After her father loses his job and mother is forced to work to support the family, college student Su-wan must take up a painful job of tutoring high school students. She eventually finds herself teaching a rich 21-year-old delinquent, Ji-hoon, who has been held back for two years and refuses to cooperate. Hate and love ensue.
While My Tutor Friend desperately endeavors to break away from its typical romantic teen comedy mold, it does so with the grace of a headless chicken. It earns points for its attempts to surprise with deliberate tangents, but director Kim Kyeong-hyeong makes no effort to ease these tangents in naturally. As a result, the movie feels at least a half-hour longer than it actually is and is chock full of incongruous moments including elaborate bursts of action as Ji-hoon gets into gang fights and copies Jet Li’s Kiss of the Dragon pool ball kick.
It simply seems odd then that after these attempts to break away, the film should find its footing exactly where most romantic comedies do. The characters. Battling oft-poorly written dialogue and a dearth of humorous gags, our leads grow on us and render the film worthy of our time. Kwon Sang-woo reveals great moments of heart in his character’s rebellious persona, while Kim Ha-neul fits perfectly in her awkward, good-natured role.
The film finds it best moments in its mean-spirited conversations between the characters, the vague signs of friendship and romance, and then the sudden switch back as Kim Ha-neul asks Kwon, “You wanna die?” For all their divergences, Kim and our writers still at least refuse to tinker with the romance and chemistry. They give us what we came for, and it’s all sorts of fun, even if we have to sort through the tiresome filler to get there.
Reviewed by Tarun
