Before his Oscar-winning success with "Parasite" Bong Joon-Ho was already a master in the genre of off-the-wall and decidedly creepy thrillers that marked him out as one of the best directors of his generation. Like a Korean David Fincher he is more interested in the minutiae of a criminal investigation than in the crimes themselves. In "Memories of Murder" a number of young girls have been raped and strangled in a remote Korean community and the incompetent local police are only too happy to pull in the first suspect they find. It takes an outsider, a young inspector from Seoul, to at least look in a different direction.
As I said this is a thriller that is forensically detailed, a 'whodunit' where 'who done it' hardly matters; what does matter is the journey rather than the destination which isn't to say that the journey isn't at times edge of the seat exciting. Bong Joon-Ho knows exactly how to play his audience, feeding us information in much the same way as the police get theirs and as serial killer movies go this is something of a classic. Beautifully directed and superbly acted and yes, as good as the best of Fincher.
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