Her story tends to be secondary, however, to that of her target, Yoo-baek, a harrowed yet resolute general whose ambition toward rising the ranks of aristocracy has conquered his grasp on morality, and the attention seems misdirected. Everything about Hong-yi's creation into this talented seeker of vengeance relies on a strange premise born of karmic recompense and duty, and the rationale behind Wol-so's tutelage makes little sense once the extent of the young assassin's predetermined purpose, and the short list of people she must kill, becomes known. Nor is there ever really a dull moment in the storytelling driving Memories of the Sword, but that's not really a positive here as it copies the likes of Crouching Tiger and other martial-arts epic cut from the same cloth. Complimented by production design that's both ornate and unpretentious, there's never anything dull about the film's promising visual language.
#Memories of the sword movie#
It's a mesmerizing movie to watch amid its diverse locations - dense forests, expansive mountainous vistas, spacious palaces - reflecting on similarities to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in its fusion of history and wuxia-style gliding across rooftops. As the point-of-view soars across a sea of sunflowers toward bustling alleyways and into a coliseum of dueling warriors, all while she's adorned in vivid jade-colored garb that disguises her identity, director Park Heung-sik establishes a lavish visual language for his period epic that never relents throughout its runtime. Driven by vengeance and confusion about her past, Hong-yi recklessly embarks on her journey to murder the ascending aristocrat.īefore Memories of the Sword delves into the layers of its story, there's a sense of untainted, genuine wonder to be found in Hong-yi's flight into society by herself, bridging the gap between the version of her as an unseasoned fighter and the version of her who could stand on her own if necessary. Hong-yi discovers that she's been raised for murderous intentions, designed to enact vengeance upon Yoo-baek for the role he played in both political and familial strife during the revolts. Once she arrives back at home after her eventful day, she recalls the meeting with her mother and instructor, blinded tea-house owner Wol-So (Jeon Do-Yeon), who then precedes to tell her pupil about the real purposes behind her training and this individual she met, which flashes back to a period of bloody revolts against domineering rulers.
#Memories of the sword trial#
Her new confidence after completing a trial sparks a solitary trip to the mainland city, and it's here that she encounters the aristocrat Yoo-baek (Lee Byoung-hun). Set during the Goryeo Dynasty of medieval Korea, Memories of the Sword first depicts the skills of a young martial-arts disciple, Hong-yi (Kim Go-eun), as she lunges across a sunflower field.
Reputable performances can only carry the absurdity of a story so far, which is where Park Heung-sik's work really goes awry, unable to shake off fundamental weaknesses. While director Park Heung-sik telegraphs the punches and the production design with enough zeal, he stumbles in the areas where it really counts, with his experience in Korean melodrama knocking the film's historical tempo off-balance with too much weepiness and outlandish, often flustering twists.
#Memories of the sword full#
One could easily view South Korea's Memories of the Sword as that film's antithesis, and perhaps what those viewers were more expecting out of the tale: it's full of overt drama, boasts vigorous battles and high-flying wire work, and encounters little downtime during its vivid two-hour runtime. For some people, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin was too subdued in its dramatic pacing and action pursuits for its own good, too restrained with its mostly stoic heroine embroiled in her emotional assignment to kill someone close to her.
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