. While the specific "unlikely alliance" depicted is a dramatized cinematic conceit, the movie draws inspiration from real serial killings that occurred in South Korea during the mid-2000s. Origins and Inspiration
A formal, handshake partnership between a top mafia don and a lead homicide detective is cinematic fiction. In real-life South Korean legal history, police officers utilized underworld informants to track suspects, but a public, cooperative hunt where a mob boss actively assisted in police investigations never occurred in this manner. Cinematic Realism: Capturing 2000s South Korea is the gangster the cop the devil based on true story
Is "The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil" Based on a True Story? The Real History Behind the Movie but a public