The Killer Who Lost Memory--Lian Neison's [Memory Killer]

[Memory] (Memory) is a 2022 American movie, but nonetheless, its style and plot are very different from the American movies I am familiar with, perhaps because it is based on a Belgian writer.

Belgian writer Jeff Gilaz's novel [Memories of a Killer] has been adapted into a film in 2003. If you can see this Belgian version of the memory killing god, it should be more interesting to be able to compare the differences between the two!

To be honest, I'm not an action movie fan, 99% of the reason I watch [Memory Killer] is because I can see Lien Nison. As long as it's a movie starring Lien Nison, I have the courage to watch it, because even if the movie is not good, at least I've seen Lien Nixon. But these movies that I watched because of Lien Nison have never stepped on the thunder, so I can't help but give birth to the sigh of [As expected of Lien Nison]. (Yes, I am a Lienison fan)

Lien Nison's work last year, "The Ice Road", is also a new film adapted from an old French film in 1953. This film is also a good film with a compact plot and well-defined characters. I'm a little curious if Lien Nison is very good at choosing scripts, or is it that no matter what kind of script, as long as you find Lien Nison to perform it, it will look good? (Okay, I'm really a Lien Nison fan)

Began to become a Lien Nison fan, not because of [Instant Rescue] in 2008, Lien Nison became an action superstar. Instead, I was [forced to] watch a lot of action movies because Lien Neison became an action star. The first film I saw of him was the 1996 drama [The True Colors] (Michael Collins), and the Irish Independence hero was captivated by the performance of Lien Nison, who was originally Northern Ireland Man, the role played by him is impressive.

Because of this film, I was fascinated by Michael Collins, a historical figure full of ideals and enthusiasm, and also liked this handsome Irish actor. After watching a lot of action movies since the immediate rescue, it is hard to imagine that in 2022, when Lien Nison is 70 years old, his role is still dramatic and full of presence!

The fan's gossip is over, back to the movie viewing experience of [Memory Killing God]...

Maybe because it is a movie adapted from a novel, there are more important characters than expected in the story. At the beginning of the story, it is difficult for you to guess which characters will play a key role later. Traditional American movies mostly have only one When it comes to two important protagonists, one good and one evil can lay out tension and tension. Too many character viewers may not remember who this person is. After all, action movies already have a lot of intense and exciting pictures to attract people's attention. If you want to pay attention to remembering the relationship between the characters, the emotional background of each character is a little too overloaded. But the action movie managed to get a lot of different characters with faces, voices, and even emotional twists. Who is the killer who assassinated the bad guy in the end, you won't know until you see the last scene. But this unexpected ending also has complete plausibility in the unfolding of the story.

If you have seen the 007 series Royal Nightclub, you may understand why this film handles the characters' [multiple relationships] so successfully, because the director is the same Martin Campbell. I think Martin Campbell's films remind me of the Hong Kong action films I used to watch when I was a child, and somehow feel a certain similarity in style and mood. Watching the climax of the gambling table in the Royal Nightclub, Qiao Duan, who was turning round and round, remembered Chow Yun-fat's God of Gamblers series with nostalgia.

This [Memory Killing God] also aroused my memory about the Hong Kong movie [The True Color of Heroes]. The killer in the movie is a good guy who protects the weak, but the police are the bad guy who acts for the tiger. This kind of plot of confrontation between the bottom of the society and the powerful bullies often appeared in the Hong Kong movies I watched when I was a child, but the scene was changed to the United States, and the characters were replaced by Mexican illegal immigrants and real estate tycoons.

If the system of the whole society allows the people of the lower classes to be unfairly exploited physically and psychologically, and there is no room for resistance, in this environment, the only hope is lynching justice. Hong Kong's underworld movies often take this as the theme, and the same social background is bred out.

There is no way to get justice through legal channels, and the only chance is the justice of the underworld. This reminds me that people's psychological demands for [justice], if not here, can only be met elsewhere. But no matter where solace comes from, some form of compensation and redress is always needed. Because man cannot live in a group that he considers unjust. All conflicts must be resolved through rules/reasons. However, in the real world, the knot that cannot be opened is often not that there is no way to punish the bad guys, but that there is no consensus on who is the bad guy.

Everyone has their own justice. If everyone uses private law to implement the justice he thinks, you can imagine how terrible it is. In the Anglo-American legal concept, the best result is a compromise between 80% justice and 20% injustice. Because the pursuit of 100 percent justice is impossible and will come at a disproportionate price.

The justice of lynching in [Memory Killing God] can still give people a sense of joy that [the good people finally win]. But just like the name of the original novel of the movie [Memory], if we decide right and wrong based on our subjective perception and memory, how can you be sure that the justice you think is the real justice? Will it be called [justice] , is it just a feeling that we need to be satisfied?

My favorite part of the movie (besides Lien Nison) is its visual beauty, many of the images are treated in a novel way, with a killer emerging from the glass of the gym, slowly approaching in the dark rainy night, until The moment the gunshots sounded, there were many ghosts, but they were clean and neat.

Lien Nison's hero is always a little fragile and full of flaws, like in this movie, he is a killer with amnesia. But a hero is actually a hero because of his fragility.