Please Teach Me English

Lee Na-Young (Who Are You?) is Young-Ju, an incredibly wacky public official who's elected by her office (via spin the bottle) to take English lessons. As a public office, they sometimes get English-speaking patrons, but apparently everyone who works there is without Western language ability. So naturally, she has to go to school. Her first and only choice for English lessons is a local institute, where her teacher is the gorgeous, blond Cathy (Australian actress Angela Kelly).

Moon-Su takes up the English name of Candy, and decides to stick with the class, mainly because the dreamy, if not too girl crazy Moon-Su (Jang Hyuck of Volcano High) is in her class. Young-Joo is given the English name Elvis (thanks to his King-like sideburns), and spends his classtime making embarrassing overtures towards his Caucasian teacher, and generally knocking Candy's supposedly plain looks.

This is, of course, a total fallacy. Lee Na-Young is not plain looking, though the filmmakers go the extra mile by giving her unattractive glasses and perpetually frumpy clothes and hairstyles. Elvis has his own reasons for learning English: his long-lost sister is visiting from the US soon, and he wants to be able to speak to her. Candy just wants to learn so she can impress Elvis, and also to discover new ways to act wacky using English around the office. It's a simple world in these Korean romantic comedies.

Isola

ISOLA is set in the devastation immediately following the 1995 Kobe earthquake, and follows the wandering of Yukari Kamo (Yoshino Kimura) who has neither home nor family. Yukari does, however, have a rather powerful ability to read others' thought. This ESP has brought her to the brink of madness and suicide in the past, but through the use of strong medications, she is able to repress the many voices in her head. When we catch up with her, she has wandered into an ad-hoc rescue center brimming with Kobe citizens who have lost family and home. There she volunteers during the day and sleeps in a storage room during the nights.

Yukari's sleeping habits are eventually found out by Hiroko Nomura (Satomi Tezuka), a high school counselor in charge at the rescue center. Hiroko allows Yukari to stay at her home where Yukari soon comes across the thirteen drawings of trees which Hiroko is diligently analysing. Each of the thirteen drawings is the work of Chihiro Moritani (Yû Kurosawa), a student at Hiroko's high school and each tree respresents a different personality residing within Chihiro. Over the next few weeks, Yukari coincidentally encounters Chihro in several situations, though Chihiro appears to be a completely different person at each encounter. Through Yukari's persistent kindness, she is soon able to ask Chihiro about her multiple personalities, and Chihiro quickly draws out her own little "family" tree. The only personality which cannot be placed neatly into the tree is the 13th, the personality named ISOLA. When Yukari presses Chihiro for more information regarding ISOLA, Chihiro nervously scribbles out the name. Chihiro then explains that ever since the car accident which took the lives of her parents, she has been plagued by these multpile personalities. Through her ESP eye, Yukari sees Chihiro floating above her unconscious body lying beside the burning automobile. Yukari realizes that Chihiro had an "out of body" experience. (Not to mention "out of mind".)

When people start turning up dead, Yukari's first thought is that these are somehow tied to Chihiro, since all those killed had come into some form of contact with her. The viscious dog that barks loudly at Chihro is soon found with its throat slit. We then watch in disbelief as the high school girl who bullied Chihiro drowns herself in the depths of a toilet bowl (perhaps one of the more creative methods of suicide in Japanese film). The gym teacher who lashes out at a rebellious Chihiro soon commits a strange form of hari kiri with a yakitori skewer. And so on.

Yukari's curiosity into Chihiro's situation soon brings her into contact with Dr. Kazuhiko Manabe (Ken Ishiguro), a psychology professor at a local university whose personal research happens to be in out of body experience. His research came to a screeching halt, however, the night the Kobe earthquake caused the tragic death of a research assistant in the midst of their experiment and completely destroyed the research lab. Through their cooperative investigation into Chihiro and the string of bizarre deaths, Dr Manabe and Yukari soon discover that a darker, more malevolent force is possibly the cause of all the fatal mayhem. Their suspicion is soon justified when ISOLA herself eventually hunts them down.

My Sassy Girl

Konyol dan kocak! Film ini bakal nagih buat diliat more and more!

The story kicks off with college student Kyun-woo (Korean pop singer Cha Tae-hyun, in his feature film debut) crossing paths with a drunk girl (Jun Ji-hyun of "Il Mare") on a late-night subway. Just before she passes out, the girl looks at Kyun-woo and calls him 'honey'. The other passengers, assuming him to be the hapless girl's boyfriend, demand that Kyun-woo look after her. After carrying her on his back for what seems to be miles, Kyun-woo drops the girl off at a motel. But instead of leaving her and getting on his way, Kyun-woo finds himself intrigued by the nameless girl and vows to do whatever he can to heal her sorrow.

Unfortunately, he gets far more than he bargained as he becomes wrapped around the finger of this strange girl, whose dramatic mood swings are outmatched only by her penchant for sociopathic behavior. When they dine out and Kyung-woo orders anything but coffee, she barks her mantra "Do you wanna die?" and then promptly changes his order to coffee. When her feet begin aching from walking, she forces Kyung-woo to switch his comfortable running shoes for her high heels. And being a budding screenwriter, she demands that Kyung-woo read her wacky treatments, or else face an ass kicking. However, despite these crazy antics (not to mention landing in jail a few times), Kyun-woo finds himself hopelessly hooked on this 'sassy girl'. And though the girl seems to relish in humiliating and belittling those around her, it becomes clear that underneath the brash exterior is a wounded soul who holds a genuine affection for Kyun-woo.

Volcano High

Diambil dari komik korea, film fiksi ini bener2 unik yet entertaining. Ceritanya tentang SMA Volcano High yang isinya anak2 sekolahan dengan bakat bela diri segala macem jurus. Kepala sekolahnya ternyata memiliki sebuah kitab yang menjadi incaran para pesilat2 tangguh dari segala penjuru negeri. Banyak orang yang mencoba mendapatkannya sampai2 kepala sekolah ini diracuni segala macem.

Jang Ryang merupakan anak berbakat yang udah sepuluh kali pindah sekolah karna kenakalannya. Padahal basicly anaknya baik juga. Nah Jang Ryang inilah yang akhirnya berhasil menguasai ilmu tersebut.

Pertarungan hebat terjadi ketika ada 5 orang guru pindahan yang ingin menguasai sekolah. Guru pindahan tersebut juga ingin merebut kitab sakti tersebut namun Jang Ryang berhasil mengalahkan mereka. Hueheue.. komik banget ga sih? :D

Wanee and Junah (2001)

Film ini terkesan seperti lantai rumah yang terbuat dari marmer. Rata dan dingin. Dengan plot yang lambat dan ide cerita yang berkisar soal dua orang kekasih yang sedang mengalami konflik percintaan mereka.

Wanee (Kim Heeson) dan Junah (Joo Jin-mo) sepasang kekasih yang sudah lama tinggal bersama. Suatu ketika abang tiri Wanee (Jo Seung-Woo) kembali dari tugas belajarnya di luar negeri. Hal ini menjadikan kembali teringat akan kisah cinta terpendamnya kepada si abang yang memang lain ibu lain bapak ini. Wanee pada satu sisi memang mencintai kekasihnya Junah namun diapun masih belum bisa menghilangkan bayang2 abang tirinya tadi.

Junah yang akhirnya tau tentang perasaan Wanee ini akhirnya memberikan kesempatan padanya untuk reconsider 'bout their relationship. Junah kembali ke Seoul untuk suatu urusan dan tinggallah Wanee sendiri. Di situlah Wanee akhirnya mengerti bahwa dalam hatinya lebih cenderung mengarah pada Junah.

Beside that little thing ternyata cinta masa kecil Wanee ternyata tak lain dan tak bukan adalah Junah, sementara gadis cilik yang selama ini dicari Junah adalah Wanee. Cukup crunchie kan? :)

Pemain: Kim Hee-Seon, Ju Jin-Mo, Jo Seung-Woo

Ditto

Meskipun fiksi ternyata film ini asik juga buat diliat. Ceritanya tentang seorang cowok named Ditto yang hobi mainan walkie talkie. Suatu hari dia nemuin sahabat baru di walkie talkienya itu, seorang cewek anak kuliahan juga bernama So-eun.

So-eun bukan perempuan biasa. At least everyone watching this movie would say so. Karena So-eun ini kuliah di kampus yang sama dengan Ditto namun dianya sendiri berasal dari tahun 1979.

Keduanya ga tau menau soal ini. Sempat janjian ketemu di depan kampus di jam yang sama, hari yang sama, tapi ga pernah bisa ketemu. Mereka berdua ga nyadarin hal ini sampai suatu saat ada perbedaan yang fenomenal banget yang bikin keduanya 'ngeh'. Sumthin weird had happedened.

In daily life, So-eun naksir ama kakak kelasnya di kampus dan kakak kelasnya inipun sebenarnya sempat suka ama So-eun. Namun takdir berkata lain. Ketika kakak kelasnya ini kecelakaan dan dirawat di rumah sakit, bersamaan dengan teman deketnya So-eun yang juga dirawat di sana. And then they two met lalu menjadi lebih dekat..

Nah, lebih menariknya lagi karna ternyata Ditto ini adalah anak kakak kelas dan sahabatnya So-eun tadi. Di akhir cerita Ditto dan So-eun sempat ketemu. Wanna know in what year? 1979 or 2000? Just watch this movie, you'll find it amazing!

O iya, FYI aja film ini udah dibuat dalam 3 versi: korea, jepang dan cina, hollywood (the radio). I'm waiting versi indianya deh hehe..