rebzombie reviews

The Case of Itaewon Homicide wanted to be as realistic as possible and it managed to do just that.  The movie relived a brutal murder of a college student at a toilet of a burger joint in Seoul’s Itaewon district.  The prime suspects were two Korean-American teenagers, Pearson (Jang Geon-seok) and Alex (Sin Seung-hwan).

Except for the names of the suspects and the victim, everything in The Case of Itaewon Homicide is real that it can pass for a documentary.  Director Hong Ki-seon spent years researching about the case before shooting the movie.  Being true-to-life, the movie shows how the gruesome murder was done.  This is not a pretty sight and this should serve as a warning to the faint of heart.

The Case of Itaewon Homicide shows how Pearson and Alex managed to get away with murder.  The audience can feel the frustration of Public prosecutor Park (Jeong Jin-yeong).  Both sides have shown how they could not be the murderer and the insufficient evidence points to no one. Jang Geon-seok, Sin Seung-hwan and Jeong Jin-yeong did a good job in portraying their characters and showing why the case remains unsolved until today.

The Case of Itaewon Homicide stayed true to the original crime and it got me guessing where the story was going.  Then the end came and it felt like it was abrupt.  There was no closure and just like in real life, the case remained unsolved.  It did manage to show how the Korean justice system managed to botch a simple homicide where the suspects were freed when one of them was the real killer.

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