Movie	Extras
Audio	Video

On the DVD itself, it says it's Region 3, but I could play it on my Region 1 player, and on a PS2.  The website I bought it from said it was Region 0.  I'm inclined to believe it's Region 0.  This set cost me an arm and a leg.  It’s the most I’ve ever spent on a movie (if you include taxes and other charges.  It’s definitely worth it, though.  It’s a 2-disk set, with a 300-something page book written by the star, Jang Dong-gun (I've seen 3 different spellings for his name but this is the one on the book so it's the one I'm using).  It’s a gorgeous book.  It also comes with a frame from the movie.  (For those who care, mine is from the end of the first action sequence, where Mr. Jang is pointing a gun to one of the terrorists.)

disk 1:
2009 Lost Memories

Movie
I didn’t really know what this movie was about when I started watching it.  I wasn’t disappointed.  The movie takes place in an alternate timeline where Japan owns Seoul and the rest of Korea.  Korean terrorists wreak havoc in a fancy building for some as-yet unclear reason, and it’s the job of two cops (one Japanese (Toru Nakamura, ‘Tokyo Raiders’), the other Korean (Jang Dong-gun, also in Kang Je-gyu’s ‘Taegukgi’)) to find out what’s going on.  What follows is one hell of a ride.  The action sequences topple most of what Hollywood has to offer, and the friendship part of the movie is very good as well (though you do know where it’s going before it goes there).

The first action sequence at the beginning of the movie sets the tone for the rest of the flick.  The shoot-out has this incredible intensity and never lets up.  The rest of the movie follows suit.  You don’t really know what’s going on at first, but you know it’s going to be explained, and that it’s going to be worth it.  The shoot-outs that follow only top one another, which, after seeing the first 15 minutes, is quite hard to believe.  They’re so incredible; they might not have the same scale as ‘Heat’ or the budget of ‘The Rock’ but they sure as hell are as intense (if not more).  They are definitely as good, if not better, than whatever comes out of Hollywood.

As with ‘Shiri’ (another Korean action/drama, review here), the action in this movie rests on one great story.  Throughout the movie, the characters become more and more like real people.  No one is a hero, no one is Superman here.  The characters are thrust into improbable situations, but they always stay rather believable.  When they’re not shooting guns, the drama part of the story takes over, and you’re actually as impressed with what happens.  You feel for the characters, and you’re actually kind of glad you don’t have to make the decisions they have to make.  I could kind of see where some of the relationships were going, and I didn’t really want them to go there, but I suppose they had to.  The plot, on the other hand, is more or less a complete mystery.  I had a tiny idea of perhaps what was going to happen, but it wasn’t much more than a guess.

This movie actually says something, as well.  Just like in ‘Shiri’, it’s not action for the sake of action – it’s action for the sake of actually saying something.  It’s slightly on the nationalistic side, but that doesn’t bother me as much as in some other movies; the message given is pretty universal.  The movie has Japan and Korea as the two countries, but the possibilites for the message is definitely applicable in the real world.  Besides, it’s to impart some sense of being to Korea.  It’s rather important right now for them.  It’s really not as bad as some other movies I’ve seen, though.  This movie is insanely political, I was actually very surprised.  No Hollywood studio would have the guts to do something like this.  It’s quite refreshing to see a movie, an action movie no less, with such a thoughtful story.  (By the way, if you know how Koreans feel about the Japanese, this story is not surprising at all...)

The cinematography is gorgeous.  I’ve seen a few Korean movies and they all had this incredible visual style.  This one is obviously included.  Most of the movie is shot with a lot of blues and grays.  It creates this nice, calm atmosphere among the instances of carnage.  Add to that some great, invigorating music (which also reminded of the music in ‘Shiri’, but that’s probably due to the fact that the same composer scored both movies), and the entire mood is perfectly set.

I really hope this movie finds its way into North America.  It has a lot of action, so it should satisfy many people, but it also has a thoughtful, and thought-provoking story, which should also satisfy many people.  Columbia-Tristar released ‘Shiri’ here, and apparently ‘2009: Lost Memories’ was a huge hit in Korea, so I can certainly hope Columbia picks it up and releases it here.  If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get a theatrical release!

Commentary by director Lee Si-myung, composer Lee Dong-jeon and star Jang Dong-gun
Not yet.

Filmographies
As far as I can tell, the main cast and the crew has a filmography and a biography.  I like the way it’s arranged.  You click on a cast- or crew-member and their filmography scrolls by along with their bio.  There’s no clicking forward here.  I can’t tell you more than that because everything is written in Korean.  I can’t tell you who was in what or what they did before this movie because I can’t read it yet.

Photo Gallery
If you have the ‘Seven’ 2-disk set, the pictures here arranged in sort of the same way.  They scroll by without you having to press the next button.  There’s some nice music playing in the background.  It’s very short, but it’s nice enough.  It looks like promo stuff, but well done promo stuff.

Music Video
A short instrumental music video plays here with a montage of clips from the movie.  It’s nice and calm, with soothing strings and voices.

Theatrical Trailer
It’s a kick-ass trailer.  I’d say that it doesn’t reveal too much of the plot, but I can’t understand anything that’s being said in here.  As far as I could tell, it gave the basic premise, along with a bunch of clips from the action sequences.

disk 2:
Another 2009 Lost Memories

This disk has a few sections: ‘Interviews’, ‘Production’, ‘The Inside of 2009 Lost Memories’ – which is divided into a documentary, documentary with pop-up info and Making-of by Pop-Up (i.e.watch the branch of a particular pop-up without having to watch the documentary)  – and ‘How to Make the Movie Sound’.  They add up to just under 3 hours.

I can watch most of the things on here, I just can’t understand anything that’s being said.  The only real thing that will have to wait is the ‘Interviews’ part of the extras.  Things are getting more complicated by the fact that some of the interviews are in Japanese as well as Korean (some of the stars are Japanese and, I guess, don’t know how to speak adequate Korean).  Luckily, there are some Korean subtitles for that.  Everything else is pretty much behind-the-scenes stuff, with the occasional remark by someone or the director giving out suggestions, on how to do a certain shot, to the actors.

Production
This is absolutely wonderful.  It’s actual behind-the-scenes stuff while they prepared and shot the movie.  It’s divided into sections, which you can play one by one or all at once.  In all, it lasts an hour.  Here goes:

-‘Locations’ just shows a few scenes in actual practical locations, like the shoot-out on the highway and walking through downtown (I’m guessing it’s downtown) Seoul. (7:49 minutes long)
-‘Studio’ shows the (often very big and elaborate) sets that were built in a studio.  I guess shooting in actual buildings would have been out of the question what with all the mayhem and destruction going on all the time. (8:23)
-‘Guns and Lots of Guns’ is, well, just that.  It shows the stars practicing, and laughing at each other when they nearly bust an ear drum after shooting a gun with no ear protection.  It also shows off some of the apparently 26,000 bullets used during the movie.  Looking at this, it looks as though they real used bullets during some scenes (scene which, obviously had nobody on the receiving end of the guns). (4:24)
-‘Military Training’ shows the three main stars going through what looks like a very soft kind of boot camp.  It seems more like they want to get the look of what cops and military people might do than get the mentality.  I figure the characters in the script are so well thought out that this kind of training was unnecessary. (8:57)
-‘SFX’ shows a bunch of models of varying sizes being built and CG special effects shots from start to end product.  It’s interesting to see how some of the shots were done, especially considering that some of the f/x shots in the movie aren’t during any action sequences.  There’s a simple shot in the movie with a statue in the foreground and a building in the background.  This was a combo of miniature and bluescreen that I never would have guessed.  Some of the other f/x shots, though, are more obvious, like the helicopters flying towards the ship.  (Incidentally, it’s really funny hearing Christina Aguilera’s ‘Come on Over’ playing in the background, and seeing one of the model-makers wearing a shirt with a Canadian flag on it.) (9:51)
-‘Dangerous and More’.  After watching this one, I’m sure there were gallons of blood-loss during the shooting of this movie.  This is what can go wrong during shooting.  Broken noses, busted lips, and the most pain possible is what all the stunt people seem to have gone through while making this movie.  It’s kind of funny-but-not-funny after the star gets some stuff in his eyes and everybody tries to do what they can to help him out, but the director just looks at him, smoking his cigarette, then turns to the camera and gives a big smile. (10:29)
-‘Sakamoto’ is a bunch of clips of the star either being hurt, or screwing up his lines.  At one point in filming, he happened to jump over some squibs (or bullet pyrotechnics) while they went off.  He had about a half dozen small, bloody spots on his side.  The camera followed him to the emergency room at a nearby hospital to make sure he was alright.  These last two segments convinced me that Korea’s safety precautions towards actors isn’t as stringent as in the US. (10:38)

The Inside of 2009: Lost Memories
The Documentary
This is an actual documentary, even though it lasts just under 11 minutes.  It tracks the making of the movie from start to finish, though it does it quite quickly.  It's more behind the scenes stuff, without any interviews.  Really, really quick watch for such a complex movie.  It starts with the first action scene, moves on to the training, the f/x work, the shooting, some of the troubles on set, an the wrap-up.

The Documentary with Pop-Up Options
This is the same as the documentary, but has the option to branch out sort of like the white bunny thing from ‘The Matrix’ DVD (here).  The case says 60 minutes, but I can assure you it's longer than that.  Some of the branches are just truncated versions of the things you see from various aspects of the ‘Production’ footage, but some is new.  Here’s the breakdown: footage that’s also in the ‘Production’ part is just over 39 minutes; original footage comes up to, get this, 69 minutes and 32 seconds!  In all, if you watch all the documentary including all the branches, it adds up in the range of 122 minutes.

This complements the ‘Production’ part because it starts with the first scene shot and ends with the last thing shot of the movie.  It sort of makes you a part of the making of the movie.  You get to be this unobtrusive observer throughout the length of the shoot.  It’s great, even if about 40 minutes is repeated somewhere else.  It still gives you an idea of what the shoot was like (lots of pain, lots of takes), which is, I find, sometimes better and more interesting that the movie itself (not this movie in particular, though, but some other movies).

Making Film in Pop-Up Options
Here you can choose which branch to watch.  I’s a menu selection for the pop-ups.  Useful if you want to jump to one specific aspect of the making of the movie.  Watching these branches, you learn that the director doesn’t speak Japanese.  This is insane when you know that most of the movie (say, 70%) is in Japanese, and that there were many Japanese actors involved in the movie.

Here’s a description of all the branches given.  The names are the ones I give them because I can’t yet read them on the DVD.  I’ll change them when I can.  These are in chronological order when watching the doc.

-1st sequence.  Exactly  7 minutes long.  This is just a look at how the first shot of the movie, the assassin getting ready, was done.
-Training.  This is a bit over 6 and a half minutes long, and is the training the stars went through.  It’s longer in ‘Production’.
-1st set construction.  Slightly under 8 ½ minutes, this is the first set (the museum room) being built and then shot up and destroyed.  Longer in ‘Production’.
-Dangers.  5:18 long, this shows the pain the stunt people went through.  For those who are more sadistic, it’s actually longer in ‘Production’.
-Guns.  Over 2 minutes.  It’s pretty self explanatory.  It shows the guns that were used and where they used them.  It’s pretty impressive the amount of firepower that was on set while they were shooting.  More of this kind of thing in ‘Production’.
-Stars and Guns.  Slightly over 2 minutes.  It’s the stars at target practice, again laughing at their friends becoming deaf after shooting pretty nasty handguns.  More of this in ‘Production’.
-Kendo stuff.  Just over 4 and a half minutes.  There’s a scene in the movie where the two stars are doing Kendo, and this is how they shot and accomplished that scene.
-Final scene (assassination).  This is the longest branch at 15:44 minutes.  It shows the final scene of the movie.  Oddly enough, there’s still a lot of tension in the scene even when you watch it with all the cameras and people around.  I mean, it really is a  powerful scene.
-Highway Shootout.  Roughly 11 minutes long.  There’s a shootout that takes place on a highway in the movie.  This is how they did that scene, flaming car, explosions and all.
-JBI Shootout.  Just over 4 minutes, it shows the shootout in the office Sakamoto (the Korean cop in the movie) works at.  It’s a great scene.
-‘Sakamoto’ scene from ‘Production’. Four minutes and forty-two seconds or so.  It’s a shorter version of the last part of ‘Production’.
-Underground Shootout.  Almost 13 and a half minutes.  There are a lot of shootouts aren’t there?  This is the scene where the action and emotion mix the best.  It’s another powerful scene, but it took a lot of work to make it look that way.
-SFX. Just under 10 minutes.  Model building and CGI-stuff.  More of this in ‘Production’.
-Sakamoto Brawl in the alley.  Just over 13 and a half minutes, this is the last thing they shot.  You go through the process of shooting this scene.  The cast and crew congratulate each other and pose for a final picture after the shooting is finished.

How to Make the Movie Sound
This is nothing terribly new.  It shows the first 20-or-so minutes of the movie, and you can choose between different sound options to see the layers upon layers of sound movies use.  You can choose between the final mix, the dialogue premix, the foley effects only, the sound effects, the effects premix, the music and the production sound.  The sound supervisor has a biography and filmography (in Korean) here also.  There’s also an explanation of what the seven different layers are – along  the same lines as the glossary in the ‘Die Hard: 5-Star Collection’, if that analogy helps.  I find it insane how many layers have to be thought of during the sound mixing, even though most of them will probably not be noticed by most people.  There are seven here, but I’m sure during the final mixing in the movie it was a lot more.

Easter Egg
It’s only a trailer, but man! what a trailer.  It’s for a movie called ‘Resurrection of the Little Match Girl’, which I have reviewed here.

Audio
(Changed on 5/5/2005 because…)  I heard the movie in DTS.  It’s a good mix, but it’s not perfect.  The rears could be better (when do I ever not complain about the back speakers?).  The score is pumped out loudly by all the speakers, so there’s no problem there.  The music surrounds your head and blasts your ears.  The subwoofer is used very well, also.  The many explosions provide it with its ample use.  That’s not a problem.  There’s nice ambient sound.  The first scene, the museum exhibition, has nice ambient noise, like people talking and glasses clinking.  This comes from the back.  The problem comes with the more intense sound effects.  Crashes, and especially gunfire are way too bland.  They come from the front only.  For the gun fights, especially, the use of rear speakers would add a lot of tension, but, alas, that’s missing.  Across the front, there’s no problem, though.  I was really impressed when I heard this on my 2 speakers, as I should have been.  The sound across the front is quite nice, with plenty of activity throughout the movie.  It’s a good track, but I would have liked some use of the rears for the action scenes.

Video
1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.  The picture isn’t as clean as I wanted it to be.  It has grain throughout the movie.  That wouldn’t be too much of a problem except the movie is shot in these lush dark blue and gray tones, which seem to enlarge the grain.  It might have been the director’s intention for it to look that way, but with such a slick movie, I kind of doubt it.  Other than that, it’s a beautiful transfer.  The colors are terrific.  The sepia tone of the past is perfect and the blue and graying tones of the present are vivid.  The black is black and the white is white.  There are some specks, but the movie looks like a movie, so some people will like that aspect.  Apart from the graininess, it’s a great picture.

created 1/12/2002, modified a bit later