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I stumbled upon this series while scrolling through Netflix, looked into the first episode and it hit me like a truck. Juvenile Justice really came out of left field for me, and in retrospect I'm really thankful for the experience.

The story revolves around Shim Eun Seok (Kim Hye-su), a juvenile court judge who appears stone cold and lays down the law with an iron fist on young offenders, while also battling her own demons of the past deep inside. The juvenile justice system is highly divisive, conflicting and heavily overloaded, laying not only the sentencing and punishment of juvenile offenders on the court but even the aftercare and oversight on the judges themselves. While the law treats them as children who are scarcely accountable for their own actions, often it doesn't defend victims or take their circumstances into account, what lead them down this path. Domestic violence, neglect, mistreatment, bullying, often very hard to properly prosecute. On the other hand, many young criminals straight up expect to get off with nothing but probation and a slap on the wrist while committing very real crimes, theft, robbery, blackmail, prostitution, grievous violence and even murder, fully aware of their actions. Judge Shim sails the muddy waters of this tattered legal embroglio to try and truly punish young criminals and bring absolution to the victims of the system.

Honestly, I was truly surprised by this series! I half expected a confusing and boring TV schlock, filled with incessant jargon and theatrical melodrama. But what I got was a very intense, high quality, easily digestible (for a legal series), very binge-worthy story and some of the best acting I've seen in a while! Kim Hye-su completely dominates the role of Judge Shim. Coming off as a stone cold, no-nonsense inquisitor who absolutely throws the book at young criminals trying to slip through the cracks, while she slowly learns that the juvenile court is not only there to punish but also to teach, reform and protect those fallen by the wayside and wronged by the system.

The production quality is excellent! The camera work, direction and even the few special effects are way higher quality than one would expect from a TV series of this kind. This far excuses some of the plotholes and the sometimes wooden acting by some of the support cast. I usually don't like kids in series and movies, but I have to say, the young cast brings their A-game and believable acting throughout the series, which was really refreshing. The story goes at breakneck speeds, filled with lots of detail, action, intrigue, investigations and hard choices which makes the series feel a lot longer than 10 episodes. There's never a dull moment watching Judge Shim and co going above and beyond their line of duty to get to the truth and render a truly just verdict in the end.

All in all, I highly recommend Juvenile Justice to anyone looking for an intense court drama with a flair for complexity and some action on the side!

Not "universal" as in the film studio, but universal as in "this movie is for everyone" regarless of where you live. Some people might be scared off watching Bin-jip because it's a "Korean movie", but it's...not. There is barely ten lines of dialogue in the entire movie, and even if you don't understand Korean or have subtitles, everything in the movie can be understood perfectly. This is why film is such a strong medium. The entire story is told through the scenes, the characters, their actions, their body language, the emotions on their faces, strong or subtle, happy, sad, angry, intense, love, hate, it's all there. I never for a second felt like I needed more dialogue or exposition in this move, it's so well written, shot and directed, anything more would be just ruining it.

The basic story itself is nothing major, somewhat boring even. A young and quiet drifter, riding around on a motorcycle, spends his days by breaking into the homes of vacationing families to stay a few days. But he is not your regular squatter. He doesn't trash the place or steals anything. In fact, he pays them back in his own way. In return for the lodging, he does the laundry, cleans up and fixes broken stuff, appliances, etc. So when the family returns, they find their home better than then left it. During one such home invasion, he runs into an abused housewife (who's also the quiet type), and decides to rescue her from her tormenting husband. However, the charitable squatter duo's days are numbered, with the law catching up to them...

There is an old saying in engineering "something is not complete when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away". It's mind-boggling how true that is for 3-Iron. The entire movie cost about $930,000 with everything included. Like, how is that even possible? A single episode of any big name TV show costs many times that, but writer/director/producer Kim Ki-duk managed to turn out an entire feature film from less than the catering cost of any Hollywood production. If the stories are true, that wasn't entirely his doing, because the cast and the crew gave up a large portion of their pay to help finance the movie. (They were properly paid from the box office income later.) Not only that, but get this, Kim Ki-duk wrote the screenplay in a single month! The entire movie was shot in 16 days, and with only 10 days of editing and post-production it was off to the theaters. The entire production, from mere concept to premier, took less than two months! This is truly mind-blowing. Hell, most Youtube videos take longer to make, not to mention any "real" movie. This just goes to show, that you don't need a gigantic cast of celebrities, studios, gear, CGI and hundreds of millions in funding to create something truly special. It is actually a lot more impressive that Bin-jip even made it to theaters on such a pauper's budget.

The funny thing is, you can't tell any of this just by watching the movie. It's all shot in really high quality with excellent photography, direction and some of the best acting I've ever seen. In fact, the movie wasn't shot in some huge movie studio, but literally on the street and the homes of the cast and crew! Production was done at such a breakneck speed, they often didn't have time to re-shoot scenes, so almost the entire film is made up of first takes. That's some legendary quality filmcraft.

Now, I know a lot of you are less than impressed by all this, and a lot more bothered by the artsy-fartsy "silent film" nature of Bin-jip, which is quite understandable. This movie is definitely not for everyone. I know a lot of people found it lackluster, boring or even downright pretentious. I won't say there isn't a hint of egotistic "art over business" flaunt going on here, but honestly, I can take a bit of artsy grandstanding if the end result is a multiple-award-winning cinematic masterpiece. Or if not that, at least a very well made, incredibly entertaining movie about love, loss, hardship and happiness. Do yourself a favor and watch this if you haven't done so.