Memories Of The Sword (2015) review

Greetings movie lovers!

It’s really been a long while since I watched and enjoyed Korean movies with village settings, so when I came across Memories of the Sword, a 2015 Korean movie while scrolling through some collections to decide which one to go for, I was piqued by the title and the poster because they literally suggested that it was going to be a revenge movie. Yes, I didn’t bother to read the details—I just clicked, downloaded, and was ready to entertain myself with a good two-hour ride of sword fights.

I was enjoying the scenes, although there wasn’t much fighting; I was only trying to grasp the storyline. But along the way, the whole twist got mixed up, and I just couldn’t make sense of it anymore. It really sucks when I’m watching a movie and I have to rack my brain excessively to understand the story. Why can’t some movies just be straightforward with their plots?

Seol-Hee, who was known as Hong-yi at the beginning, is the girl meant to take revenge for her parents’ death. She learns about the whole event after growing up under the tutelage of Seol-Rang(the among those that killed her parents), who had fled with her when she was an infant. This lady kept her father’s sword and gave it to her when she was grown up.

Okay, the storyline was clear up to this stage until they started making flashbacks, which made it appear that the most dreaded councilor in the village, Yoo-Baek, who killed Seol-Hee’s father, is possibly her biological father. OMG! I totally got confused. I had to rewatch those parts several times to understand the message, but no way—it was as confusing as anything. Damn! My brain was excessively stressed to the extent that I had to go and read about the movie, and though the briefing was a bit more direct, the scenes in the movie just didn’t align well. Maybe I was the one who didn’t get it, but even at that, why must I have to go through such deep thinking just to understand a movie’s story?

Apart from the confusing storyline, the other parts were okay. The characters mastered their roles and played them very well. Yoo-Baek (Lee Byung-Hun), whom I have seen in movies where he didn’t do much stunt work, appeared very devilish here with his unkillable martial skills.

The fights—though I don’t often like the excessively flying scenes—were well executed. There was a lot of flying, but it was fine and entertaining too.

I expected more fighting, especially with a title like that since it’s a revenge-driven movie, but the fight scenes were limited. Instead, the movie was filled with confusing dialogue and flashbacks.

I would give it a 3/10 rating.

This is the trailer:

Thumbnail: Imdb

Other photos are screenshots