Yeong-ju, a ‘plain’ (meaning pretty with thick glasses) and awkward 25-year-old public official is unwittingly assigned to an English language course for her job. When misguided attention falls on her from the attractive, but uninterested Moon-su, Yeong-ju foils his attempts to flirt with other women and attempts to be noticed, all while struggling with the growing pressure to learn English that assaults her from every direction.
Despite the pitch-perfect, cutting social satire of English-learning crazes in Korea, Please Teach Me English never really maintains that intelligence in its humor, resorting often to pedestrian slapstick comedy, silly dialogue and some admittedly laugh-out-loud deadpan moments. The trouble begins though when the romance fails to make an impression as well, due to poor scripting and a lack of character consistency.
There is the typical character growth that occurs as the plot develops, but the road is littered with scenes where Yeong-ju haphazardly switches from a prideful, stubborn character to an innocent, lonely one with little reason or motivation. Sure, those two personas can easily be different sides to the same character, but the script does not ease us between the two, opting instead to simply choose the more entertaining personality for the talented Lee Na-young to use in a particular scene. As a result, Yeong-ju sometimes unintentionally appears bi-polar.
Moon-su comes across as more natural because the film has the luxury of leaving him for a couple scenes and letting us assume he underwent some change. But even he appears artificial in the forced and trite climax in order to get everyone clapping. Despite these writing difficulties, Lee and Jang Hyuk do a fine job of embodying every random emotion and moment that their roles require.
But be it some problem with the chemistry between the two, or the script’s failure to provide the moments for the romance to develop, nothing ever clicks and it’s difficult to be satisfied by the film as a whole. It has its moments because of our two lead actors and a few amusing scenes—enjoyable as little vignettes—but crucial inconsistencies undermine the film’s main goal. The script can make its protagonists fall in love by brute force, but that method will not work so well on the viewer.
Reviewed by Tarun
