LEE Yoon-jeong, the director of
Remember you (2016) featuring a man in amnesia as the main character, offers her opinion as to why amnesia is frequently depicted in Korean cinema as follows: “As a Korean viewer, I think people like the dramatic aspect of amnesia. Korean audiences need to find sympathy in the characters on screen and if someone loses their memory, it’s easy to do that.”
Like her insight, the set up of not remembering his/her beloved has been a frequent setting in Korean melodrama. Obstacles from outside, for example, adversary families or class difference, could be overcome by the power of love, but amnesia turns love impossible at the first place. A major film in this rationale would be
A Moment To Remember (2004).
Making a big success in East Asia as well as domestically,
A Moment To Remember depicts a young woman in Alzheimer's disease, gradually erasing the memory of her loving husband. Soo-jin (
SON Ye-jin) falls in love with Chul-soo (
JUNG Woo-sung) that she met at a convenient store, and marries him. However, their happiness does not last long. “Don’t be so kind to me, I’ll forget it anyway,” says Soo-jin, which resonates in the audience’s heart for a long time.
Remember you, also featuring JUNG, adds mystery to the combination of romance and amnesia, which may lead to extreme sadness. Suk-won (JUNG) just woke up after a car accident with amnesia, having forgotten his most recent 10 years. He sees a woman, Jin-young (
KIM Ha-neul), at the hospital, who sheds tears for him, and falls in love with her without really knowing who she is. As his forgotten past awakens, his life and love are troubled.
Also, there are those melodramas with amnesia as the conclusion of their love.
A Sketch Of A Rainy Day (1990) by
KWAK Jae-yong, which is all the more famous for its well loved original sound track, unfolds the story of Ji-hye (
OK So-ri) who falls in love with her adopted brother, and finally loses her memory, after painful suffering from her father’s objection and her lover’s tragic destiny. In other words, amnesia is a strategy for the film to earn sympathy and tears from the audience, by breaking up the couple at nobody’s fault, nobody’s betrayal or decision. Similarly,
Lee Jang-Ho And Alien Baseball Team 2 (1988) puts Umji (
LEE Eung-kyung), the female lead, in amnesia. Although she ends up with another man, as it was not her intention, it is not a betrayal, suggests the film.
It is not just the melodrama where Korean cinema deals with amnesia.
My Wife Is A Gangster 2 (2003) is a comedy, with the set up that the female gangster boss Eun-jin (
SHIN Eun-kyung) lives as a Chinese food delivery woman, not remembering her past, due to her amnesia.
Enemy At The Dead End (2010) is also a comedy where the life-time enemies meet each other at sick beds in a hospital and one of them suffers from amnesia. In addition, as seen in
The Ghost (2004), the horror genre dealing with possession also often uses amnesia.
However, by far, melodrama is definitely the genre for amnesia, where the viewers go through all kinds of emotions, feeling sorry for the main character in amnesia and his/her partner.
LEE Yoon-jeong, the director of Remember you (2016) featuring a man in amnesia as the main character, offers her opinion as to why amnesia is frequently depicted in Korean cinema as follows: “As a Korean viewer, I think people like the dramatic aspect of amnesia. Korean audiences need to find sympathy in the characters on screen and if someone loses their memory, it’s easy to do that.”Like her insight, the set up of not remembering his/her beloved has been a frequent setting in Korean melodrama. Obstacles from outside, for example, adversary families or class difference, could be overcome by the power of love, but amnesia turns love impossible at the first place. A major film in this rationale would be A Moment To Remember (2004).Making a big success in East Asia as well as domestically, A Moment To Remember depicts a young woman in Alzheimer's disease, gradually erasing the memory of her loving husband. Soo-jin (SON Ye-jin) falls in love with Chul-soo (JUNG Woo-sung) that she met at a convenient store, and marries him. However, their happiness does not last long. “Don’t be so kind to me, I’ll forget it anyway,” says Soo-jin, which resonates in the audience’s heart for a long time.Remember you, also featuring JUNG, adds mystery to the combination of romance and amnesia, which may lead to extreme sadness. Suk-won (JUNG) just woke up after a car accident with amnesia, having forgotten his most recent 10 years. He sees a woman, Jin-young (KIM Ha-neul), at the hospital, who sheds tears for him, and falls in love with her without really knowing who she is. As his forgotten past awakens, his life and love are troubled.Also, there are those melodramas with amnesia as the conclusion of their love. A Sketch Of A Rainy Day (1990) by KWAK Jae-yong, which is all the more famous for its well loved original sound track, unfolds the story of Ji-hye (OK So-ri) who falls in love with her adopted brother, and finally loses her memory, after painful suffering from her father’s objection and her lover’s tragic destiny. In other words, amnesia is a strategy for the film to earn sympathy and tears from the audience, by breaking up the couple at nobody’s fault, nobody’s betrayal or decision. Similarly, Lee Jang-Ho And Alien Baseball Team 2 (1988) puts Umji (LEE Eung-kyung), the female lead, in amnesia. Although she ends up with another man, as it was not her intention, it is not a betrayal, suggests the film.
