Memories Of Murder is all the better for being based on a true story, but it could have been pure fiction and still be worth seeing.

It's a riveting detective yarn about a series of unsolved murders that in real life took place in South Korea between 1986 and 1991. In and around a small town near Seoul, a killer carried out the rape and killings of 10 women, which led to an investigation of over 3,000 suspects, with the use of more than 300,000 policemen.

Bong joon-ho's film captures a bungling force, typified in the way that Detective Park doo-man (Song kang-ho) goes about his business. He believes he can look into a person's eyes to know if they're guilty or not. He's been guilty himself of using intimidatory tactics to draw confessions out of suspects, confessions which are then unsafe and he's about to find he has to sharpen up his techniques, or else.

Detective tae-yoon (Kim sang-kyung), by contrast, comes from the Seoul police and is more respectful of the evidence, trying to piece together the killer's movements through any precious clues left at a murder scene. It's a more methodical, painstaking approach, compared to Park doo-man's rapid, slipshod methods.

A compelling thriller, Memories Of Murder is about detective work, from mistreatment of suspects to examination of murder scenes, showing how two detectives can work and grow closer together merely because they're united by a common goal.

Both comic, yet brutal, Bong joon-ho's film succeeds in being riveting entertainment, merely because you share in the detectives's frustrations, until you hope, finally, that they've trapped their suspect. It's great storytelling and classy with it.