottom of what their goal was. Are they Communists if they are anti-capitalist? If they are joined by non-violence, does that brand them as ritualists or merely educators? We are introduced to another woman, Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) after this rampage and she is certainly pro-violence. Her boyfriend Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) arrives at their apartment with some explosives. A fire occurs in a clothes shop a short time later. Ensslin and Baader go to bed together but it is not long before police raid the location. This particular strand to the story is momentarily forgotten, but commences once more after footage of Vietnam, Che Guevarra, Richard Nixon, Martin Luther King and the perennial squeals of a long-haired man. The court trial is yet to be seen, but in that brief montage, the reasons for their terrorism have been outlined.

The movie uses the new forms of technology to link characters who otherwise would never meet - one of the great beauties of modern technology. Observe the swot who sits upright in his armchair watching television and sees a newsreel report about Rudi Dutschke. Edel makes the most of the incident, as he dissolves from the real-life individual to the actor in his movie playing Dutschke (Sebastian Blomberg.) One might think the television image was used for such trickery, but Edel has another use for it which I will not reveal here. Likewise, the two key women, Meinhof and Ensslin, are initially linked by the media as the latter is watching the journalist report her feelings on the right-wing tactics of dealing with today's students on a live talk show. Meinhof learns about this terrorist through a microphone orientated interview conducted with the father of the now imprisoned criminal, and she is engrossed with what she hears, as dad explains Gudrun's '...state of almost euphoric self-realisation through this act'. Naturally, when Meinhof visits her in jail, Enssslin is quick to highlight she is a fan of the journalist's columns. Whether the two women share an attraction is hearsay, but this is the birth of the Baader-Meinhof conglomeration.

Some commentators will argue the effectiveness of pertaining to violence. I have heard from writers who ridicule students for their belief they can change the world. They can't change the world. There is an admiration though to their action. If one man throws a stone, it is an act of crime that is deemed punishable. If one thousand men throw stones, it becomes more than that - it is, as the film notes, political action. The Holocaust generation feel an obligation to leave their mark, I imagine, and if I were alive during the period who is to say I wouldn't feel ashamed because of the lacklustre resistance the previous generation demonstrated against Adolf Hitler? I may even have got involved in these terrorist organisations in the heat of the moment. Ensslin can't explain her involvement, but she knows it is her historical responsibility to put up as much resistance as is physically possible to what she deems as unacceptable imperialism.

Everything I have described so far takes place within the movie's first thirty minutes. It is that sort of motion picture - the kind that stimulates debate and provokes controversy. "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" runs for just under 150 minutes but it flies past in a heartbeat. If you are a fan of Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall" you may enjoy the reunion of sorts between Hitler and Albert Speer, as Bruno Ganz and Heino Ferch both appear here. Interestingly, Ganz plays Horst Herold and Ferch is billed as Horst Herold's assistant (I can imagine his agent telling him this was too good an in-joke to refuse!) You may also remember Alexandra Maria Lara, who played the angelic Traudl Junge, as one of the Red Army Faction's members, Petra Schelm. Sometimes such inclusions can appear redundant, but I sensed these actors were picked for their ability.

They say that only two things in the world sell anything worth counting: sex annd violence. "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" excels in both departments. 'Sexual revolution and anti-imperialism go together' explains Baader to a group of fleeting voyeurs. We see quite a lot of Wokalek's flesh throughout the film, and there is a sense that Meinhof is in love with her character. They both look similar, with their poker-straight fringes covering most of their face, but whereas Meinhof looks mousey, Ensslin sizzles with femininity. A meandering student walks in on her as she bathes, and the lady politely asks the stranger to jump in. It is hard to believe a time existed when sex was treated so casually but it was and "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" taps into that. My only criticism with the movie is in its second-half, where a few of the prison sequences are not gloomy enough to support their lengthy illustrations, but overall this is great example of a reality thriller. If you were disappointed with Steven Spielberg's "Munich" and in particular the scene involving the detonation of a bomb in a building, there is an alternative example here that bears a striking, though likely unintentional, resemblance to a moment in "The Dark Knight" when Heath Ledger's Joker vacated Gotham's hospital.

David Wallace, United Kingdom, http://www.sightforallseasons.co.nr/

Salinui chueok (Memories of Murder)

Beginning in the fall of 1986 and continuing for the next four years South Korea was haunted by the nation's first recorded serial killer. Preying upon women in a remote rural community the killer was both vicious and meticulous, strangling his victims with their own undergarments and leaving nothing of any use to the police investigating the crimes. The killer was never caught.

I do not envy any director trying to make a true crime film, particularly not one so high profile and so recent that the crimes still live on in the public consciousness. Stray too far in one direction and you devolve into saccharine sentimentality, go the other direction and you risk crass exploitation. Director Bong Joon-Ho avoided both of these traps by charting an altogether different route: he has made a film that is not about the killer or the crimes or the victims but one that is purely about the police officers charged with the case and the devastating emotional toll it took on their lives. In charting his unusual route Bong has created a bleak masterpiece, one that took home a stack of film awards in its native land but which has been largely neglected on these shores until now.

The film begins with the first body discovered, a woman strangled with her own stockings, raped, tightly bound, and hidden in a drainage culvert. The detective in charge of the case is Park Du-Man (Song Kang-Ho) and it is immediately clear that he is out of his depth, that the entire local police force, in fact, are out of their depth. The crime scene is chaos, crowded by reporters and locals trampling over potentially vital evidence. Park himself is not what you'd call a systematic investigator, scoffing at the scientific approach and trusting in his supposedly unerring eye at picking out criminals just by looking at them. He relies on swagger and bravado and the brute force of his uneducated assisting officer Jo Yong-Gu.

Serving as a foil to Park and Jo is Seo Tae-Yun (Kim Sang-Kyung) a detective from Seoul who has volunteered to assist with the investigation. Seo is the polar opposite of Park - methodical and rational - and it takes mere moments for the two to clash, clashes that lead to the two of them overlooking some key pieces of evidence.

As the film progresses and the body count continues to rise you can feel a sense of desperation slowly settle over the department. Under educated, under manned and woefully under equipped the local force is simply not up to the task. As the realisation that they will not find the evidence they so badly need begins to set in Park and Jo resort to planting evidence to bring in suspects Park picks out with his 'keen eye', suspects they then set out to extract coached confessions from. The process inevitably leads to public humiliation. Soon even Seo begins to lose his faith in reason and just as things bottom out they finally catch a break and settle on a prime suspect, one who truly appears likely to be their man. But can they make it stick? What sets Memories of Murder apart from the crowd are the rich performances from its leads and the sure hand of Bong Joon-Ho. Bong knows exactly what he wants to do with this film and he steers the ship with a firm hand. He has a keen eye for imagery but he consistently avoids the cheap resolve, the quick hit, in favour of a slowly building mood and the film is all the stronger because of it. Song and Kim are both stellar in their roles, giving their characters much needed depth. You can feel their frustration and helplessness continually growing and when the final crushing blow is delivered you can feel their utter despair at being abandoned by a system that they have given their lives to. Bong isn't just asking how this could happen, how someone could be as evil as this killer, but how could a government allow this to happen? How could the police not be given the tools and manpower they so obviously needed to protect the people? The DVD release has been given the standard Palm treatment. The transfer is strong and presented in anamorphic widescreen. The film is presented with both the original Korean language track in 2.0 stereo and an English dub in both 2.0 and 5.1. The English subtitles are solid, clearly translated and easy to read. The disc also includes a reel of cast and crew interviews discussing their characters and the creation of the film as well as an extensive reel of deleted scenes.

Memories of Murder is a minor masterpiece, a film that moved Bong immediately onto Korea's A-list of directing talent. It is richly detailed, beautifully performed and disturbing in precisely the way that people need to be disturbed in from time to time. Don't miss it.

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