Weekend Movie-Viewing

Crush and Blush

A movie about an unpopular woman teacher who has been stalking a married teacher who is having an affair with a beautiful popular teacher who also took unpopular teacher's job. Ah, we know this kinda stuff from when we were in school. We always suspected weird teacherly doings.

Unpopular teacher hooks up with unpopular student (daughter of the married teacher) to destroy the affair. Very weird stuff in Korea where it's pretty much considered that there can be no such thing as a friendship between folks of disparate ages. When I watch these Korean movies, I realize that there is often something very bold going on which would be considered kinda normal or not-so-outre in the USA. So they're challenging the norms in many ways although they're using the vehicle of comedy or romance to do it.

Anyways, it's a comedy. And it was pretty funny for the most part. The actress who plays the unpopular teacher is so good and goes overboard quite well. Basically it's a stalking picture and we're in the stalker's POV...and what she does is over-the-top. I would consider it is really over-the-top for a Korean audience because of all the societal structures about friendships, women's roles, etc.

This movie did something that surprised me. It actually humiliated its main character and treated the survival of the embarrassment and hatred as a triumph. I hadn't realized I was such a lover of happy endings that to be honest it really freaked me out. This teacher was supposed to be doing a school program before the student body -- folks whom really hated her and her partner. I wanted them to do well. But that hardly mattered. It's not about doing well, it's about enduring the cruelty.

It had some funny moments. And I've found Korean movies are more like American movies than other foreign movies are. But not quite.