2009 Lost Memories

Infobox Film
name = 2009 Lost Memories


director = Lee Si-myung
producer = Kim Yun-young
Seo Jun-won
writer = Lee Si-myung
Lee Sang-hak
starring = Jang Dong-gun
Toru Nakamura
distributor = CJ Entertainment
released = February 1, 2002 (South Korea)
runtime = 135 min.
country = South Korea
language = Korean / Japanese
budget = $5,600,000 US (est.)
amg_id = 1:314894
imdb_id = 0294252

"2009 Lost Memories" is a 2002 South Korean science fiction action thriller film, directed by Lee Si-myung. It was distributed by CJ Entertainment, and was released on February 1, 2002. Award-winning Japanese director Shōhei Imamura plays the role of a historian in the film. [cite web |url=http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/person/p0122340.htm|title=nihongo2|今村昌平 - "Imamura Shōhei|accessdate=2008-07-03|language=Japanese|publisher=Japanese Movie Database]

Plot Summary

In an alternative future where the Korean peninsula is still a part of the Japanese empire, Sakamoto, a Japanese Bureau of Investigation (JBI) agent of Korean heritage and Saigo, his Japanese partner try to solve a strange case where Pro-Korean nationalist "terrorists" attempt to steal a strange archaeological artifact. Initially Sakamoto is valuable to the case because of his ability to communicate with the terrorists. He is later removed from the case when it is discovered that his father had some previous involvement with the terrorist group. Sakamoto's desire to solve the mystery involves threatening the powerful Inoue Foundation. This only makes him more passionate about its resolution and after uncovering more on his own, he discovers that reality isn't how it should be. It then becomes his new mission to restore history to its rightful path.

Background

The film shows an alternate history supposing that Hirobumi Itō was not assassinated by An Jung-geun in Harbin, China, in 1909; this change results in Ito's leadership guiding Japan as a military and industrial power that allies with the United States against Germany in World War II (dropping an atomic bomb on Berlin in 1945) and retains all of its wartime conquests and peacetime annexations, including Korea. The film takes place in 2009, 100 years after Ito should have been killed. Author Tom Vick says that the theme of the film represents a desire in Korean cinema to "transcend time and memory", a theme he says is also reflected in such contemporary films as "Flower Island" (2001), "Il Mare" (2000), and "Bungee Jumping of Their Own" (2001). [Vick, Tom (2008). "Korea: Rising from the Ashes of History" in "Asian Cinema: A Field Guide". Collins. ISBN 9780061145858, p. 161.]

Historical differences

The opening sequence shows the following differences in the historical timeline:
*The March 1st movement is referred to as a terrorist uprising.
*Japan joins U.N. Security Council as a permanent member in 1960.
*Japan launches the Sakura 1 satellite in 1965. (Indicating that it was a huge player in the space race).
*Nagoya is awarded the 1988 Olympics (instead of losing by one vote to Seoul).
*Lee Dong-Gook is depicted in a Japanese soccer uniform playing in the "2002 FIFA World Cup Japan" (not 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan).
*Korea is never referred to as Hanguk 韓國 as the entity which came to use that name, the Republic of Korea, never existed. Instead it's called Chosen in Japanese, and Choson in Korean.

Differences in Seoul:
*2009 Seoul is introduced as Kyŏngsŏng (경성,京城), an old name for Seoul that fell out of use after Korea gained independence from Japan in the actual timeline.
*The Governor General Building still stands in front of Gyeongbok palace (instead of having been demolished in 1996).
*Gwanghwamun was never restored (instead of having been restored during Park Chung Hee's presidency).
*A statue of Toyotomi Hideyoshi on a horse in full samurai gear stands in downtown Seoul (instead of a statue of the man credited with defeating him, Yi Sun Shin).
*The Chungmuro district of Seoul, where Sakamoto lives, is still called Honmachi, as it was during the Japanese rule.
*Traffic flows on the left side, instead of on the right.

Oddities

*Despite growing up and living in a totally Japanese environment, Sakamoto speaks accented Japanese.
*Sakamoto and other Koreans however speak Korean flawlessly, despite there having been no official Korean language education or media.
*In 2009 Seoul, there are public videophones. Public phones, or land phone lines in general, are quickly becoming obsolete due to cellular phone usage in both Japan and Korea today. Videophones don't seem like a worthwhile investment.
*Saigo's wife wears her kimono every day. Most Japanese women only wear it on special occasions.
*At several points during the film, Japan is referred to as "the mainland" despite the fact that Japan is a collection of islands while Korea is part of the Asian continental land mass. This is only odd in the geographic sense, not in the geopolitical sense.
*Inouye knows how the time machine's key works, yet he keeps it on open display in a museum instead of putting it in a safer place.
*We're told in the film that, after North and South Korea unified, Korea rapidly became a rising economic power. South Korea is already a significant economic power, as the third-largest economy in East Asia. We're also told that Inoue went back in time in 2009, suggesting that Korea's economic rise took place in the space of only one year or less.
*A possible temporal paradox occurs. After going back in time from 2009 to 1909, Sakamoto destroys the time traveling artifacts. If time is exactly linear and only one reality is possible, then destroying the artifacts would make it impossible for Sakamoto to travel to 1909 in the first place, which means they would never have been destroyed in 1909, which means he would be able to travel back in time to destroy them. This would result in a never ending time loop. If, however, multiple realities are possible, then Sakamoto's journey to 1909 is simply from a different 2009 than the one he created by destroying the artifacts, resulting in no temporal paradox.

Goofs

*In the first bar scene, there is a sign with the Korean Won (₩) symbol on it. Korea should be using Japanese Yen (¥) in this timeline.
*2009 Seoul from the opening scene looks strikingly like the Ginza district of Tokyo, even down to the landmarks.

References

ee also

*List of Korean language films
*Cinema of Korea
*Contemporary culture of South Korea
*List of Korea-related topics

External links

*imdb title|0294252
* [http://www.advfilms.com/titles/2009/ Official US Site]
* [http://www.gaga.ne.jp/lostmemories/ Japanese Site]
* Elley, Derek. " [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117918151.html?categoryid=31&cs=1 2009 -- Lost Memories] " (film review). "Variety", July 9 2002.