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I don't know if this is the first time to revisit the Korean movie "Memories of Killing", about this world-class masterpiece, everyone is willing to look for clues in the plot, and every time you watch it, there are new discoveries. We can't help but marvel at the greatness of the director and the creators: the film has many clues, the characters are neatly combed, the plot is fascinating and hidden, and the super-specification reproduction prototype "1986 Hwaseong Serial Murder Case in South Korea" deserves to be a world-class suspense film.
.................. Borrow a step to speak...............
I. The past and present lives of the "Hwaseong Serial Murder Case"
Between 1986 and 1991, 10 women were killed (injured) in the area of Taean Town, Hwa City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, and no matter how hard the police tried, the murderers still went unpunished and became a sensational super-unsolved case, and finally adapted by director Bong Joon-ho into a sensational and award-winning blockbuster "Memories of Killing".
On September 18, 2019, according to Korean media reports, the prototype of the murderer in the movie "Memories of Killing" has been found. After nine interrogations on October 14, Li Chunzai, a 56-year-old suspect who was identified as the "Hwaseong Series Murders," finally confessed to killing 14 people and sexually assaulting more than 30 times. However, Li Chunzai was not sentenced for 14 murders, but because of another case: in December 1993, Li Chun was arguing with his wife, and his wife and sister came to the door but were killed. The following year, Li Chun was arrested by the police, and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment, so that the demons of the "Hwaseong Serial Murder Case" evaporated...
In 2019, when Collecting DNA information from prisoners in South Korea, he accidentally found that Lee Chun-jae's DNA matched the DNA of the evidence in 3 of Hwaseong's murders, and later Lee had to admit to the 14 murders he committed and more than 30 cases of personal humiliation. However, what is puzzling is that of the 44 cases committed by Li Chun, only 3 of them meet the characteristics of the 5th, 7th and 9th homicides of the "Hwaseong Serial Murder Case". When the media planned to continue to pursue the truth, the South Korean police changed their words to say that the case was still under further investigation and still not really closed. So is Li Chun really a murderer, or is it just one of them? The truth we will talk about later, it is better to briefly understand the main contents of the 10 cases of "Hwaseong Serial Murder Case".
.................. And then look down...............
Second, "memories of killing" 10 homicides
- 1986: 4 murders (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4)
1. On September 15, a 71-year-old peasant woman was killed on her way home from her daughter's home. The next day, the body was found in the field, naked on the lower body. Hands and feet were tied in X-shaped, lying on the field, and the cause of death was strangulation.
2. On October 20, a 25-year-old housewife was killed on the way to the bus stop after the blind date at 8:00 p.m. There were 4 knife wounds to the chest, and the cause of death was strangulation.
3. On December 12, after a dinner party with her husband, the 24-year-old housewife disappeared on the way home by bus at 11:00 p.m. (the husband returned to the company after the dinner), and the body was found 131 days later in the rice field only 50 meters away from her home. However, the body was badly decomposed, and the face of the deceased was covered with underwear, and the cause of death was strangulation.
4. On December 14, a 21-year-old female employee of the company disappeared on the way home by bus at 11:00 p.m. after a blind date at a coffee shop in Suwon City. Seven days later, the body was found in a rice field, where many sesame seeds were piled up, his hands were tied back by his bra, and his head was covered with tight shorts, and the cause of death was strangulation.
- 1987: 2 murders (Nos. 5, 6)
5. On January 10, an 18-year-old female student took a bus alone after school at 8:50 p.m. after school and separated from her friends, and then her whereabouts were unknown, and the next day she was found dead in the field. Hands were tied back, mouths were stuffed with socks, and the cause of death was strangled by a scarf.
6. On May 2, a 29-year-old housewife took 2 umbrellas from home at 11:00 p.m. to be killed on the way to pick up her husband. The upper body was naked and the cause of death was strangled by a bra. The husband's home was forcibly searched.
—— 1988: 1 death and 1 escape (No. 7, 8)
7. On September 7, the 54-year-old housewife was killed at 9:30 p.m. on the way home after helping the canteen run by her eldest son. Evidence at the scene showed that the victim's body was in the grass near the small river on Nongshui Road, with peach fragments in his lower body, his hands tied back by his bra, his mouth blocked by socks and handkerchiefs, and the cause of death was strangulation. The crime scene was 29 kilometers away from Suwon City, and the bus driver said he had witnessed the suspect.
8. On September 16, a 13-year-old woman surnamed Park was threatened by gangsters with a knife from behind on her way to the church at 9:00 p.m., forcibly dragged to the rice field, her hands were tied back by her undressed, her mouth was stuffed with underwear, and her head was put on tight shorts.
- 1990: 1 murder (No.: 9)
9. On November 15, a 14-year-old female student returned home alone and was raped and killed at 6:30 p.m. in the mountains behind the stone shop on the way. The next day the body was found in the same location, accompanied by parents and police, and the body was covered by pine branches, hands and feet were tied behind, mouth was blocked by bra, two knife wounds to the chest, and the lower body was inserted with ballpoint pens, forks and spoons.
- 1991: 1 murder (No.: 10)
10. On April 3, a 69-year-old unemployed woman was killed on her way home at 9:00 p.m., and her body was in a pine forest 150 meters away from her home. Only panties were left on the lower body, and the lower body was put into socks, and the cause of death was strangled by stockings.
Taken together, the 10 cases span a long period of time, beginning in 1986 and ending in 1991 with the so-called "same modus operandi". Although the police identified the murderer as a person based on the scene of the crime and the means of injury, in fact, it can be inferred from the above content that this is a typical imitation murder case.
.................. The Ultimate Reveal...............
3. The real murderer may be six
According to the order of the movie "Memories of Killing", let's find out which people may be real murderers.
The first real culprit: In order to find evidence of Bai Guanghao's crime as soon as possible, Song Kanghao actually went to find the godmother Bu Gua, and even took Bai's sneakers to forge a piece of on-site evidence. In vain, he forgot that Bai was a completely mentally retarded man and had no power to bind the chicken. Don't say that you killed 10 people in a row, even if you can't protect yourself, it can be said that the person in this case is the least likely to become a murderer.
However, Bai Guanghao led to another real murderer behind the scenes, that is, Bai's father, Lao Bai, the owner of the barbecue restaurant. Why? Have you noticed that when Song interrogated Bai, the director gave the female police officer a shot of her legs, and then Bai Guanghao said that he was looking for his father. In particular, when Song and Bai watched suspense films together in the basement, Bai blurted out that his father often studied the murder plots in movies.
When the police ruled out Bai Guanghao's suspicions, a group of people in the barbecue restaurant were drinking and thinking about their next plan, but the camera deliberately gave Lao Bai a shot of eavesdropping on the police conversation. In particular, Bai Guanghao also told Song Kanghao that she had been running and waiting for a series of criminal plots on rainy days, fully explaining that she was at the scene of the crime at that time. And the person who was able to leave the crime scene alive, except for case No. 8, who did not open his eyes and saw the demon, belonged to Bai Guanghao alone. As the saying goes, tiger poison does not eat children, so the perpetrator must be white.
In addition, Bai Guanghao also said that he clearly remembered the appearance of the women who frowned at him, that is to say, his father Lao Bai's motive for killing stemmed from punishing women who discriminated against Bai Guanghao. Further, in 10 cases, the owner of the barbecue shop committed at least two crimes.
The second real murderer: Officer Xu, Song Kanghao and other 3 people came to the field to squat, but they did not expect to wait for a pervert who stole underwear. This person is saffroned in women's underwear, and there are a large number of pictorial newspapers that are not suitable for children at home. Although it is offensive, it is not murderous. Does he rule out the suspicion? The answer is no. Although he eventually confessed the facts of the crime, it was never consistent with the false testimony provided by Song Kanghao and others.
There is a premise here, that is, the suspect who has not slept for several days and nights is already in a state of high confusion, and everything he says is unconscious. That is to say, what he originally confessed was the truth of the killing, but it could not match the evidence content (red clothes, rainy days, songs, postcards, etc.) guided by Officer Xu, so this person was misplaced by the police.
The third real culprit is the female school doctor. School doctors are among the people who are most often exposed to female students, and why should they be equipped with female school doctors? It is to avoid the embarrassment of male school doctors, especially in the relatively closed and backward small mountain villages. But have you noticed the dress of the female school doctor, a neutral short hair show, and in the innermost part of the women's toilet, there is a men's magazine in her hand. If the toilet was full, she was forgivable in the innermost part, but when Officer Xu walked straight into the women's toilet, she found that the previous pit was empty.
When Officer Xu asked her for clues, she deliberately guided Xu to go up the mountain to inquire about the survivor. This is why the confession has been emphasizing that the murder suspect has a pair of hands that are very similar to women's, especially to tie each other with great force, and men do not have so much strength. Later, in order to confuse the police, the female school doctor killed the female student of case No. 9, deliberately leaving clues such as forks and spoons, but also a ballpoint pen.
The fourth real culprit is Park Hyun-kyu. This guy has a gentle face, although all kinds of evidence point to him, but why did the DNA identification papers brought by Officer Xu and Song Kanghao finally rule out Park's suspicions? The reason is very simple, at that time, the Hwaseong police provided only a single DNA sample, and Park's sample had long disappeared without a trace under the combined force of rain erosion and the artificial destruction of evidence at the scene.
When Officer Xu found an old photo album in Park's home, why did he think that Park was the real murderer? Because in a childhood photo, Park wears a pair of red pants, which must be a trauma from her parents in childhood, so she chooses to wear women's clothes and is extremely hateful to women. When I was a teenager, I encountered emotional changes, so I would order "Sad Mood Book" on rainy days.
The fifth real culprit was Officer Xu. The film does not explain the motivation of Officer Xu of Seoul to come to the small county town, but the whistle that rings in Officer Xu's ear from time to time is enough to show that he was a police officer involved in martial law activities. At that time, he was sanctioned by the new government because he participated in the suppression of certain people by the whole government, and thus was snubbed by the Seoul police community. In particular, the hatred of song Kanghao's noisy female students ranged from accidental injury to active killing.
Later, a similar murder occurred in the Hwaseong area, and he realized that it was an imitation crime, so he took the initiative to ask Miao to come here to help solve the case. In the process of solving, the cases occurred frequently, the influence gradually escalated, and he began to realize that he had to get out early, so he misled the crowd to investigate in the direction of "a murderer". Although Officer Xu tried his best, he still left some clues -
For example, one rainy night, when everyone was focusing on "fishing" to solve the case, Officer Xu, who had always been serious, suddenly slipped away, which left a deep doubt, what did he do? Immediately after that, a murder occurred, and it turned out that his purpose was to confuse the police, deliberately induce everyone to think that the murderer was the same person, and at the same time challenge other imitators of the murderer. In the course of the confrontation with Park Hyun-kyu, when he accurately describes the motive of "imitating crime" to mock the other party, Park is angry... This shows that the name of the master and apprentice has long been tacitly understood.
In addition, Officer Xu also appeared alone at the crime scene, anxiously smoking a cigarette. Around the 55th minute of "Memories of a Killing", he could not see his dedicated appearance when he squatted like Song and others, but felt afraid of the perversion that suddenly came. In order to strengthen the police is not all good people, director Bong Joon-ho deliberately inserted a piece of news on the tavern TV around the 90th minute of the movie, "the police officer surnamed Meng committed the crime in the 80s", which shows the good intentions of the creators.
At the end of the film, when Officer Xu angrily threatens to carry out the lynching, he utters something intriguing— in the absence of evidence, no one will care even if I kill you. This shows that in the environment at that time, Officer Xu fully understood that the cost of killing people was minimal, and when Park Hyun-kyu deliberately angry that he said that all the people were killed by himself, Officer Xu stayed, because he understood that it could not be all killed by him.
The sixth real culprit: I thought that the movie would end here, but in 2003, when Manager Song Kanghao revisited the old place, the little girl who came home from school told him that there was another person who had come here not long ago, and Song suddenly froze, indicating that the murderer was still at large. He asked the little girl what the other person looked like? The little girl said it was the very ordinary kind... We can't help but think of the little boy who "parroted and learned tongue" with Song at the beginning of the film, and revisited the old place after adulthood.
Some people will say how can a little boy kill someone? Have we heard less about juvenile delinquency in the news over the years?! In the early years of Hong Kong, there was a movie reflecting juvenile delinquency called "Waiting for Dong Fa To Fall". When the screen turns from light to dark and from dark to light, it is a 5-minute shot of the wheat field. It turns out that the bad things that people have done are all in this wheat field. Wheat field is silent, only God knows.