In both the real 2005 case and the 2019 film, the police are incompetent. They cannot catch the killer because they are trapped by their own bureaucracy—they look for motives, patterns, and connections. A random serial killer who attacks strangers is their nightmare.
But one question lingers after the credits roll: is the gangster the cop the devil based on true story
The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil loosely based on real-life events that occurred in South Korea around 2005 TheGATE.ca In both the real 2005 case and the
The central hook—the —is the primary fictional element. In reality, there is no documented case of a major South Korean crime boss being targeted by a serial killer and subsequently testifying against him in court. But one question lingers after the credits roll:
The core, unbelievable premise— A serial killer accidentally attacks a mob boss, and the mob boss hunts him down —is 100% factual. The screenwriters took that extraordinary seed of reality and grew a fictional forest around it.
The police report (and Yoo’s later testimony) states that Kim looked at the bleeding man on the ground, realized the police were coming, and fled the scene. He did not alert the authorities. Why would a gangster call the cops? Instead, Kim mobilized his entire criminal network.
The 2019 South Korean action-thriller The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil