''My Teacher, Mr. Kim'' (; lit. "Teacher Kim Bong-du") is a 2003

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

n comedy-drama film about a man's transformation from a flawed scoundrel into a conscientious teacher when he gets transferred to a rural village school.

Plot

Kim Bong-doo is a young teacher in a

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

elementary school. He comes to school later than the students, and is scolded by the principal every day. Instead of preparing lesson plans, he goes drinking at room salons, and he actively encourages and coaxes parents to give him bribe money in exchange for his favoring their children. But one day, he finally gets caught in the act, and becomes the target of parent complaints. So Mr. Kim gets temporarily transferred to the boondocks, a branch school in a remote village in Gangwon Province. In the countryside, cell phones are useless and even buying cigarettes at the nearest corner store is out of the question. There are only five students in the whole school, and he's also discontented with the extremely naive villagers who offer him all sorts of vegetables and fruits instead of money. To make matters worse, a grumpy old man named Mr. Choi blackmails him into teaching him the Korean alphabet. Driven to near insanity by boredom and peace, Mr. Kim maps out a plan to transfer all of his students to Seoul, thereby closing down the rural school. For starters, Mr. Kim begins an after-school program to focus on developing each student's special talents so that they'll want to get a better education in Seoul. Contrary to his bad intentions, this results in a happy, supportive environment for the children and the village community, such that the school officials reconsider their policy of closing down the school because of Mr. Kim's "wonderful devotion" to the kids. But when a businessman unexpectedly appears, saying he'd like to turn the school into a survival game site, Mr. Kim becomes tempted by money once again.

Cast

* Cha Seung-won as Kim Bong-doo *

Byun Hee-bong Byun Hee-bong (born Byun In-chul; June 8, 1942) is a South Korean actor. Career Byun In-chul was born in Jangseong County, South Jeolla Province, and attended Salesian High School in Gwangju. He took up law at Chosun University before droppin ...

as Mr. Choi * Sung Ji-ru as Chun-shik * Lee Bom as Choi Ae-soon * Lee Jae-eung *

Kim Eung-soo Kim Eung-soo (; born February 12, 1961) is a South Korean actor. Kim lived in Japan for seven years, where he studied filmmaking at the Japan Institute of the Moving Image The , formerly known as the Yokohama Broadcasting Technical School, is a ...

as Nam-ok's father * Lee Jae-gu * Ku Bon-rim * Jung Jin-gak as Seoul principal * Park Soo-il as leisure businessman * Seo Hee-seung as Gangwon principal

References

External links

* * * * {{hancinema film, My_Teacher_v__Mr_p_Kim 2003 films 2003 comedy-drama films South Korean comedy-drama films Films about educators Films set in Gangwon Province, South Korea 2000s Korean-language films 2000s South Korean films