The Marmot’s Hole

Saw 2009 Lost Memories on video tape last night - another classic example of an interesting premise shot right to hell by poor execution. The sci-fi / action flic takes place in an alternative near-future in which Japan (with the assistance of the US!) has won WW II and Korea is an integral part of the Japanese Empire. Dope, says I - I’m a sucker for that kind of shit, and I sat down for this with high hopes. Alas, I was to be disappointed. Not that the movie was that bad - it wasn’t. In fact, if you’re into quasi-John Woo-style action, you won’t be disappointed. But personally, the plot simply requires me to suspend my disbelief for far too long. Screw the normal paradoxes associated with films of this genre - there are bigger faults here. For example, even if the Japanese had been able to prevent the 1909 assassination of Ito Hirobumi by Korean “patriot” An Chung-gun (I put “patriot” in quotes because I know Joseph at Infidelworld has a very different take on the man), would it have really made that much of a difference? If you’re going to change an event in history, choose something that’s actually important - Midway and Khalkin Gol come immediately to mind. And how the hell did the Japanese convince the Americans to join them in gang-banging China? Did they manage to bring along Pat Buchanan from the present and install him as President of the United States?

Other things disturbed me, too. First, if you’re going to make a film like this, generally speaking, you want to show what a shitty place Korea would be if Japan never lost the Big One. But the vision 2009 Lost Memories presents of Seoul under Japanese rule is one that is - and let’s be honest here - disturbingly pleasant. 100 years of colonial rule, and what do you get? A nice, clean city full of high-tech skyscrapers and courteous drivers. Jeeze, that really is disturbing. Granted, the systematic destruction of Korean culture (most of the dialogue in the movie is conducted in Japanese, and Korean culture survives only in outlying “Korea Towns” reminiscent of Chinatowns elsewhere) was frightening, but couldn’t you have turned Korea into a rice / mining colony or something? And why can’t the Japanese shoot straight, man? Hollywood films are just as guilty here, but how many times did I have to watch lone Koreans take out companies of Japanese SWAT police (curiously armed with M-16s) while their buddies just sat there and watched? I mean, Jesus, with marksmanship like that, how did these guys ever get an empire?

And finally, the biggest gun battle of the film took place juxtaposed with images of traditional Japanese culture (as it’s perceived by many Koreans), and that really pissed me off. Hollywood films do this all the time, too - it’s like every time you hear the Muslim call to prayer, you know something bad is going down - and it evokes in me the same negative response. Images can be quite powerful, and mankind is fucked-up enough without resorting to associating its cultural and spiritual traditions with the nastiness committed by its individuals, groups, and states. Anyway, that whole scene rubbed me the wrong way - no need to be watching Japanese lanterns and kimono clad families one second, only to cut away to Japanese cops gunning down Korean kids the next.

Now that I’ve bashed the film thoroughly, I said the film wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t. It was slickly produced, fun to watch, and both Jang Dong-Geon and Toru Nakamura get high marks for putting in big performances. Jang, in particular, deserves all the praise in the world for learning his lines in Japanese, and Toru Nakamura earns my respect for simply taking a role in a film that doesn’t exactly paint Japan in the best light. Still, I was kind of disappointed - this film could have rocked, if only it had tried to do more with a premise that held out so much promise.