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Memories of Murder

FILM · 2003 · SOUTH KOREA

Memories of Murder

Directed by
Bong Joon Ho
Runtime
131 min
Studio
CJ Entertainment, Muhan Investment, Sidus

20 archived facts 2 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026

A sadistic serial rapist and murderer of young women terrorizes a small province in 1980s South Korea. To prevent further crimes, three increasingly desperate detectives with conflicting methods race against time to unravel the violent mind of the killer in a futile effort to solve the case.

  • Memories of Murder — production image

20 Interesting Facts About Memories of Murder

Interesting Facts (19)

  1. #001

    In the real-life case, four suspects were allegedly falsely accused and tortured by police during the investigation before taking their own lives. In December 2019, eight of the original investigators were arrested and charged with various offenses including abuse of authority, assaulting suspects, falsifying evidence and unlawful detention.

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  2. #002

    Lee Choon-jae confessed in 2019 to the crimes on which the film is based. He said of watching the film: "I watched it only as a film; I felt no feeling or emotion about it."

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  3. #003

    Director Bong Joon-ho was certain the killer would watch the film. In the film's final scene, Park Doo-man looks directly into the camera. Park is looking at the audience and is face to face with the killer (if he is watching the scene).

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  4. #004

    Bong Joon-ho began writing the screenplay for Memories of Murder (2003) in June 2000 and it took a year; however, he stated: "For the first six months I didn't write a single line of the screenplay. I only did research."

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  5. #005

    A deleted scene shows Detective Cho walking through a red-light district and then getting a massage while questioning a girl about possible clues to the murders. The scene was shot in a real red-light district in the city of Jeonju and featured real sex workers. They had to ask the local pimp for permission to film there.

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  6. #006

    Actor Kim Sang-kyung deliberately limited his food intake and slept fewer hours to make his character Detective Seo look worn down by the stress of the case.

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  7. #007

    Many viewers perceived Kwok Seol-yung as Detective Park's wife and thought the scenes of them together took place in their home. She is actually a prostitute and they are in a brothel.

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  8. #008

    Although the film is based on a series of real murders in the Korean town of Hwaseong in the 1980s, Bong Joon-ho said in an interview that he also drew heavily on the play 'Come See Me', which dramatizes the events: "If it weren't for Kim Gwang-rim's play [Come See Me], I would have had a very hard time building the structure." He took the idea of depicting that era from the comic book 'From Hell' by writer Alan Moore, which journalist Tony Rayns gave Bong as a gift.

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  9. #009

    Bong Joon-ho stated that the screenplay of Memories of Murder (2003) was directly influenced by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's comic book From Hell, and that he himself was "a little disappointed by the film the Hughes brothers adapted from it."

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  10. #010

    When Kwang-Ho is interrogated in the station's basement, two police officers and a suspect eat while watching a television program. The program's title is "Soo Sa Ban Jang", which can be broadly rendered in English as "Investigation Squad". It was a famous TV police drama that had aired for nearly twenty years. Its opening music was also very popular at the time.

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  11. #011

    The footage of the first woman killed in the culvert was shot at a different time, in a grain processing factory, and not actually where Detective Park looks beside the field. This was to protect the actor and to control the lighting. The insects on her face were added digitally.

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  12. #012

    Early in the film, when Detective Park mentions that he has "shaman's eyes", Sergeant Koo points to two men brought into the station. He says one is a rapist and the other is the victim's brother, and asks which one is the rapist. Which is which is never revealed, and according to director/writer Bong Joon Ho, even he did not know while directing. It was never decided.

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  13. #013

    Director Quentin Tarantino named the film, along with Bong's The Host (2006), as one of his 20 favorite films since 1992.

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  14. #014

    Unlike in the film, the real killer's first victim was Wan-im, who was 71 years old at the time of the murder. The last victim was 69 years old.

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  15. #015

    The first suspect, Baek Gwang Ho, eats only fried meatballs because he cannot use chopsticks, as his hands were burned in a fire accident.

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  16. #016

    In a 2014 audience poll of 1,462 people organized by the Korean Film Archive, it received 806 votes and was chosen as the best South Korean film of all time.

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  17. #017

    In the scene where the woman is attacked in the rain beside the cornfield, the killer's head can be seen emerging from the cornfield (in the upper-left part of the frame) and then sinking back into it before the attack.

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  18. #018

    Screenwriter Kim Eun-hee (Sign, Phantom) was involved in a television adaptation with the working title Signal, which was to air on SBS in 2015.

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  19. #019

    This film was the first television movie broadcast by the Lifetime channel.

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Behind the Scenes (1)

  1. #020

    The first flying kick and the scuffle in the station were improvised by actor Song Kang-ho.

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Related pages

  • Gisaengchung — Memories of Murder comes up in the facts on that page

Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • Wikipedia English Wikipedia article
  • IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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