Kim
Byung-su has some lethal muscle memories. He is a former serial killer, mostly
in the Dexter tradition of only killing bad guys. He stopped after suffering
serious brain trauma seventeen years ago that has finally evolved into full-fledged
dementia. Min Tae-ju is a fellow serial killer and also a cop. Their
cat-and-mouse game takes some especially dark turns in Won Shin-yun’s Memoir of a Murderer (trailer here), which opens today
in New York.
Kim’s
first victim was his abusive father. Others like him soon followed. Eventually,
Kim became a veterinarian, giving him access to livestock-grade tranquilizers.
He still remembers the most important things about himself: he is a killer, but
he loves his grown daughter Eun-hee. One fateful day, he rear-ends Min on a
lonely stretch of highway, spying a glimpse of some kind of bloody mess in his
trunk. Kim immediately recognizes Min is a fellow killer and vice versa.
Min
walks away, assuming they will extend each other the serial killer’s
professional courtesy, but because the “Maiden Killer’s” victims all match his
daughter’s profile, Kim phones in an anonymous tip. Being a cop from the next
city over, Min quickly traces it back to Kim. To strike at the old killer’s
weakest point, Min starts romancing Eun-hee. Of course, Kim has trouble
remembering any of this. He leaves himself audio memos and starts writing the
titular confessional for his future reference. Nevertheless, there will be
times he will suspect he is actually the Maiden Killer.
The
South Korean film industry does two things really well: sentimental tragedies
and serial killer thrillers. Memoir is
obviously the latter, with a thimble-full of the former mixed in for extra
added angst. It is a darkly potent concoction. Basically, it is like a Memento-like twist on the psycho killer
genre that never feels as exploitative as it sounds
Seol
Kyung-gu is the critical piece that makes it all work. As Kim, his is
convincingly paranoid, dementia-addled, guilt-ridden, and still pretty darn
scary. He really is not like any other serial killer you have seen before. In
contrast, you have seen plenty like Kim Nam-gil’s banally handsome Min, but he
is still serviceably creepy and clammy. Former K-pop star Kim Seol-hyun is cute
like you would expect, but she also looks credibly freaked out as she starts to
suspect one or more of the psychopaths surrounding her. Ever reliably serving
as an everyman anchor, prolific character actor Oh Dal-su does his thing as the
compassionate small-town police chief.