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To me, this movie is perfection.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Powerful

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Memento Mori is apparently a sequel to Whispering Corridors, which was a reasonably enjoyable Asian ghost story set in an all girl's school, but although the location may be the same, the characters and events are totally unrelated (so there's no need to bother seeing the original film first if you haven't already).Unrequited Sapphic schoolgirl lust, suicide, and a scorned spook are the order of the day, all of which sounds like a recipe for some serious fun, but the manner in which Memento Mori is executed is so messy that confusion and then boredom are the inevitable outcome.The film begins with schoolgirl Min-Ah finding a diary written by two of her classmates, who are one step away from rubbing rug. As Min-Ah delves deeper into the girls' private scribblings and learns more of their relationship, things begin to get really weird and completely unfathomable, a fractured time-line that whips erratically between events past and present not exactly helping matters.Other reviewers here on IMDb found the film subtle, surreal, and touching; I would add 'totally boring'.

In the 1990s, a strain of cinema came out internationally that played fast and loose with structure and time. Most of the names connected with that movement, Tarantino and Nolan among them, are American, but it could also be seen in the international realm, as indicated by this South Korean film. Memento Mori is actually a pretty basic ghost story built on guilt and grief, but transcends the genre through digital video techniques and a lot of creepy ambiance.It's set in a girls school where hormones run rampant and can barely be contained within the walls. Two girls, Hyo-shin and Shi-eun, spark a friendship and then a relationship, writing it all down in a shared diary that is later found by Min-ah. After Hyo-shin kills herself, though, things go quickly awry, and figuring out what is going on is put secondary to the emotional trials the girls have to go through, both individually and as a school.Now not everything in this movie works, but the whole is definitely better than the sum of its separate parts. The watery imagery of the beginning sets a tone but doesn't actually come to mean anything to what happens later in the movie. The two girls, apparently, have ESP, but it's not really indicated for what purpose other than that it helps them communicate without others listening. There's this strange shot of the dead girl staring from the roof down on the panicking school that's not nearly as effective as the flash of judgment in her eyes right as her body is found outside. Some moments are legitimately creepy beyond typical horror tropes, such as the hands going over Min-ah's body, whereas others are clichéd flashCUT! shocks that have less resonance than the cut piano wire. In terms of building suspense, this movie is all over the place, and yet overall it is a chilly and atmospheric shocker that will more than keep your attention.Fans of the Tartan Asian Extreme label will definitely enjoy it, fans of Korean cinema should definitely check it out, but I'm not too sure everybody would like this one. I wish more focus was put on the internal world of Shi-eun, who is losing her hearing and feels the most alienated from the day-to-day life of the school. Her story was a lot more interesting than Min-ah's, and her guilt much more emotionally compelling than the thrill-ride it causes.--PolarisDiB

I have to admit that this one got past me almost completely. I had genuine trouble following it. It takes place in a Korean girl's boarding school. One of the students finds the diary of a dead girl. (That diary is great, a creative collage full of hidden pills, mirrors, strange powders, odd sayings, including the eponymous Latin expression.) Another girl jumps to her death for reasons we don't know. The girl who finds the hidden diary swallows a pill from it, follows clues, discovers a veritable treasure trove of similar goods secreted in the bottom of an upright piano by the dead student. Among these items is another pill -- "This is the antidote. Take it if you trust me." She takes it, feels unwell, flops on a couch, the camera bores into her pupil, weird events take place for the next half hour, the camera removes itself from her aqueous humor, the weird events continue anyway, it rains a lot, students run around in an overhead shot looking like streams of ants, the face of the suicidal girl appears gigantically above the skylight in the gym like Woody Allen's mother in "New York Stories." I got the girls mixed up and had a difficult time telling them apart, especially when they are shot from a distance or upside down, as happens from time to time. It's almost the case that they all look alike. They're all kind of pretty. They dress the same. They all have lank long black hair. Their voices sound identical. They're built alike -- gangling, narrow-shouldered, small-bosomed, slim-hipped -- their slender legs ending in clumsy black boots. And although they are in their mid-teens, they have the restless magic energy of children. They run around, shrieking and playing grab ass everywhere they go.When the movie was over I felt as if I'd just stepped off a souped-up merry-go-round, exhausted and a little dizzy.All that confusion aside, which may reflect lacunae in my interpretive apparatus, the story plays true. With a couple of exceptions -- profanity and pregnancy -- I could believe this is how girls might act in a place as alien to my sensibilities and experience as a Korean girls' boarding school.The intentionality behind the film is a very feminine one. Whoever was involved in putting it together understood girls. It's loaded with intrigues, jealousy, the uncovering of secrets, and worries about physical appearance. Teenaged boys have the same concerns of course, but probably not to the same extent. If this were a story about boys there would be more open arguments and fist fights.There's a homosexual element too. It isn't just friendship. One of the girls is clearly in love with another and there are hints of other affairs. But I'd hesitate to call it lesbianism. It's situational homosexuality, the kind you find in prisons. The girls have lost none of their femininity and one or more of them appears to have had an affair with the teacher -- handsome, young, very fortunate Mr. Goh.What "horror" there is, is slapdash and confusing. It would probably have been a better story of the horror had been either hinted at or eliminated entirely, and the narrative hung entirely on a few well-differentiated students.I gather that others have found this really entertaining, so I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing it. It's not my bowl of bul-kogi but it might be yours.

This film was quite disappointing really. Not much happens in it, and it certainly wasn't very scary at all. The freakiest thing in the film will be the fact that the diary was very densely written in, and it reflects a very obsessive personality of the writer. At the beginning, the intrigue of the diary barely keeps you on your toes, and as the film dragged on, you just start losing any other interest in it.Acting was pretty OK, but by no means amazing. I guess the film does reflect on the compulsiveness of the characters within it - this is the only interesting bit I think.If you wanted to see a film scarier than this, and leave you with something to think about, I suggest 'A tale of two sisters' instead.