A RECORD OF SWEET MURDER / CERT: NR / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: KÔJI SHIRAISHI / STARRING: JE-WOOK YEON, KKOBBI KIM, TSUKASA AOI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Let’s get something out of the way before we start; A Record of Sweet Murder is a thoroughly unpleasant film. That’s not a judgement on its quality, more the subject matter and unflinching, single-camera capture of some utterly nasty goings-on. Despite that – certainly not because of that – A Record of Sweet Murder is also a claustrophobic, immersive, thought-provoking experience that will stay with you beyond its dogged cruelty.
Directed by Kôji Shiraishi, a found-footage horror veteran responsible for Grotesque, Occult, and Noroi: The Curse, among others, A Record of Sweet Murder opens with an unseen cameraman – played by the director himself – filming a Korean journalist, Kim Soyeon, who introduces the set-up to camera. They have been invited to a deserted Seoul apartment building by an escaped murderer, who was a childhood friend of the journalist until an ‘incident’ saw him committed to an asylum at the age of ten. Seventeen years later, he wants to explain why he’s been killing, and Soyeon wants the story.
Set mostly in a grimy, abandoned apartment lit in a natural, almost dim manner, the plot unfolds with a great deal of talking and some explosive, bloody action. Yeon Je-wook as murderer Park Sang-joon is a tight, focused ball of intensity; his faith in the mission he’s been given from God utterly persuasive and disturbingly logical. Kim Kkotbi’s Soyeon is equally convincing, as she is forced to confront some very real horror which chips away at her unwillingness to believe Sangjoon can be responsible for his crimes.
The piece takes a turn part-way through, with the nastiness amping up with the arrival of two further characters who, without resorting to spoilers, are simultaneously exactly and not at all what Sangjoon has been waiting for. The violence, and some sexual assault, is not an easy watch but never feels gratuitous or prurient.
There is a genre element to the story which isn’t immediately apparent, and the film is a rewarding experience; an emotional ride with fixated people stuffed into a small space. This is a record not only of sweet murder(s), but also of some very disturbed individuals, and an engrossing watch.
