2009: Lost Memories

Did You Know?

• 2009: Lost Memories was a co-production between Korea and Japan, coinciding with the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
• Duy Lap Nguyen, in Science Fiction Studies, described the work as an allegory about the history of Korean national sovereignty.

Background

The film opens with an alternate timeline diverging from actual history. On October 26, 1909, An Jung-geun's assassination attempt against Itō Hirobumi is thwarted by a man named Inoue. Japan annexes Korea in 1910, suppresses the March First Movement in 1919, and Inoue becomes Korea's second governor-general in 1921. The assassination of Yoshinori Shirakawa by Yoon Bong-gil is prevented in 1932. The United States and Japan ally against Nazi Germany in World War II, atomic bombs fall on Berlin in 1945, and Japan becomes a permanent UN Security Council member in 1960. The 1988 Summer Olympics are held in Nagoya, and the 2002 FIFA World Cup is held solely in Japan.

Plot

In 2009, the Empire of Japan is the world's second most powerful country, controlling the Japanese Islands, the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, Sakhalin, the east coast of China, the Kuril Islands, Primorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, the Jewish Autonomous Region, Vietnam, the Philippines, and northern Borneo. In Keijo, the capital on the site of Seoul, a monument to Toyotomi Hideyoshi stands before the governor-general's palace. Japanese Bureau of Investigation agents Masayuki Sakamoto and Shojiro Saigo thwart a hostage crisis at a museum by the terrorist group Hureisenjin. Sakamoto finds a crescent-shaped rock called the Lunar Soul among the terrorists' possessions. The Hureisenjin have a long history of targeting the Inoue Foundation, founded around artifacts collected by the second Governor-General. The terrorists ambush a convoy shipping the foundation's artifacts and steal the Lunar Soul. Sakamoto encounters the group's leader, Oh Hye-rin, in a gunfight. His accusations against the Inoue Foundation lead to his removal from the case, citing his father's execution as a traitor for aiding a thwarted Hureisenjin attack in 1985. Sakamoto travels to Harbin to investigate the Lunar Soul, is suspended, and after his mentor Takahashi is murdered, he escapes custody with Saigo's help, who vows to become his enemy.

Reception

Tom Vick, in a chapter on Korea in the book Asian Cinema, linked the film's theme to a desire in Korean cinema to transcend time and memory, also seen in Flower Island, Il Mare, and Bungee Jumping of Their Own. Jonathan Clements wrote about the film in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times noted that while the film is too long, its plot leaps from action thriller to science-fiction drama without losing sight of the humanity beneath the nationalism. Derek Elley of Variety concluded that the movie, billed as the biggest action flick in Korean cinema history, is more a noirish action drama than a high-tech thriller, and is too leisurely for the international market.