My Tutor Friend

동갑내기 과외하기 (My Tutor Friend) is a South Korean movie directed by Kim Kyeong-hyeong and released on February 7th 2013.

Story: Choi Su-wan is a sophomore in college who has to work to pay her tuition fees after her father lost his job and opened a chicken restaurant with her mother. Tutoring is a difficult job since most of the students are more interested in female features. After quitting another job, her mom gets angry and makes it clear that Su-wan has to work. A rich friend of her mother asks her to tutor her son, Kim Ji-hoon, who's 21 years old but still a high school student. Ji-hoon, being well-known for causing trouble, is not interested in studying but his father wants him to graduate. Though Ji-hoon's behavior drives her crazy, she can't lose this job again and decides to teach him some manners..

Cast: Kim Ha-neul as Choi Su-wan was basically born for her role. In some parts, her character reminded me of Jan-di in the drama Boys Over Flowers and I love that kind of confident characters who know how to defend themselves if it is needed. She was really good in this movie.
Kwon Sang-woo as Kim Ji-hoon was also really good. I loved the way he portrayed a rebellious character but I don't think it was necessary to make him as a character that "stupid". It was okay but not necessary - after all that's the writers' fault and not about the actor.
I couldn't do anything but admire how beautiful Kim Ji-woo was a Ho-kyung but she was this typical type of Mary Sue-character. The movie didn't really need her in my honest opinion. The acting was a little childish though but I guess that might be because of the movie being a little older. Gong Yoo as Lee Joon-soo, the high school boss, actually made this movie a little more funny. A funny character and strong acting were the strong comical part this series had.


This movie got a 8/10 rating from me because it is funny and cute but does have it's serious moments. It has the chance of maybe becoming one of my favorite romance movies in Korea. Yes, they could've made it a little shorter again (why do I have the feeling Korean movies are generally longer than US or German movies?!) but it's not like the movie really turned out boring. Not even in parts.

Recommended to all the rom-com fans who don't mind watching some older movies!

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

봄 여름 가을 겨울 그리고 봄 (Spring, Summer, Fall Winter.. and Spring) is a South Korean movie that was released in 2003.

I'll just keep this review short because the movie does have some kind of story but it focusses on buddhist teachings. This movie basically shows a boy being left behing at a buddhist monastery. He's raised by the monk and it's obvious he'll take the place of that monk some day. The seasons mentioned in the title are more used like metaphors and phases in the life of a human. Spring stands for the childhood, being followed by the teenage and young adult years that are symbolized by summer. Once the year is getting older, as well as a person, fall comes and symbolizes the latter adult years. While winter symbolizes the old days. And life will end just the way a year does. "And Spring" in the title basically stands for the never ending flow of life. The monk the viewer sees aging finds a baby boy again and raises him. So everything starts again.

Basically my Korean teacher told me to watch this movie to get an impression of the different seasons in Korea, and the pictures shown in this movie are definitely worth seeing. I remember when I was watching this (it was my homework, I'd love to have more homework like this) I paused the video sometimes just to take a look at the calm and beautiful scenery.
What might appeal to many people interested in Asian cultures and especially Buddhism as well as some beautiful landscape shots is that this movie works with hardly any dialogues. I think there were like five sentences spoken in the whole movie and you don't even need to understand those since it's not that important.

Regarding the fact that there's hardly any story included, the duration of more than 100 minutes is a little bit too much in my opinion though. The story itself is rather boring and slow but thinking about the buddhist meaning behind it, it works well with this movie.

7.5/10 is my personal rating and that's mainly because of the wonderful pictures. And because it's a movie you need to think about. Sure it's obviously Asian since it evolves around Asian virtues but this is also what makes some things seem mysterious. And it's actually good if you want to relax while watching a movie but you should pay a little attention since there are hidden messages and symbols.