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#054 Bong Joon-Ho: Memories of Murder vs. Snowpiercer w/ guest Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Bong Joon-Ho's best and worst rated films, Memories of Murder (2003) and Snowpiercer (2013), respectively. Nate wanted to find out who the damn killer was, Austin wants Eric to soar, and Eric has to change his rating on Snowpiercer. Check back Sunday, March 26 at 7pm PST where we will compare James Wan's Saw (2004) and Dead Silence (2007), his best and worst rated films.
Also check out this interview of Bong Joon-ho about his film Snowpiercer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsWhqpKBwG0

Snowpiercer Notes
Worst Rated
PLOT: Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.
  • Ratings: IMDb 7.0 | RT 95% C / 72% A
  • Released: 2013
  • Director: Bong Joon-ho
  • Writer(s): Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterston (screenplay)
  • Cinematographer: Kyung-pyo Hong (Mother, The Wailing)
  • Notable actors: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Ah-sung Ko, Alison Pill, Luke Pasqualino
  • Budget: $40 million
  • Box office: $86.8 million
  • Fun Facts:
    • There was no other light than the torch itself while the torchlight scene was filmed.
    • Joon-ho Bong had reservations about casting Chris Evans in the lead role because of his muscular physique. He felt that as a resident of the extremely poverty-stricken tail section, Curtis should not be especially physically fit. Costuming and careful camera angles kept Evans' physique from showing.
    • Chris Evans thought the scene where he slips on a fish was ridiculous. Joon-ho Bong had to persuade him that it is one of his twists.
    • Director Joon-ho Bong explained that the 'protein block' from the movie was really made by combining seaweed, tangle, sugar and gelatin. Jamie Bell hated it, while Tilda Swinton liked it.
    • The drawings in the tail section of Snowpiercer were illustrated by Jean-Marc Rochette, the original comic artist of the graphic novel Le Transperceneige.
    • According to the filmmakers, train-babies like Yona developed animalistic hearing skills.
    • Joon-ho Bong first wrote the part of Mason with John C. Reilly in mind, but then adapted the character for Tilda Swinton, though he intentionally left lines of Mason being referred to in the masculine-form in the script, which show up in the movie.

Memories of Murder Notes
Best Rated
PLOT: In a small Korean province in 1986, three detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.
  • Ratings: IMDb 7.0 | RT 89% C / 93% A
  • Released: 2003
  • Director: Bong Joon-ho
  • Writer(s): Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterston (screenplay)
  • Cinematographer: Hyung-ku Kim (The Host, The Warrior, Together with You)
  • Notable actors: Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim, Jae-ho Song
  • Budget: $2.8 million
  • Box office: $86.8 million
  • Fun Facts:
    • Beginning in June 2000, it took Joon-ho Bong a year to write the script for Memories of Murder (2003), yet he has stated that: "For the first six months, I didn't write a line of the script. I just did research."
    • Joon-ho Bong has stated that the script for Memories of Murder (2003) was directly influenced by Alan Moore's comic book From Hell, and that he was also "a bit disappointed with the Hughes brothers' film of it."
    • When Kwang-Ho was investigated in the basement of the police station, the two police officers and a suspect watched a TV program while eating their meals. The title of this program is "Soo Sa Ban Jang" which can be loosely interpreted as "Investigation Squad" in English. It was a famous TV detective drama which was aired for almost twenty years. The opening music was also very popular during that time.
    • Despite the film being based on a series of real murders in the Korean provincial town of Hwaeseong during the 1980s, Joon-ho Bong also drew a lot inspiration from a play called 'Come See Me' which dramatized the incidents, to the extent that he stated in an interview: "If it weren't for KIM Gwang-rim's play [Come See Me], I would have had a lot of problems establishing the structure." While he also gained the idea for the depiction of the era from the graphic novel 'From Hell' by the writer Alan Moore, which was given to Bong by the journalist Tony Rayns as a gift.
    • Director Quentin Tarantino named it, along with Bong's The Host (2006), as one of his Top 20 favorite movies since 1992.
    • In order to make his character Detective Seo look properly worn-out by the stress of the case, actor Kim Sang-kyung deliberately limited his food intake and slept fewer hours.
Intro music: Calm The Fuck Down - Broke For Free / CC BY 3.0

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