Penny Pinchers: Reality Bites for Today's 98 Percent

Never judge a book by its cover. And never judge a movie by its poster. Look at the crappy Photoshop artwork for Penny Pinchers and you'd easily assume it was just some dumb road trip comedy with a cut-and-paste script and two cute young people parlaying their dimples into big screen careers. But writer-director Kim Jung-hwan's lovely rom-com about a pair of young have-nots wondering how to make it in this world is a far cry from your everyday, copycat crud. At the risk of going out on a limb, I'd even go so far as to say that his sharply observed pic could qualify as a generation-defining movie for millennials. And I don't mean strictly those living in Seoul. Reset this captivating story in NYC and you could have a modern day Reality Bites. Attention Judd Apatow: Here's your chance to resuscitate your directorial career!

To pull that off, of course, he'd have to find an undiscovered Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder. Which Kim, frankly, has done. Leads Song Joong-ki and Han Ye-seul, despite a mere handful of credits between them, each mine their shared, sizable charisma and emerge from Penny Pinchers as bona fide stars. It's their collective (and unexpected) mega-wattage that makes the small stories in this movie burn so brightly. As a loafer who treats life as a joke, Song's Ji-woong is the kind of guy whose charm won't last past 30 if he doesn't make it big beforehand. Han's Hong-sil is the ugly duckling scavenger who sees everything and everyone as a way to make a buck -- Ji-woong included. But like many a good morality tale before, Penny Pinchers serves up a good life lesson. In a world that worships money but not materialism, respects independence but knows life's nothing without meaningful connections, Penny Pinchers economically shows us the value of the dollar, especially when compared to a deeply felt expression of affection. I now dream of future cityscapes where tents glow on rooftops and makeshift street theaters for two spontaneously appear before closed shop windows on abandoned streets.

The Case of Itaewon Homicide: One Murder. Two Suspects. No Verdict.

Ripped from the headlines, Hong Ki-seon's sensational docudrama The Case of Itaewon Homicide retells the real-life grisly murder of Jong-pil (Song Joong-ki), a hard-working, clean cut student who gets randomly knifed one night in the restroom of a Burger King by one of two vacationing American teens -- either AJ (Sin Seung-Hwan), a spoiled brat from NYC, or Pearson (Jang Geun-Seok), a half-Mexican gang member with whom he's been hanging out for the last three months. Each of the young men accuses the other of the pointless slaying; both have secrets to hide; and ultimately, both are to blame. Throughout this courtroom drama, you get the feeling that neither is out for justice so much as he's looking for a way to save his own hide. As such, they're both unlikable, and even if you're pretty sure you know who did it, the villain of The Case of Itaewon Homicide actually ends up being not one of the suspects but AJ's attorney (Oh Kwang-rok) who, because his motives are clearly mercenary, undermines the very legal system that he should be honoring.

A defense lawyer's job isn't to decide whether the client is guilty or not; it's to provide the client with the best defense possible.

I've heard that sentiment before and while I "get it," it's also always left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. It's not quite "innocent until proven guilty." It's more like "not guilty if any mistakes are made." The burden as always lies with the prosecution, here represented by Public Prosecutor Park (Jeong Jin-yeong), one of those noble souls who fights the good fight even if victory isn't necessarily attainable. Park's also, interestingly, a perpetual skeptic. He's not a champion. He's a doubter. He doubts the system, his opponent, his client, even himself. Which isn't to say that everything's relative to him or to us. It's just that in a world where no one can be counted on to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, what you end up parsing is a collection of half-truths, coverups, and bogus assertions. It's why nothing ever works as the ultimate truth -- the church, science, the legal system... Every institution is made of people, and people lie, cheat, and hide information for reasons that sometimes we'll never know. In life, I guess you've got to do the best with what you've got. The Case of Itaewon Homicide definitely does that because despite some second-rate performances, it's still a first-rate film.