My Tutor Friend 2

동갑내기 과외하기 레슨 II (My Tutor Friend: Lesson 2) is a South Korean movie directed by Kim Ho-jung and Ji Kil-woong and was released on April 19th 2007.

Story: Junko Kitano is an exchange student from Japan who plans to study in Korea to find Woo-sung and learn the Korean language. She lives in a guesthouse in which the friendly owner is cooking for his son and the tenants. At some point she finds out that the room she rented is actually the room of the owner, Heo Jong-man. She plans on leaving the guesthouse but Jong-man's father offers her a package deal - he makes Jong-man teach Junko Korean. Since Jong-man doesn't want to tutor the exchange student, he gets her into a lot of trouble and the two start fighting each other..

Cast: Lee Chung-ah is in this movie as Kitano Junko. I openly admit that my Japanese is not that good so I don't know how good she was at Japanese but acting as if she's at a beginner level when it comes to speaking her own language seems kind of difficult to me. Of course it is her job as an actress but I found it believable (I even checked whether she was Korean-Japanese mixed or something). Park Ki-woong as Heo Jong-man was also really nice to watch, someone working hard because of a sad past. He's a talented actor and his acting in this movie in general was good though I sometimes felt it was overdone - but then again it was supposed to be a comedy.
Jong-man's father Heo Ha-ryong was played by Lee Young-ha and I really loved this kind of father-son-relationship. It was some chaos but it was somehow cute and that's what actually makes things more interesting and somewhat more realistic (though not all parents occasionally insult their children in playful ways I guess).


After all this movie is more realistic than the first one though it is not always a good idea to travel to another country to find someone you loved.
A 7.5/10 rating seems to work well in my opinion. The movie is funny but does have it's serious moments so sometimes it loses some of it's strength but it's still pretty much alright.

Recommended to Rom-com fans and of course fans of the lead actors!

The Musical

더 뮤지컬 (The Musical) is a Korean drama that aired from September 2nd to December 23rd 2011 on SBS.

Story: Go Eun-bi wants to become a musical singer. Musicals are her life, she dreams about musicals at night. One night she's singing in a park and gets the advice that she shouldn't think about becoming a musical actress without talent. Willing to prove the person that he was wrong she decides to take a break from her medical studies and participate in numerous auditions but fails all of them. Two weeks before she has to return to med school she's desperate and participates in an audition for a male musical actor dressed up as a man but she's discovered and thrown out. Following she meets a woman in the restroom claiming to be a musical instructor. Eun-bi once again decides to leave school, for a year this time, and she strongly believes that she can make her dream come true.

Cast: At first we have Koo Hye-sun as Go Eun-bi. Personally I love Koo Hye-sun's characters, all of them are such strong females. A princess who knows how to defend herself and acts the way she really is. I can't wait to watch more dramas with her. Choi Daniel participates in the drama as the composer Hong Jae-Yi and somehow one just has to like his character in this drama. Another important male character is Yoo Jin played by Park Ki-woong, another actor I really like and respect.
Other important actresses included in the main cast are Ok Joo-hyun as Bae Kang-hee, Ki Eun-se as Seo Ra-kyung and Park Kyeong-rim as Sa Bok-ja.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack goes well with the whole 'Musical' topic. Makes sense, doesn't it? There's one duet I really love by Koo Hye-sun and Park Ki-woong, I think it's in episode 10 but don't remember cleary. However, this duet was nearly perfect and I would've loved a studio version of this but couldn't find anything - sadly. However, I think the whole soundtrack is nice but can be pretty annoying if you're not a huge fan of musical songs.

My rating is 6/10 which would be like a good average but not because the story is bad or someone did a poor job. No, I just feel like it was somehow boring from time to time. I didn't skip any scenes, that's not like me, but some things were just unnecessary in my personal opinion.