Misseu Hongdangmu (2008) Reviews

• Surprisingly funny.

  imdb-195482011-08-06

  Considering the subject matter I was a little nervous that this would become whiny or preachy but it does neither, it stays light-hearted and funny through-out. The acting is good, Hyo-jin Kong delivers an excellent performance as the slightly demented lead and Seo Woo is surprisingly good as her partner in exile from normal society. The plot is straight-forward with a mostly harmless but obsessed stalker trying to get her man while has no interest as well as a wife and another paramour. There are lots of little bits of humour as the two girls plans progress and come close to working but not quite succeeding, the cyber sex scenes are especially funny. This is all situational humour, no slap-stick or word play just characters doing things that seem normal to them but not to anyone else or situations that get out of control, and there is plenty of it. The ending lets the film down a bit, the reveal with the wife has very little humour and goes on far too long. Still an enjoyable comedy with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

• It's a great black-comedy

  KineticSeoul2010-10-06

  This is a refreshing black-comedy with a interesting story and narrative that got my attention from beginning to end. The plot is about a social outcast since her school days and has a chronic blushing problem falls for her teacher, who accepted her for who she is. Later she becomes a teacher and tries to get into a love relationship with him although he is married. Soon she teams up with the daughter of the teacher she is in love with, cause the daughter thinks her father is cheating on her mom. The intriguing premise is what got my attention, and enjoyed just about every part of this black-comedy. Although most of the comedic value comes from adult humor, it's nothing really to complain about. I didn't particularly liked the ending, mainly cause the character Yang Me-Sook who is in love with the male teacher didn't win my sympathy over at the end. Overall it offers a solid script and some great performances, most definitely worth watch, especially for fans of black-comedy. 7.9/10

• Funny tale of a misfit trying to win the man of her dreams is often wrong in whats funny but at the same time you always like the characters

  dbborroughs2009-07-05

  Hyo-jin Kong plays Yang Mi-Sook, a teacher who blushes easily. She has held a crush on the man who was her teacher ten years earlier in high school and has become a teacher and joined the faculty of the school she went to to try and win him. Of course it doesn't matter that he's married (to a belly dance instructor) and has a daughter who's a student in the school. Things become complicated when the object of her affection looks to be heading for a divorce and is interested in another teacher. She then teams up with object of her affections daughter, who doesn't want her parents divorce to get what she wants, but just like her being reassigned from teaching Russian to teaching English, a language she doesn't know, things just don't really go the way she wants them to. Funny film of a misfit trying to force her way through the world is better than I thought it was going to be. Written up in several reviews as a comedy of uncomfortable humor I thought this was going to be straight humiliation humor, but its not. There is a good deal of that type of humor, as well a jokes that just seem wrong, but at the same time the humor seems not to have as mean an edge as many recent American films of a similar type. I think the film isn't as mean because there is something about the characters that makes them click with you. Everyone seems to be a misfit or an outcast of some form and the humor arises out of the characters and their behavior and not from some artificial need to torment them. I didn't think I was going to laugh, I thought I was going to cringe, but for the most part I found myself laughing with the characters and not at them. I never really cringed, except at the points where it really was deserved. Hyo-jin Kong has won some awards for this role, and she is quite good, but I wouldn't say that she's quite as stellar as the awards would suggest. My problem is that more than once she seems to be a beautiful actress who is getting ugly for a role. Don't get me wrong she still steals the movie and holds center stage, its just that I always felt that she was prettier and better than the material was suggesting she is. Definitely worth a look. This is a funny movie that supplies the laughs and is worth tracking down. (I have to say that the film contains some hysterical exchanges including one on the subject of "what exactly would you do with him if you actually won my husband?")

• Hyo-jin Kong makes this one a winner

  sitenoise2009-05-06

  This is a thoughtful Korean comedy, slightly risqué, that wins with wit, good acting, and a good (award winning) screenplay filled with surprises. (Park Chan-wook's got a co-write credit.) A number of times it will set you up to dare it to go somewhere, then it will go there and you'll applaud the way it's handled, delicately. There is mildly adult humor in the presence of a child so delicacy is warranted. Props to young actress Woo Seo for taking it all in stride, reminding us that kids are usually hip to the things adults think they should be protected from. Hyo-jin Kong, as the frumpy high school teacher who blushes easily, is surprisingly accomplished in her comic timing, often acting in a meta-aware fashion to her surroundings. The director seems aware of all the cheap ways to make us laugh but instead of utilizing them he steps back and winks at them. This is smart and funny ... not a goof-ball comedy even though it plays like one on the surface.

• Amazing movie

  peterxnxn2017-04-17

  The scenario is so good! Anyone can be found in one or another of the characters, with a great empathy, I think so. For a comedy, the script have a little shadow of tragic, consequently enough to amaze us with bold, funny, great dialogues. If the dialogues deserves a few positive adjectives, the acting deserves tens. The main actresses plays their roles perfectly, in the most realistic way; you may forget that you see a movie. All the gestures of Yang Mi-sook (Kong Hyo-jin), of nervousness, of embarrass, of guilt or joke, finally, are prodigious. I'm impressed how the director (and the writer) Lee Kyoung-mi managed to film, to point out, all that wonderful gestures; plus that amazing face of Kong Hyo-jin. And it's not only the actress Kong Hyo-jin; are the faces filmed over the computers in sending messages (Seo Woo, Hwang Woo S.H.), the pointed out of the back and the underwear of Yang's competitor, all that little movements, but so suggestive, marvelous. The director present us a wonderful show, without a trace of feminism. I found so much equidistance in this movie. The images; some of them are really unforgettable even, to say, for a close-up filming technique. And that photo from first, is remarkable, an icon. Great work.