Like Mother, Memories of Murder is built around a homicide investigation in a small Korean town, but here the similarities end. While Mother remains deliberately and intensely intimate, Memories of Murder offers an epic look back at Korean society in the Cold War 1980s, as the economic boom began to take form, and before judicial reform and the arrival of new technologies transformed the nation culturally and politically. Based on the first reported case of serial killing in South Korea, the film novelistically details the wake of the crimes as their impact spreads to affect detectives, victims, survivors and suspects alike. As the chilling epilogue makes clear, this impact lasts for decades. A devastatingly effective thriller, Memories of Murder revealed Bong as a master of politically astute suspense cinema.