Yesterday, Mr. Kim was just another statistic of the global recession, leaping off a bridge to a watery grave in the Han River. But when he washes up on a tiny strip of land in the middle of the river with Seoul's skyscrapers glittering obliviously in the near distance, he realizes that his exile from the rat race may be the best thing that's ever happened to him. Unable to swim, he might as well be a millions miles away from civilization. And so, nesting in a paddleboat shaped like a giant duck, farming with bird poop, Kim goes native, embracing his new existence as the Castaway on the Moon.

Back on dry land, Ms. Kim is a traumatized agoraphobe, a right-clicking blog bandit who electronically appropriates other people's lives to fill her own emptiness. Sleeping in a bubble-wrapped closet, texting her parents instead of opening the door, she's only able to bear the outside world during civil defense drills, when life freezes in place, and the silence of the moon falls over the Earth. But everything changes when she gazes across the river, and Kim meets Kim, beginning the strangest, coolest courtship in cinema history.

Take our word for it: you've never seen a desert island film like this before. Lee Hae-jun (Like a Virgin) employs magical realism and a rude sense of mischief to breathe delirious, sun-baked life into a recession-era character piece that channels the zeitgeist with a prankster's pathos. Couple that with stunning career best performances from Jung Jae-young (Public Enemy 3) and Jung Rye-won, and you've got one of the first and best romances of the new millennium. This isn't a film about people removed from life, it's about the way we choose to live. Take a trip across the Han River, and you'll know joy in the blare of an air raid siren, and why black bean noodles are the taste of hope.