[Korean Film News] Voice of a Murderer [그 놈 목소리] (Jan 2007)

Posted by Jon Pais at 9:46pm.

Posted in Film News , Drama, Asia.

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The maddening number of look-alike gangster films, romcoms, melodramas and sequels finding their way into movie houses these days makes one wonder how much longer Chungmuro believes it will be able to maintain a 60%+ marketshare for domestic films. Some industry watchers consider it a sign of creative impoverishment that Korean filmmakers and scriptwriters have been turning away from traditional sources of inspiration such as literature and successful theatrical productions and toward comics, Internet novels and Japanese bestsellers, but at this point almost any change would be a positive development. Of course, Korea has a rich history to draw from as well, and several projects in the works aren’t adaptations of manga but creative re-tellings of historical events.

Park Jin-pyo’s [박진표] Voice of a Murderer [그 놈 목소리], based on an actual 1991 kidnapping of a young boy whose parents were threatened for 41 days afterwards by phone calls following his disappearance, is one such attempt. Kidnapping is certainly nothing new to Koreans, and has been used to great effect in numerous films, perhaps nowhere more savagely than in Save the Green Planet! (2003)—but Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (2002) gets my vote for one of the better botched crime pictures. Bong Joon-ho’s masterly Memories of Murder (2003), while not an abduction film, was based on a real life series of rape/murders between the years 1986 and 1991, and was proof, if any was needed, that the Korean public was still capable of appreciating intelligently-made, thoughtful dramas touching on topical issues. Park Jin-pyo’s most recent work happens to take us back to the same time frame as Bong’s crime film, a difficult period when Koreans were still struggling with an authoritarian past. And like Bong, Park is not afraid to tackle serious social issues, albeit with a dark sense of humor.

No stranger to controversy, Park Jin-po’s debut film Too Young To Die (2002), about an elderly couple who rediscover sex, which Darcy Paquet called one of the most important films of 2002, ran afoul of the ratings board, only to be screened after the film’s production company consented to darken some of the scenes. Park’s next feature, You Are My Sunshine (2005), starring Jeon Do-yeon [전도연] and Hwang Jeong-min [황정민], which told the story of an awkward farmer who falls in love with a sex worker at a local coffee shop, tackled unconventional subject matter but went on nevertheless to become one of the more successful melodramas to date. Director Park’s third feature has a strong cast and includes Seol Kyung-gu [설경구] (Cruel Winter Blues, 2006; Oasis, 2002), Kang Dong-won [강동원] (Maundy Thursday, 2006; Duelist, 2005), Kim Nam-joo [김남주] (I Love You, 2001), Choi Jeong-yoon [최정윤] (Radio Star, 2006; Phone, 2002) and Kim Yeong-cheol [김영철] (Bittersweet Life, 2005). Voice of a Murderer is due for a Janurary 2007 release.