'Memories of the Sword' - Movie Review

I really have to lay off the twisted Korean revenge stories. They're kind of stomach-churning. In this case, a young woman has been raised her whole life to be a master swordsman - to take revenge on the two people who killed her parents. But inevitably there are multiple reveals along the way that show it's much more twisted and unpleasant than that ... That is, of course, if you can follow the plot. One of the reviews called it "borderline incomprehensible," which is fairly accurate. I had the advantage of not being in the theatre: I could pause or rewind to sort things out. But the incomprehensibility was dramatically aided by spectacular continuity errors: my personal favourite was when soldiers came for a woman warrior in the tea room she owned, we got a jump-cut to a field where she fought them. There's also intermittently glorious cinematography while this mess is happening. However, fans of the martial arts need not apply: there are plenty of sword fights, but the jumpy editing and the poor choreography make this one about the drama and revenge, not the fighting.

Had I known it was a revenge flick, I would have passed. But even for people who like them, there's little to recommend here: the director tried for the cinematography of movies like "Hero" and "Curse of the Golden Flower," but only held it together for a few scenes ... much like the plot.