Hot for A Korean Comedy That Has Way Too Many English Titles

I really have no idea what the name is of this film except that it has three English titles: Hot for Teacher, Sexy Teacher, and Who Slept With Her? The Korean title is Nuga geunyeo-wa jasseulkka?, which is not much help except for Google searches. So why in the hell am I reviewing this film? The simple answer is because I am. The much longer answer is that I watched it, laughed, and thought it worthy of a nod just so more people will want to watch something other than a Hollywood offering. Yes, my anti-Oscar attitude has kicked in at least for a week or two.

Regardless of the title, this film was actually pretty funny if not a tad vulgar at times. It was never over the top with obscenity but it definitely insinuated potty humor. The film begins with the end of the story as we are given a performance by the teacher in question, played by Kim Sa-rang, and three of her students. As the performance ends, the discipline instructor/enforcer is outraged at the performance and follows the troupe. He sees the teacher and one of the students leave together and surmises that they are off to have a little extracurricular activity. One side note to this, I really have no idea the names of the characters or actors so you will just have to deal with descriptive phrases such as cool guy student and hot teacher.

The film then moves into a deeper exploration of the past few weeks at school. We see the arrival of the hot teacher, the unstable state she has put the discipline instructor/enforcer in, the cool guy story, the looks really old student due to health problems and is given medicine that ages him but gives him a larger phallus, and finally the really horny creepy student. This ends when we are brought back to real time with the discipline dude punishing the three students because he thinks that one of them slept with the hot teacher which upsets him because he is in love with her. Deep breath. The plot revolves around misconceptions and rumor, which ends up being the moral of the story.

I was surprised that a film that begins in the gutter can actually move into the realm of having a point. When everyone was loving films like American Pie, I was always bothered because the point of the film always seemed secondary to the gross outs. Not so in this film, at least not so to the point of being secondary. The potty humor is actually purposeful within the context of creating guilt in the viewer for finding the humor so funny. It was not the “I feel dirty and need a shower” guilt, but one of those take a step back and think type of guilt.

The film was arranged in such a way that the viewer is intrigued by the mystery unfolding through the eyes of each of the students. By giving the viewer a taste of the end, we seek out the hows and whys of what we just saw. Nothing is truly revealed until the very end when the viewer is confronted with the whole story of that night of the performance. The narrative alone kept my attention even if the humor failed at times. I did find the two years later jump at the end of the film a stretch since it really did not contribute to the film.

As far as acting goes, it worked. I really have no idea who any of the actors were so it is somewhat difficulty to tell you who was good. They each had a role and played it well. I was actually surprised by Kim Sa-rang, the hot teacher. She was Miss Korea in 2000, so the hot quotient is justified. Her acting actually fit the role well. She needed to be hot but in a demure way, and yet the whole time she is also be caring. The best of the bunch was the old looking student who was played by an older actor. It was just humorous to see this old wrinkled actor adjusting to not only a younger presence, but also compensating for having a large penis (the bent over back ache walk makes much more sense when you find out his “problem.”

So here’s the deal, watch the film just to see another take on how humor can work in a film. Even though certain aspects of the film are certainly Korean in terms of the school and social conventions, it really translates well to any culture.