is a 2014 Japanese-South Korean thriller film directed by Kōji Shiraishi. It was released on 6 September 2014 in Japan, and 11 September 2014 in South Korea.
Plot Kim So-yeon is a South Korean reporter who is contacted by Park Sang-joon, an old childhood friend, who has recently escaped from the mental institution he has been in since age 10 and gone on a serial killing spree. Sang-joon asks So-yeon to bring along a Japanese cameraman (Tashiro), and after the two arrive at the rendezvous spot in Seoul, Sang-joon calls to tell them to enter an abandoned apartment complex. After entering the building, Sang-joon appears and forces the pair at knife-point into an apartment, telling the cameraman to never stop recording on the threat of death. So-yeon begins questioning Sang-joon about his reasons for the killings. Sang-joon shows So-yeon a video he took of the accident that led to his institutionalisation, which was their shared friend Yoon-jin being hit by a car. He explains that ever since the accident, a god has been telling him to kill 27 people at age 27 in a ritual that will bring back Yoon-jin and the 27 people. He asks So-yeon and the reporter to document the final two murders to show that the ritual is real.
Cast Yeon Je-wook as Park Sang-joon Kim Kkot-bi as Kim So-yeon Tsukasa Aoi as Tsukasa Ryotaro Yonemura Park Jeong-yoon as Go Yoon-jin Yeo Min-jeong Kōji Shiraishi as Tashiro, cameraman
Production A Record of Sweet Murder originated in early 2013 after the manager of Cinema Skhole, a cinema in Nagoya which had frequently screened Kōji Shiraishi's films, introduced the director to a South Korean producer who was seeking a Japanese filmmaker to direct a horror film. The project subsequently developed as a Japanese–South Korean co-production. The film was shot entirely in South Korea. Shiraishi visited the country while developing the screenplay, but said that because he was unfamiliar with many aspects of everyday Korean life, he deliberately concentrated the story largely within a single room. He felt this allowed the film to retain a sense of realism without depicting cultural details with which he was insufficiently familiar. Shiraishi conceived the film as a point-of-view production appearing to unfold in a single continuous take. He said that the real-time presentation was intended to maintain tension and that some members of the Korean crew initially suggested shooting the material as a more conventional narrative film. The film was not actually photographed in a single take; several long takes were joined through rapid camera movements and moments of deliberate camera shake in order to conceal edits. Shiraishi recalled that some individual takes lasted more than seven minutes. Shiraishi also appears in the film as the unseen Japanese cameraman, Tashiro. He described the production as his first major overseas filmmaking project.
Release A Record of Sweet Murder had its world premiere at the 2014 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, where it screened in the World Fantastic Cinema programme. It was released theatrically in Japan on 6 September 2014, distributed by T-Joy and Nikkatsu, and in South Korea on 11 September.
Home media Nikkatsu released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on 2 May 2015. The Blu-ray edition included interviews with the cast, footage from the Japanese premiere, an audio commentary by Shiraishi and producer Yoshi Kino, and Shiraishi's 1998 short film Ano Ko wa Kumo no Ue, which similarly employed a fixed-camera, single-take filmmaking technique.
Unearthed Films released A Record of Sweet Murder on DVD in North America on 28 May 2019.
Reception Richard Kuipers of Variety described the film as a claustrophobic psychodrama whose apparent continuous-take presentation produced both dramatic strengths and weaknesses. He praised its conclusion as clever and unexpectedly affecting, while suggesting that its graphic violence and deliberately rough visual style would appeal more strongly to genre audiences than to general viewers.
Starburst similarly regarded the film as an intentionally uncomfortable viewing experience, praising its claustrophobic atmosphere and immersive single-camera presentation and describing it as thought-provoking despite its graphic violence.
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