Memories of Murder (2003)

kdrama holy trinity crossover that i need

Rookie Cops (2022) - 너와 나의 경찰수업 - Whump List

List by StayDandy Synopsis : A coming-of-age story that captures the spirit, challenges and passion of youth as students at the Korean National Police University experience life's charms and traumas whilst trying to become full-fledged cops. From bridging generation gaps with harmony to finding their own romance on campus, a few very different students work to achieve their dreams and aspirations in the line of duty. (MDL) AKA : Rookies | Our Police Class | Our Police Course | Police Class of Mine and Yours

Whumpee : Wi Seung Hyun played by Kang Daniel • Kim Tak played by Lee Shin Young • Yoo Dae Il played by Park Sung Joon • Kim Hyun Soo [Tak's older brother] played by Kwak Shi Yang (1 ep)

Country : 🇰🇷 South Korea Genres : Romance, Life, Youth, Drama, School, Crime, Friendship, Bromance

Notes : This is a Full Whump List • This show really does focus more on the romance, "school life", friendship genres for the majority. It doesn't start to seriously get into crime, or I guess the overarching crime doesn't start to come together, until eps. 10-11

Episodes on List : 10 Total Episodes : 16

*Spoilers below*

left to right : Wi Seung Hyun, Kim Tak, Yoo Dae Il

01 : [flash back] Kim Hyun Soo in a fight; hit over the head with a board, stabbed, beat up, hit by a truck, spits up blood, dies … (@ 2:45, such a bubbly opening title after that dark opening scene lol) … [present] Wi Seung Hyun punched … (@ 47:31 i couldn't help but notice the green>red filter on the background to make all the grass/plants look like it was middle of autumn, once I noticed it's hard to ignore, it's just so weird lol)

02 : Yoo Dae Il hit with a bat for "training" … thrown overhand in [actual] training (comedic)

05 : Seung Hyun in chokehold during judo match, passes out (semi-comedic) … Seung Hyun & Kim Tak fight a small gang … gets muscle patch applied

09 : Seung Hyun drunk

10 : Seung Hyun & Kim Tak in a fight; Seung Hyun choked, strangled

11 : (near end) [flashback] Kim Tak beat up; hit with a board with a nail stuck in it

12 : [present] Dae Il drops a rock on his foot (comedic) … ended up resulting in a broken toe, hospitalized with a cast (comedic)

13 : Seung Hyun beat up

14 : (near end) Dae Il attacked, car crash; car pushed off a bridge into a reservoir , drowns & dies 😭

16 : Seung Hyun & Kim Tak in a fight; hit with planks of wood … Kim Tak in a fight; beat up, Seung Hyun joins the fight

I've always liked to play with fire

-  Sam Tinnesz

They are the men written by women 💕

Read a theory on twitter by one k fan that Doil has most probably transferred the money to Hyorin’s accounts. He was looking at her bankbooks when they went to rescue Inhye in that closed room. It will be such a genius move tbh. That would make Sangah as the person who embezzled money & hid them in her daughter’s accounts to avoid suspicions & then blamed it on a poor employee. I have always believed that Hyorin is her biggest weakness. Nothing will be sweeter than taking her down using that same weakness because she loved toying with Oh sisters using their love for each other. This would also complete the OG four little women.

My Demon

TV Shows/Dramas watched in 2024

My Demon (2023/24, South Korea)

Director: Kim Jang Han

Writer: Choi Ah Il

Mini-review:

Look, I'm not gonna lie. I started this drama for a very superficial reason: Kim Yoo Jung and Song Kang are one of the most gorgeous couples I've ever seen. And tbh, that's one of the things that kept me watching until the end. The first half was pretty fun, thanks to their will-they-won't-they dynamic and some really funny supporting characters and recurring gags. Unfortunately, it began to drag around the middle part, and then it got more and more boring with each passing episode. By the time the final episode came out, I no longer cared about the plot, the characters or anything else (although the ending itself was quite nice). With all that in mind, I can't help but think My Demon would have worked much better as a movie.

Memories of murder, dir. Bong Joon-Ho, 2003.

On the next episode of The Devil Judge theories on Viki:

(btw if anyone knows how to take screenshots on the Viki app that would be great bc Idk how apparently)

little women theory

alright buckle up friends bc i have a little women theory >>>> aka jong-ho is not as innocent as he seems

SO we know there are little clues in the title sequence but one thing that hasn't been explained all that properly is why there is.... yeolmu kimchi in front of our best gals??

and whO knows how to make yeolmu kimchi apart from our MIA eomma??

it's surely a red herring that we're getting so much suspicion thrown on do-il while jong-ho has gone virtually unseen.... but we know that he's the neighbour of the gals' grandmother and that he's got a grandfather of his own.

idk this is all conjecture, especially bc i think that he'll be somehow innocent if he has an iphone (yes apple really do have a policy that bad guys can't be seen with iphones on camera) but idk..... something's not right....

LITTLE WOMEN (2022) - Choi Do-il

LITTLE WOMEN

I really liked the drama tbh. Haven't felt this kind of excitement for an ongoing drama since Vincenzo and I obssessed over that one....

Sang Ah got what she deserved, I knew she had something to do with her mothers' death, complete psycho, like scary-level character. The acid shower was gruesome....

Kinda feel bad for Hwayoung, Sang Ah completely broke her spirit and that led her to years dedicated for the sole purpose of revenge, which we understand first hand because it is explained by her... Still, I am a bit disapointed with this part of the plot, I don't think her explaining what happened and how she did it was reason enough to pull the resurrection card because she didn't do anything other than that. It could have been done with a video, a letter, a file, anything else... In the end she got kidnapped and almost died, again. She got hit by a freaking truck, walked and runned around Singapore and survived that, heaven knows how. This is The Fast and Furious kind of plot armor right there.

Other than that (and my ship, not sinking or sailing, it's just floating in the high seas), I am happy with the ending. From the begining I kind of felt like the sisters would not be together in the end, not physically that is. They love eachother and will always have eachothers backs, but they needed their space to experience different things and do what they really wanted to do and be happy on their own. Being poor made them so co-dependent that they could litterally all have died because of it. They need a fresh start, each one of them. I think it is good ending.

PROJECT WOLF HUNTING (2022) ★★★★☆

      Les forces de police coréennes rapatrient, un groupe de dangereux criminels sur un cargo spécialement affrété et conditionné. Malgré la sécurité accrue, ceux-ci parviennent à s’échapper et massacrent les forces de l’ordre ainsi que les membres de l’équipage. Toutefois, un mal bien plus profond se libère également de la soute du bateau…     “Project Wolf Hunting” est un thriller d’action…

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Jong Ho not believing his ears and checking if it's really Choi Do Il.

He must have been surprised cause he had known about Do Il for a long time and saw him as a suspicious person.

Memories of Murder (2003, dir. Bong Joon-ho) - review by Rookie-Critic

Prior to 2019 (really 2020, if we want to get really specific) there probably weren't a lot of people in the States who could tell you who Bong Joon-ho is if pressed. Nowadays, after Bong's historic first non-English language Best Picture win for Parasite, most people would at least identify the name as familiar, and for good reason. Parasite is undoubtedly amazing; its message is both regionless and timeless, it has superb acting and brilliant cinematography, it is one of the best films of the modern era, if not any era. However, prior to Parasite, back in the days when Bong's fanbase outside of his native South Korea was limited to foreign film lovers and people who really liked Snowpiercer, most people would probably point to his breakout film, Memories of Murder, as his best work, and for a lot of the same reasons that people point to Parasite as his best now.

I'm not entirely sure why it has taken me so long to sit down and watch this considering how much I've enjoyed the other films of his that I've seen, but I'm glad I finally did. Following the true story of the detectives that investigated the Hwaseong serial murders of the mid-80s to the mid-90s, the film works as both a gripping crime thriller and a social satire of the failings of the legal system and the corrupt nature of a lot of its employees. One of our protagonists, Detective Park Doo-man (played brilliantly as always be Song Kang-ho) as well as his partner Detective Cho Yong-koo, are horrible police officers. They fake evidence, they torture victims until they'll confess to anything to make it stop, and they scoff at real investigative discoveries and excuse them as the other detectives "watching too many crime movies" (which in and of itself is an amazing line that both pokes fun at and winks a respectful eye towards the crime films that it follows in the legacy of); all they care about is putting someone away, regardless of if the person is actually guilty of the crime they're accused of committing or not. You can watch the film purely from a plot perspective and be entertained and engrossed, but much like Parasite, the true genius of it lies within this satirical commentary.

The knowledge that maybe the killer could have been stopped, victims could have been saved, if more resources had been poured into actually searching for the real killer instead of trying to put away people who obviously had nothing to do with it is maddening, but somehow Bong is able to inject humor throughout the film that makes all of these frustrating people and darker moments have a brief sense of levity without taking away from the nature of the subject matter. It's truly amazing the way he is able to craft stories that are not only interesting from a surface level perspective, but that contain darker themes and complex social commentary that even casual moviegoers can pick up on and appreciate, and then even with all of that blend comedy and drama so seamlessly you rarely notice the change. Another element of the film that I personally found brilliant, and that I briefly mentioned above, is the way that it seems to be a love letter to the crime dramas/thrillers that came before it and a criticism of them at the same time. If you've been following my reviews for awhile, you'll know how deeply I appreciate films that are able to strike that balance (Scream, Nope, etc.). The ability to acknowledge the problems with a genre without completely dismissing the films that portray those flaws as lesser or bad is something that just appeals to me on such a core level. This may just sound like a meeting of the Bong Joon-ho Fan Club, but it is truly awe-inspiring that he can make a film that has something for everyone in it, and can make everyone enjoy the other bits that, in any other movie, they may not have.

Now, Memories of Murder isn't perfect, it is only Bong's second film and some of those early film maker pitfalls exist here. A lot of the first half of the movie tends to drag a bit, and there may be certain scenes that could have cut or sequences that could have been re-edited to keep that sense of urgency (or maybe even the lack thereof on the part of the detectives) a little more present and flowing. Also, and I know I just got done ranting about how great this exact quality was, but sometimes the injection of humor could overtake the film a little too much. It doesn't happen but maybe once or twice, but I did take note of those moments as something that stood out to me, at least. Outside of these few kinks, Memories of Murder just further proves that Bong Joon-ho just knows what he's doing, and I can safely add another film to the "great" column of his filmography, and hopefully soon I can finish out watching the rest of them.

Score: 9/10

Currently streaming on Hulu.

keeping my love for doil injoo ship aside, the episode was underwhelming tbh. jaesang’s death was so not very satisfying & i expected a better ending for him. they kept on building up the suspense in the first half but the end result wasn’t mind-blowing. too many plotholes… like how tf did inkyung not know how hwayoung looked like because her suicide was all over the news. how could she forget about one of the key person of that savings bank suicide case? it was smart of her to manipulate that teacher into exposing sangah on national tv but how easily a CIA trained war criminal agreed to that *rolling eyes*. the plot twist isn’t twisting tbh. they better have a hella good explanation for hwayoung faking her death because i hate when kdramas bring the dead back. even if they do, it doesn’t absolve hwayoung using injoo to extract her revenge. the girl literally died, was abused & thrown into jail & almost lost her sisters in the process. & she decides to show up ONLY when injoo goes on trial? i am side-eyeing doil too (if he was involved in this since beginning) but at least he was with injoo at every step & made sure she’s fine in every possible way he could. atp i care only about doil injoo & the sisters’ happy ending tbh.