The Raincoat Killer: Chasing a Predator in Korea

Frustrated. So many things could've done better. The story only focus on the useless and incompetent police officers which I don't understand why this become the main view while the story could focusing more on the perpetrator himself. How he ended up being like that and such. And the reenactment scenes also doesn't make it sounds or seems thrilling to watch. This can be squashed up into one episode rather than stretching it out too much into three parts. Slow paced with no guarantee of clear closure for the viewers is risky.

I like to watch true crime documentaries. "Raincoat Killer" is unusual because (1) the serial killer is in Korea, a country with a low crime rate, and (2) many of the various law enforcement personnel are emotionally connected to the crimes in a significant degree. I thought the doc was well worth watching.

As an aside, I'm perplexed by many of the early reviews here by self-styled "film critics." Nearly all of them are either unreasonably negative or unreasonably positive. I sense a definite bias by these 20-35 year-old "film critics." If a movie is made by Marvel, or is pretentious, or has dragons, hobbits, vampires, or zombies, it gets a '10.' If a movie has a serious, mature subject matter, it gets rated 4 to 6. A user of imDb should always keep this in mind.

Having seen a good number of serial killer thrillers from South Korea (including Memories of Murder, The Chaser, I Saw The Devil, The Chase) and almost everything featured in the true crime section of Netflix, I thought I was wholly prepared for this one. The killer (Yoo Young-Chul) is probably one of the most vicious and ruthless beasts you'll ever hear about. While the documentary focuses mainly on the compelling manhunt, it also attempts to humanize the crime divisions of the Seoul police by portraying them as a flawed bunch but with genuinely relatable emotions. It must have been exceptionally tiresome to catch a serial killer with zero motive, utter lack of evidence except for a shoeprint, and the randomized selection of victims. On one occasion, he's targeting a more affluent section of the city, and on another, he's targeting isolated sex workers. But the fact that he escaped after being arrested once is a major stain in the careers of all officers involved.

The whirlwind of emotions that the investigating officers go through is showcased in a believable, non-exploitative manner. Though the makers could have given a tad more focus to the victims, the documentary never falls short of engaging. Each episode is a crisp 45-55 minutes, with the makers not resorting to any odd editing gimmicks or overly stylistic tropes. The team tackles the recreation of some of the gruesome incidents with sufficient flair. They focus solely on the documentary telling a gripping story rather than throwing in oodles of style that dilute its realism. The interviews with the criminal profiler are undoubtedly more interesting as he tries to paint a somewhat vivid picture of what goes through a motiveless serial killer's mind while committing the crimes.

They cops had me rolling in the first episode. I didn't know if they were real cops or comedians joking about the serious of the events. They really sounded scared!! If the cops have no back bones what is the public suppose to do?! It's a good watch and honestly I could see how easy it's to become a "serial murderer" in Korea. The fact this is recent too.

This is a decent enough watch but could have been shorter and made into a single documentary. The most disturbing thing about it is how the South Korean police did not have a clue about chasing a serial killer until 2004. It's like their own Jack The Ripper....... Only over 100 years later!