Superbly directed by Joon-ho Bong, Memories of Murder is as gripping as any serial killer movie and has perhaps the most eerily memorable ending. It’s based on an actual string of murders that begun in 1986 in an agricultural area 30 miles south of Seoul.
The local detective Park (Kang-Ho Song, star of Bong’s later masterpieces Parasite and Broker) is a cop of the old school. His technique is to round up the usual suspects and beat them until somebody confesses. Unsurprisingly, the murders continue, and unwelcome reinforcements arrive.
Detective Seo (Kim Sang-kyung) is the pro from Seoul. Seo is focused on forensic science and psychological profiling. Seo is as reserved and professional as Park is coarse and sloppy. So this is an odd couple movie as welll as a police procedural. But, as different as they are as people, the two are driven to solve the case, and each is, in his own way, consumed by it.
The two piece together similarities in the crimes – age of victim, time of night, color of clothes and even a song requested from the radio station – and find a pattern that they hope will lead them to the suspect. As in every serial killer story, the police are racing to prevent more murders. But months and years go by, and the bodies keep piling up. There’s an epilogue set in 2003, which is haunting and unforgettable.
Bong Joo Ho (Parasite, Broker, Mother, Snowpiercer and Okja) makes movies so original that it’s been said that he is his own genre.
Memories of Murder is, for my money, the very best serial killer movie. There have been some great ones – Zodiac, Peeping Tom, Psycho, M and its remakes – M and El Vampiro Negro, The Strangler, Helen Mirren’s Prime Suspect series and David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter. Fincher, of course, is the master of the serial killer movie. Before Zodiac, he made what is probably still the most thrilling serial killer movie, Se7en. He followed Zodiac with the top-notch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. But, Bong’s Memories of Murder is right there with the best of Fincher.
Memories of Murder is true crime, based on real murders. When the movie was made in 2003, Bong and his collaborators did not know that there would be a major breakthrough in the case in 2019. Please only read the real-life postscript AFTER watching Memories of Murder, which stands on its own. Feel the power of the movie’s final scene, and then you’ll be just as amazed by what happened 16 years later.
Memories of Murder used to be very difficult to find, but after Bong Joon-Ho won Oscars for Parasite, it’s become available on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Hulu and redbox.