Donggabnaegi gwawoehagi

Like "My Sassy Girl", this movie is based on a true story posted from the internet, but that's where the similarities end. The story is generally about this rebellious guy named Ji-Hoon (Kwon Sang Woo) who is still trying to finish high school, whose parents hire a tutor named Su-Wan (Kim Ha Neul), a woman who comes from a poor background, but happens to be the same age as him. Add to that some obstacles, martial arts (thugs are always after Ji-Hoon for revenge), a scorned, thuggish love-sick girl who is after him, his proclivity for ditching the lessons, and you generally can guess the whole story. Did I mention it's a romantic comedy? This movie has some good fight scenes, great visual humor and a lot of spunk, thanks to the good chemistry between Kim Ha Nuel and Kwon Sang Woo, that bring a lot of energy to the story. The romantic elements also work because of that reason. And, I must say, I'd want a girlfriend more like Kim Ha Nuel than that girl from "My Sassy Girl" (personality-wise, at least). She has some spunk, but it's more on the cute, sweet, good-hearted way. Characters are already mostly likable (so one might say it had less of a hill to climb than "My Sassy Girl"--an obstacle that worked for that movie to its credit), and the movie is quite clever and interesting most of the way. The story kind of sags, though, about 2/3 of the way (where it sort of treads on familiar, standard fare, where nothing really interesting happens), but near the end, it picks up a bit again. Overall, a fun, cute movie. 8/10

Well, the movie started with extremely violent graphic shots of the girl¡¦s mother chopping up chickens for her fry chicken take-out business, which is the main source of income for the family as the father is unemployed. Later, while tutoring (the girl's way of contributing to the family income) she said something embarrassing, and a parade of animated chickens marched above her head, each laying an egg. I guess you got the hang of it.

There are a few things that go against this movie. First, there is little plot and no story. Not that anything elaborated is needed for this genre, but MTF is more like a series of disjointed sketches. Second, the character of the male lead is unattractive. Kwon Sang-woo, who had made an impression in Volcano High, suffers here because of the lame script. Yes, he is cool in both. In Volcano High, the image worked well because his role was one-dimensional: an ambitious, ruthless contender who wanted to be at the top. In MTF, however, in the role of a super-rich, over-aged delinquent high school student who sometime seems to find a heart, this coolness is embarrassingly misplaced. Finally, I think a lot must have been lost in the translation, literally speaking. I suspect there¡¦s probably plenty of Korean colloquial and pun that are simply lost. In general, the Chinese sub-titles look like something fished right out of a garbage dump. The English subtitles make much more sense, but didn't tickle any funny bones.

On the other side of the balance sheet, there are good things about this movie. Kim Ha-Neul is one. I understand that this actress has so far been nothing but sweet and demure in Korean movies and TV series. In MTF, just the extent she would go to make herself funny deserves applause. And it wasn't such a bad job either. While Kwon Sang-woo does not make much of an impression in his delivery of drama, he certainly exceeds passing grade as a fighting star. Compared to Volcano High, which offers choreographed fighting, MTF has more solid fighting scenes, and there are quite a few of those. Finally, the cutest star in the movie, in my view, is the guy playing Kwon Sang-woo¡¦s father. I am not being sarcastic. He is really a joy to watch.

I enjoyed this film very much. Many Korean people will feel familiar with this film because many of them have tutors when they go to school. Cinematography was average. The movie would have been better if the angel or the movement of the camera was more irregular. Editing, however, was very neat and unusual.

The acting was also very good. Kim Ha Neul usually played an innocent, weak girl in the Korean soap-opaeras. But this time, she plays a cute tomboy very well. Kwon Sang Woo also plays his role very believable.

What I like the most about this film is, the emotion of the characters are not too exaggerated. There are many Korean romance films that the characters cry river before the audience and I always thought it was very stale. There was no such crap in this movie.

Very funny and well-done.

After, I watched the films... I thought, "Why the heck was this film such a high success in the Korean Box Office?" Even thought the movie had a clever/unusal scenario, the acting wasn't that good and the characters weren't very interesting. For a Korean movie... I liked the fighting scenes. If you want to watch a film without thinking, this is the film for you. But I got to admit... the film was kind of childish... 6/10

Typical story about a jerk falling in love. The title of the movie says it all. No chemistry between lead stars. Not a good movie to watch if you are only starting to watch korean movies.