Ji yi da shi

Battle of Memories is quite intriguing ... for the first 5 minutes. After that I'm afraid, it's all down hill. Constantly referencing a host of similar - themed, but better, earlier movies (Total Recall, Inception, Paycheck etc), it's major problem lies in its foundation plot line premise. In the future people can go to Memory Centres and undergo procedures to erase some of their memories ... subject to, we find out, a plethora of confusing, uninteresting qualifications, terms and conditions. Immediately the alert viewer is asking oneself who would bother then, if it's not a straight forward operation? Well apparently Jiang Feng would.

He's a popular author whose wife, Zhang Daichen has decided to divorce him, for reasons (surprise, surprise!) that are never made clear. So not unreasonably then I suppose, he decides to have his memories of her deleted, a course of action that we suspect may be compromised by a critical incident occurring, just before he leaves the Centre. To add to his misfortune, on arriving home, Daichen suddenly announces she wants to postpone the divorce (for reasons not explained until the last 10 minutes of the film, in a ho hum twist dramatically better utilised in soap operas such as Days of Our Lives). And things don't get much better despite the inclusion of serial - killers, odd ball cops and copious black and white memory flashbacks (and for good measure, endless variations of same).

Production standards are admittedly quite good, but overall tone of the film is just plain weird. It's not just the reams of clunky, awkward dialogue that characters are forced to spout (it can't all be blamed on poor sub - title translations.) But the tone of the film is constantly out of kilter. E. G. What's with episodes such as the Three Stooges like slapstick farce of the cops rolling down the stairs together, in a film supposed to be some sort of sci - fi thriller?

For those who manage to stay the course of this dull mess of a film, they'll find Battle of Memories collapsing into a morass of blindingly stupid coincidences and who cares plot twists. Character motivations change directions like the wind to better suit the convenience of the story. The climactic revelation of the killer's identity is obvious, with the only benefit being we now know this banal movie will thankfully soon end.

Chinese/ Thai co-production about a man, going through a divorce, who has a procedure done which removes select memories from his mind. He later has the surgery reversed, to regain his lost memories, and finds his memory is now somehow linked with that of a killer, possibly a serial killer. A major problem is that he sees the memories the killer has * in first person *, so when he attempts to tell the local authorities, he becomes prime suspect in the double murder, and thrown into Hannibal Lector's plexiglass holding cell.

The subject of memory has always fascinated me, as I am burdened with an eidetic memory, so this film's premise obviously intrigued me, the surgical removal of painful memories, pleasurable memories, unforgettable things, things best left forgotten, so I enjoyed this film, but found it to be uneven, and a bit overlong.

Saw this recently on a DVD. A decent serial killer film with a dash of sci fiction.The film is about this new technology where one can remove unwanted memories at a cost. This new procedure is not approved by majority of the nations. Our lead character who is on the verge of divorce, goes to center to remove his memories of his marital life n he succeeds. At the center, a commotion n shootout happens n our guy drops his deleted memories which is in some box. No prize for guessing what happens next as it is already mentioned in the synopsis. Later the wife tells our lead to get back his memories before she signs the divorce papers as she wants to tell something important. The guy goes back n retrieves his memories but as it was quite predictable during the shootout, our guy's memories have been swiped. He now has the memories of a serial killer inside his brain. He is later put into a lock up (the same glass one from Silence of the lambs where Hopkins was put) for assaulting the director of the center blaming him for the wrong memories n not realizing that it got swiped during the commotion. Now the killer has our guy's memories n our guy is worried that his wife is in danger. Our guy is helped by a cop n his junior to track down the killer before its too late. The acting n direction was decent. The movie moved at a decent pace except for some scenes in the lock up n during the middle. Don't expect a fast paced thriller. Our lead guy is not some ex military or ex government intelligence. Ther r no fast paced chases, shoot outs, fights, car chases. May find shades of Minority report, Total recall, Solace.

Saw this with my wife in a AMC Cinema in Columbus, Ohio. We were two of a total of 9 people in the theater. ....Which was too bad, because this was a very well done, fun, entertaining movie: much better than the schlock playing in the other 23 rooms of the complex.

The idea of memory erasure and insertion is not totally new (see "Total Recall") nor is the idea of two different humans memories competing (See "Get Out") Nevertheless, this movie has some original ideas about the problem and an intricate web of a story that emerges in the confusion of the competing memories.

Outstanding acting and cinematography. Visually stunning. The lead actor is particularly convincing. Beautiful Chinese costars, exciting pace, keeps you guessing. My only complaint is that the writer/director actually tried to do a little too much with the complicated story. For example, the similarly confusing "Get Out" snaps together into perfect coherence after the last 60 seconds of the movie. In "Battle of Memories", the pieces don't quite all fit together at the end. Nevertheless, overall the movie was great entertainment, exciting, well acted, very interesting, beautiful to watch - we enjoyed the evening.

Battle Of Memories is a very good movie. It keeps you guessing until the very end. You will guess a number of times as you watch this movie but I don't think you'll figure it out. It's very engrossing and a little disturbing. It's a sci fi crime 'whodunnit' drama set in the near future. Excellent acting and cinematography.

This is a Chinese movie but I saw it with subtitles in English as well as Mandarin.

The actors gave great performances, especially Yang Zishan, Huang Bo, Xu Jinglei, Duan Yihong, Hsu Wei‑ning. The acting plus the cinematography made this intellectual sci-fi movie compelling and very believable.