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Memento Mori
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price:
$24.99
Asia Trips Trips Price:
$19.93
Your Savings: $ 5.06 ( 20% )
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
Starring: Lee Seong-jin, Park Yeh-Jin, Lee Young-Jin, Kim Min-Sun, Kim Min-Hee
Directed By: Kim Tae Yeon, Kim Tae-Yong, Min Kyu-Dong
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0807839001440
Format: AC-3
Label: Tartan Video
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Tartan Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2005-04-12
Running Time: 98
Studio: Tartan Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
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Editorial Reviews:
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Min-Ah discovers a shared diary and is soon fascinated to learn that two people she thought to be very close friends have in fact begun a forbidden romance at her school. She finds herself unable to tear her eyes away from the literally page-turning high drama of her classmates' lives, and the allure of the secret diary begins to take over. When one of the diary's writers is found dead from an apparent suicide, rumors spread and Min-Ah begins to feel a strange presence. The once-tranquil school is transformed into a place of morbid terror, as if the words written in the journal, "memento mori" (remember the dead), have come to life.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The best of the Ghost School movies.
Comment: Memento Mori (Tae-Yong Kim and Kyu-Dong Min, 1999)
There's a shot about halfway through Memento Mori that should tell you that this is not your average horror film. It's a chase scene, albeit a fumbling, amateur (from the POV of the characters, not the directorial intent) one; Min-ah (Min-sun Kim) is pursuing Shi-eun (Young-jin Lee). We're not entirely sure why-- to confess that Min-ah has Shi-eun's diary? To express her sympathy for Shi-eun's loss? To confront her for some other reason? We don't know. What we do know is that the camerawork makes this as earnest and thrilling a chase scene as one finds in any Dirty Harry or Steve McQueen movie. As with those sorts of chase scenes, Min-ah gets to the point where the two corridors the girls have been travelling meet, and of course Shi-eun had vanished. But what really caps the idea that this is not your average horror movie is a shot that comes later, where Min-ah, now fleeing, takes exactly the same route backwards. We don't see the whole thing again (whether for the sake of artistry or because the editors were a little cut-happy), but we see enough of it, with the same basic camerawork, to be assured that there was more than a little thought that went into putting these two scenes together. That, of course, is synecdochic of the care that went into the entire film; even in the generally high-quality Asian horror market of the past twenty years, that sort of eye towards shot composition is rare.
The second film in the loosely-aligned Ghost School trilogy, and the most earnest of them, Memento Mori, when it comes right down to it, is a horror flick in name only, and is the kind of thing that America's really kind of forgotten how to do in the aftermath of the slasher-mania of the eighties: it's a "horror" movie about the psychological aspects of being a social outcast. Imagine if Boys Don't Cry had been a horror movie (in the conventional sense), and you've got the idea. According to the trivia section on IMDB, "The directors wanted to make a supernatural tale without ghosts or scary scenes. But the producer refused the idea and they had to add some ghost scenes."
...In other words, it really could have been Boys Don't Cry.
Hyo-shin (Yeh-jin Park) and Shi-eun are classmates at an exclusive girls' school. Their friendship develops into something more, a situation unspeakable in the confines of the school's culture. Annoyed by the rumors, the two decide to make their relationship public. Shi-eun, unable to take the pressure, breaks off the relationship; Hyo-shin commits suicide in response. Or does she? Rumor has it someone else was on the roof with her. Soon after, Min-ah finds the diary that Hyo-shin and Shi-eun wrote together at school, and quickly becomes obsessed with it; is Hyo-shin's ghost planning to use Min-ah as a convenient tool to get back at her killer, or is a more earthy nemesis trying to drive Min-ah crazy?
A lot of stuff happening here, and as a great deal of it is told in flashback (the movie begins with Min-ah finding the diary), it can get quite confusing at times. Once enough of the plot is revealed to give you a more complete picture, however, you can start seeing that there's a really, really good meditation on love and loss sitting under the hood here, even if it is masked by producerial interference that resulted in some seriously cheesy special effects. The best of the Ghost School movies. ****
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not a horror movie
Comment: I'm pretty sure there are very few korean films with a focus on a lesbian couple... Considering that, the movie is enjoyable with good acting and a sweet little hidden relationship that turns dark. For me, most asian movies tend to have their moments but never really tie it together in the end... In this case it feels like there could have been more, something more full circle. ***THE KICKER is that some scenes were cut out of the movie, including a bathtub scene, But there is a (Korean ver. only) 6-disc special edition of this movie available for about $49-60 online with many extras and special packaging which I DO give five stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Compared to 'Wishing Stairs', this is worth seeing only as a curiosity.
Comment: The good news: there isn't a vengeful black-haired female ghost walking on all fours and filmed backwards to scare you.
The bad news: if you're a veteran of 'K' or 'J' horror, this only intrigues as being a stepping stone along the way to American mainstream acceptance of such films.
'Wishing Stairs' was a better written movie, in my opinion. Granted, it's the last movie of this cycle (so far). The acting and directing of Memento Mori are both standouts, but I fast-forwarded through a lot. I found it boring, and the ending had a middling neat twist, but not enough to make me want to keep this DVD.
I'd recommend The Eye or Wishing Stairs as alternatives if you haven't seen them yet.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My favorite Korean movie!
Comment: Memento Mori (Remember the Death) is a great horror flick. I would love to go to school for all girls in SK. Anyway, I just wanted to say that this movie is a must see! Buy it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: More A Drama With Some Horror: Will Appeal To Some!
Comment: As others have mentioned in their reviews, "Memento Mori," is the second of a three part Korean trilogy: which are in no way related to each other. The first being "Whispering Corridors," and concluding with "Wishing Stairs." I agree with the viewer below [EVAN HARRIS] that this film would have been better served had it remained a drama. However, the film was not; and thus lost what I believe would have been a better film. Nonetheless, some viewers may like this film. The film is more-or-less a drama with horror thrown into the film. Not heavy horror however.
The film centers on a student named Min-ah (Min-sun Kim) who happens to find a diary in her girls school. When Min-ah reads the diary she discovers that there is a love relationship between two of the schools' students: Hyo-shin (Yeh-jin Park) and Shi-eun (Young-jin Park). Also, one of these young women will commit suicide on the day Min-ah discovers this diary. Learning much about the relationship between these two students, Min-ah is pulled into her own little nightmare. The diary has some of sort of a hold on Min-ah; and the films narrative is told in flashbacks as she reads this very colorful diary.
Moreover, the films story relates the relationship and love affair between Hyo-shin and Shi-eun; and Min-ah discovers what exactly drove Hyo-shin to commit suicide. We see the love these two students have, and what they share with each other. Personally, I really did not think this was a great film as many have. It was an average film, definitely not horror, however, it may appeal to some viewers. I really believe this film would have been better served as a drama had it not included the horror element that the director and screenwriters decided to go with. I recommend the film with caution. Rent it first. It's not bad, but it's not very good either.
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