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.

Crush and Blush 2008Directed by Lee Kyoung-miRight near the beginning of Crush and Blush, the main character Mi-seok stands digging a deep hole in a schoolyard. I thought that it was a punishment used in South Korean schools, but if not it could be a visual metaphor for someone digging themselves deeper into a figurative hole. That's what happens to Mi-seok in this film, as she digs herself deeper and deeper into a very messy situation. Crush and Blush is a wonderful comedy directed by Lee Kyoung-mi, and shown in London for the 11th Korean Film festival. After the blood spattered, male-dominated journey into hell that was Asura, it was a relief to enjoy the company of a slightly awkward but very likable teacher who has a crush on one of the staff, the same teacher who taught her when she was a pupil at the school several years earlier. Lee Mi-seok has an embarrassing facial disorder which causes her to blush whenever she is nervous or tells a lie. She teaches Russian at Girls' high school but is forced to change to English in favour of a more attractive and younger teacher who is having an affair with her colleague Jong Cheol. Things become even more complicated when Mi-sook teams up with his daughter who wants to stop her parents divorcing. Soon they are using the science lab to send online messages as Jong-cheol to Lee You-ri. As this goes on they start to form a friendship with each other that is touching and sweet.I've seen several Korean comedies and sometimes the humour is lost in translation: for example, characters acting in self-consciously zany, wacky or plain stupid ways that are never psychologically believable. But although the comedy in Crush and Blush is awkward, sometimes painfully so, it's believable because the characters are acting in ways they think of as normal, however bizarre their actions appeared to us. There is a lovely cameo from Jae-woo Bae as a Dermatologist who must listen to Mi-seok's laundry list of romantic problems: "If I don't call him for a reason, how will he know I'm not calling him for a reason?" It was easy to relate to what Mi-seok was feeling as she tried to hide her feelings for Jong- cheol whilst preventing any more closeness developing between the other teacher. The relationship between the teacher and pupil was touching and tender. I can count on one hand the number of good films about female friendships. But watching them conspire to break up the affair was superb, inspired and witty stuff.I thought about the role of teaching too. In some ways the adult Miseok is less mature than the younger school girl who comes up with the hilarious messages to send to Joeng-cheol. These messages get very graphic (although there is no sex in this film) and it seems as though the girl has a far deeper knowledge of sexual experiences than Mi-seok.There was some cruel humour too which you often find in Korean films. For example, characters are called 'losers' and poor Mi-seok is labeled as 'reds' by her pupils for her hot-flushes. It seems that bullying in Korean schools is endemic. And there is the perception that Miseok is seen as being unattractive because she is not physically perfect in every way, especially when seen next to the conventionally beautiful Yoo-ri.As a comedy, it was great. It also went deeper and was a great character study. Lee Kyoung-mi has recently directed The Truth Beneath, which opened the London Korean Film Festival. It would be fascinating to watch both films side by side.

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.

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?")