2009 Lost Memories?

[Christine Marran]

I taught this film in my Asian film course because I think that the 
premise is quite bold. I can't imagine Hollywood making a what-if film 
of a similar sort -- such as a film about what the U.S. would look like 
had the British  prevailed (although we do have our current King George, 
but that is a different kind of colonialism -- corporate colonialism 
perhaps).  Even though Korea prevails as an independent nation, a great 
part of the film is devoted to a depiction of the country as colonized 
and, as Markus points out, is quite fascinating.

Curiously, half of the students loved it and half hated it because they 
thought that the action scenes were John Woo rip-offs. In their minds, 
the scenes were rip-offs, yet John Woo's were "so much better."  I guess 
that is the result of an attachment to the symbolism in John Woo that 
repeats itself in all of his films, such as the doves, and an attachment 
to "origins."  And likely, too, an interest is having a little less 
slo-mo!  If only the scene of the child running into the hero's arms 
hadn't been so long! Ugh.

LM 2009 seems to be one of a number of films from turn of the century 
that portray unification as an unstated ideal.

Christine


Mark Nornes wrote:
> For those who haven't seen this yet, this is a time travel narrative 
> that imagines what would have happened if Ito Hirobumi had not been 
> assassinated in Korea. It's complicated, and it's been a long time, but 
> if memory serves the basic idea is thus: Ito's killing was the main 
> pretext Japan used to annex the peninsula and is the "birth" of the 
> Korean nationalist resistance that results in independence followed by 
> war and the north/south separation.
> 
> A crafty Japanese politico uses an ancient device to travel back in time 
> to stop the assassination in the nick of time; Ito survives, Korea still 
> ends up colonized, but Japan ends up an ally of the US and Germany ends 
> up the target of atomic warfare. Japan thus retains its Great Asia 
> Co-Prosperity Sphere and Korea is a colony.
> 
> The main character of the film discovers his nascent "Korean-ness" and 
> travels back in time to ensure Ito gets bagged and in this way restores 
> Korea's _true_ and _natural_ history as a unified and sovereign nation 
> state.
> 
> I immediate gave this thing to our Korean historian Henry Em, and we had 
> a great time talking it up. The film would be rich material for teaching 
> nationalism and history. It's also very fun to see Koreans imagine what 
> Seoul would be like under a 21st century colonial condition. A must see 
> film!
> 
> Markus
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 26, 2004, at 10:07 PM, zaki jaihutan wrote:
> 
>> I see this film more on the point that it was a 'very
>> audacious' movie for an Asian movie....the opening
>> action sequence in the museum is quite on the same
>> level with Hollywood standard, though the movement
>> still look very 'directed'. As for the movie it self,
>> the last half of the movie, like many Korean movies,
>> are overly dramatic. However, i see this movie as an
>> important effort to put Asian movie in a respectable
>> level with other countries' movies, especially
>> Hollywood movies, and with their own flavour of course.
>> Korean, Japan and even Thailand, are definitely going
>> somewhere with their movies.
>>
>> On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 21:37:02 -0400, Cathleen Keyser
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I finally got a chance to see "2009 Lost Memories" and
>>> was curious to
>>> see what were everyone's thoughts on it.  I don't
>>> recall seeing this
>>> so far on the list.  Although this is a Korean film, I
>>> thought it
>>> might be interesting to discuss this film since the
>>> picture of Japan
>>> it portrayed was very interesting.  Thoughts/Comments
>>> in general on
>>> the film?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Cathleen Keyser
>>
>>
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> 
> 
> .
> 


-- 
Christine L. Marran
Asst. Professor of Japanese Literature and Cultural Studies
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Minnesota