2009 loseuteu maemorijeu

In an alternate time-line, in the near future(with some nifty tech), a young cop finds himself questioning why he and his men are fighting a group of... well, are they terrorists or are they freedom fighters? The story-line is nice and does get resolved, if there are subplots and events that either don't affect anything or, at least to me with my Western eyes, looked strange and unexplained. Maybe it would help if I knew more about Korea, because this is definitely a jingoistic piece on there, from there. Japan has taken over the aforementioned country, and is suppressing their independence. This leads to some melodrama, and though the two hour, 14 minute running time sans credits would be shorter if these instances were mercifully removed, this does really get to you, you find yourself caring and feeling the impact of bullets, and the grip of tension. The acting is pretty good. I watched this with subtitles, not dubbed, and while I had to read along to understand what they were saying, the power of the way they deliver the lines came through quite clearly. The action is all shoot-outs, it's quite well-choreographed, it's stylized(with slow-motion, and "frame-chopping") and it's cool. This has some well-done visuals. The FX are reasonable. There is a lot of bloody violence in this. The DVD comes with 8 and a half minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and four trailers. I recommend this to fans of Asian cinema, and John Woo type flicks. 7/10

This is interesting.

The movie got enough materials for a good movie. a gripping story, interesting twist of plot, strong casts, nice action sequences, and powerful ending.

Some weaknesses and plot holes can be tolerate, including some low cost special effects and camera manipulations.

But apart from that, the whole combinations succeed on giving full entertainment and just a simple moment for you to think of all the possibillites in this world.

If you have interest in asian movie, try this one. i strongly recommended this one for story telling and action-drama presentation.

Nice evening movie...

An interesting opening and superb ending make up for a few less than stellar plot transitions as Lost Memories is one Action Drama that I won't soon forget. The music really complements this film and allows the slow motion sequences to make an impact. As for action its fairly standard and the acting is good but not award caliber. A solid Action drama with a few brief Science Fiction moments. Mixing Both Japanese (mostly the first half) and Korean the rest of the way, Lost Memories2009 is amongst a growing wave of multicultural/national Pan Asian films that could find an audience outside of Asia with a bit more exposure.

If a 100 is Perfect 81/100

No, we are not talking about another Matrix-esque film where the world is really a virtual reality dream/nightmare...this is a film that takes a serious look at one of the many great "what if's" in history and shows how the world would have been. One of my favorite things about this film is that it shows the extremes of what people will do to either keep that history or change it. Its race against race; father against son; and friend against friend in a race for a nation's identity. Who will win, who will lose, and who will ultimately decide the fate of the world? Fantastic action sequences that seem almost too real. The bloodshed abounds in this film as we see repeated scenes of terrorists face off against police forces in shoot-outs that can only end with the annihilation of one group or the other. The battle scenes are realistic in that you don't see your standard "good guys never miss while bad guys can't hit the broad side of a barn" routine, these are truly horrific battles with a large casualty count from both sides.

The film, however, isn't all about action. The story itself stands on its own as you try to piece together the jigsaw of clues and dead-ends to find out what in the world is the truth. Even when you arrive at the climax of the whole story you are left on one cliff-hanger after another, wondering if this will be the final bullet to decide it all...and at the ending there is no cliff hanging, the writers have thrown you off the cliff and you wonder what awaits you at the bottom.

Despite this nail biting ending, the film had is draw backs: 1) a plot that progresses like a starting train, VERY slow at first before gaining tremendous steam at the end; 2)lots and lots of blood, not for the squeamish; 3)the ending had a loose end that was never explained; and 4)you will want more character background and insight from the two main characters.

A very good film that had plenty of room for improvement.

This movie is the newest success of the rising Korean film industry. It's got drama, plot, action, emotions, and nice acting all rolled into one, on the background of a fantastical assumption on a twist of real history.

Note on the title. The setting is the year 2009, and the film is based on the assumption that Korea is still a colony of Japan, as it had been for the past 100 years, because a single assassination attempt back in 1909, which succeeded in real life, failed and changed the whole course of history for the past 100 years in this alternative story. A Korean-born special agent tries to set the history right, and his colleague, a Japanese-born and a friend of his, tries to stop him.

Although made in Korea, dialogues are about 70% Japanese, and you have to have some knowledge in the history of the two countries to fully understand this movie, but the setting and basis is very imaginative and fascinating, that anybody can appreciate it. The two stars of the movie, Dong-Kun Jang and Toru Nakamura, who are Korean and Japanese in real life, are very fine, and make up a nice team. The action scenes, which are plenty in this movie, are nicely choreographed and serve to contribute to the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The Korean film industry is growing, so the next time you catch a Korean movie, it could be this one!