According to the October 1 edition of the Los Angeles Times, director Bong Joon Ho attended the film festival Beyond Fest on September 27 and shared his thoughts on the recent developments in the Hwaseong serial killer case.

The Hwaseong serial murders were a series of rapes and murders that occurred in the city of Hwaseong, South Korea, between 1986 and 1991. It is one of the most infamous serial killer cases in modern South Korean history and has been referenced in several TV shows and movies. One of these is the 2003 film “Memories of Murder,” which was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho.

In September 2019, the police revealed that a suspect named Lee Choon Jae was a DNA match for some of the murders in the Hwaseong serial killer case. Lee Choon Jae is a 56-year-old man who is currently serving a life sentence for an unrelated rape and murder charge. On October 1, the police reported that Lee had confessed to the Hwaseong serial murders, as well as other crimes that had not previously been connected to the case.

At Beyond Fest, Bong Joon Ho said, “The Hwaseong serial killer case was an enormously shocking incident for Koreans. It inflicted a lot of trauma on Korean society. When I made the film ‘Memories of Murder,’ I thought a lot about the criminal and what he would have looked like.”

At the time of the murders, the police had produced a composite sketch of the killer based on witness accounts.

Bong Joon Ho also mentioned that he had spent a lot of time talking to police officers and reporters from the period when making his film. “Last week, I saw the killer’s face for the first time,” he said. “I will need a little more time before I can explain how I felt in that moment. But the most important thing right now is to applaud the police officers who worked tirelessly in order to bring the criminal to justice.”

Bong Joon Ho is currently promoting his latest film “Parasite,” which became the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and made a box office splash in South Korea.

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