Review of Memoir of a Murderer (2017) by Alan W — 11 Oct 2017

A former serial killer who retired 17 years ago for a quiet life with her daughter now has to save her from a new, younger serial killer as his dementia worsens. So whenever his killer instincts help him unravel the clues to figure out who the killer is, his short term memory keeps getting reset whenever it suits the narrative.

This Memento-like set-up, playing up the narrator's unreliability, has great potential and there's a good deal of tension, not to mention humour, to be mined on screen in this game of cat and forgetful mouse.

The main lead, Kyong-gu Sol who plays the father is suitably sinister in his quieter moments but resorts to increasing hysterics in an exaggerated style of acting common in Korean/Asian cinema that does not endear him to this audience.

Nam-gil Kim, with his baby-faced charisma, plays it more ambiguous as the adversary to Sol's character. It's a pity then that the second half of the film falls into contrivances, culminating in a typically twisted and violent Korean movie ending with too many prologues - and when it finally ends, it settles on an unnecessarily ambiguous one that just feels a bit silly to me.