Review: After his success with MUSA, director Kim Seong-Su put his talents on another project, a totally different genre this time: the romantic comedy. Most Asian movie fans know the reputation of Korean romantic comedies. South Korea has created the finest comedy of the past few years and even if PLEASE TEACH ME ENGLISH might not become an international success as other Korean comedies such as MY SASSY GIRL, it still is a very well made movie that deserves attention of Asian movie fans.

The premise is rather simple as it doesn’t break any barriers of the genre. The development is very well built up, even if you have the feeling from the start that the main characters will end up together, there are still some surprises. The ending is a bit exaggerated, however, compared to the whole realism of the story, but fortunately, it doesn’t tone down the whole experience. Those who tried to follow language classes will especially appreciate the setting you will understand the pain the characters are going through when they start to learn their second language. The movie also explains the situation about how Korean young people feel towards the English language.

Director Kim Seong-Su also did an excellent job with the visuals; one of the best things was the inclusion of small flash inspired cartoons during the viewing. Those very funny cartoons presented Na Young-ju vision of herself and the people around her.

Talking about the characters, one thing that can be easily criticized is the character personality. They are well portrayed and never boring or annoying, but their respective personalities and design is very stereotyped and ordinary. Specially the two main characters; Na Young-ju the shy girl looks like an unattractive girl but you can easily see that she has a lot of charm under her glasses. Park Moon-su the very self-confidant playboy is also a rather plain character. Maybe it was the director’s intention, but if they were meant to be caricature characters they should have been more over the top. At least their acting was good, especially Lee Na-Young in the role of Na Young-ju. You might have had the chance to catch her in the Korean movie WHO R U?, this time she play a totally opposite kind of role and she gives a surprisingly very funny performance.

It is also obvious that the movie is aimed at the Korean public and it is understandable, it’s a Korean movie after all. This is probably the main reason why North American viewers will not feel the same towards the humour of the movie. The movie is also not hilarious from start to finish; it has some few comical moments and a good dose of drama, which leaves a good warm feeling on the viewer, but it never becomes an outstanding comedy. At least the balance between drama and comedy is successfully achieved, the movie never feels boring or too dramatic, but more comedy would have probably been welcome.