My Tutor Friend Lesson 2

Another Korean film that will be playing at HIFF's 3rd annual Korean Movie Festival is My Tutor Friend Lesson 2. Check here for my reviews of other films playing at the K-Fest.

This is a sequel in name only to the very popular 2003 film My Tutor Friend starring Kwon Sang Woo and Kim Ha Neul. I have to admit that I was not much of a fan of the first one but the trailer to Lesson 2 seemed really funny as I liked the idea of a Japanese student learning the Korean language as a concept so I decided to check it out.

Lee Cheong Ah stars as Junko, a Japanese national who falls in love with a male Korean boarding student in Japan. When he returns to Korea, Junko is determined to follow him and confess her love for him so she applies and gets accepted to a University in Korea. When she reaches her boarding house, however, she is very unpleased with the conditions and threatens to leave until the owner offers to let her stay in her son's nice room and also volunteers his son Jong Man as a tutor to teach her Korean so that she may communicate with her crush. Since her crush has apparently entered the military for his mandatory service, she will have time to learn Korean in order to properly confess her love for him. Of course, Jong Man is unwilling to tutor Junko as he is busy with his own life but under his dad's coersion he teaches her Korean but not properly, leading to many awkward and uncomfortable moments for Junko as she tries to apply her wrongfully learned Korean.

I must say that I was really entertained by this film. It was very funny throughout and never slowed down. Lots of funny moments were due to Junko's inability to grasp the slang and pronunciation of the Korean language (some humor may be lost in translation) and others were just plain hilarious slapstick and physical comedy moments. The 2 relative newcomers in the lead roles were also very good. Lee Cheong Ah was very cute as Junko and her Japanese style of Korean pronunciation seemed to be pretty accurate. And Park Ki Woong as Jong Man was very funny as well.

Sure, the plot seemed a bit scatterbrained at times with a storyline seemingly coming out of left field in the last third of the movie but I'm so used to that with Korean films already that it didn't really bother me. Overall, I found the film to be very entertaining and worth a look.

8/10