To Sir, with Love (2006 film)

To Sir, with Love

Theatrical poster
Hangul 스승의 은혜
Revised Romanization Seuseung-ui eunhye
McCune–Reischauer Sŭsŭng-ŭi ŭn-hye
Directed by Im Dae-woong
Written by Park Se-yeol
Starring Oh Mi-hee
Seo Young-hee
Cinematography Kim Yoon-su
Edited by Park Gok-ji
Distributed by Show East
Release dates
  • August 3, 2006
Running time
 93 minutes
Country South Korea
Language Korean
Box office $3,094,683[1]

To Sir, with Love (aka My Teacher, Teacher's Mercy and Bloody Reunion) is a 2006 South Korean horror film, and the feature film debut of director Im Dae-Woong.

Plot

The movie begins with a scene of a pregnant teacher, Ms. Park, with her students, who appear to care greatly for her. While the students play in the water, Ms. Park, who is sitting on a rock watching, begins to bleed down her leg. The scene switches to a hospital, where she gives birth to a deformed infant. The film then shows Ms. Park's husband locking his son in the basement before he, disturbed by the appearance of their child, hangs himself in shame.

The movie then cuts to a man as he discovers a gruesome murder scene in a disused basement, with five bodies being discovered. Two of the victims, Mi-Ja and Ms. Park are alive but unconscious, and are brought to a nearby hospital for treatment, where the police arrive to hopefully question the victims regarding the murders. The younger of the two survivors awake, and the police detective comes to the room, where she recounts the story of the night of the murders.

Mi-Ja, who has been taking care of her retired teacher, Ms. Park, invites several of her former students to her house, 16 years after their graduation. Since the end of her teaching career, Ms. Park has been residing in the countryside, suffering from an illness while her ex-student, Mi-Ja, cares for her.

The reunion begins as Ms. Park's former students begin to arrive to her home. Se-Ho, Eun-Young, Sun-Hee, Dal-Bong, and Myung-Ho each resent her for different reasons. Se-Ho and Eun-Young, the president and vice-president of their class, are planning on getting married. They remember the time they were belittled by their teacher for being poor. Sun-Hee, skinny and beautiful, was made fun of by the teacher for being obese during her years in high school. Dal-Bong, who had dreamed of becoming an athlete, became handicapped due to being forced to perform repeated squats after losing a relay during a track and field meet. Myung-Ho was sexually abused by his teacher. Jung-Won, who had begun visiting Ms. Park a year prior to the reunion, was ridiculed by the class after defecating himself in class, and later left school after his mother was struck by a car the same day. As they all greet Ms. Park, they are careful not to let their resentment show, but as the party continues tensions rise, with each student becoming more open with their anger, before Se-Ho drunkenly explodes with anger, blaming Ms. Park for each of the students having turned out to be "losers", living horrible lives. It is also revealed that the students teased the deformed boy through the basement window, stealing his mask and revealing his monstrous face. Jung-Won, returns the mask to the deformed boy before being discovered by Ms. Park, who assumes Jung-Won was teasing her son and yells at him.

As the night of the reunion continues, the students start to die from the hands of a bunny-masked killer. See-ho is killed when the killer drops pieces of a box cutter into his mouth and applies hot water from the teapot, causing him to swallow, while Eun-Young is killed when her eyes are stapled open. Dal-Bong confronts Ms. Park while drunk, revealing that he stumbled and fell because he was using a new, unbroken pair of shoes which his parents had bought for him for the race, despite being too poor to afford them. He is then killed when the killer stuffs black ants into his body and smashes his head with a baseball bat. During the movie, the bunny-masked killer is assumed to be her deformed son, coming back for revenge. Myung-Ho and Mi-Ja enter the basement, where they discover the bodies of the three victims before being locked in by Sun-Hee and are forced to break the door. Sun-Hee tries to take revenge on Mrs. Park by pushing her over a cliff, but fails when Mi-Ja appears and the two have a short fight, which ends when Sun-Hee tries to tackle Mi-Ja and misses, causing Sun-hee to fall down the cliff and die on the rocks below. Myung-Ho knocks out Mi-Ja when she arrives back at the house with Ms. Park, then pushes Ms. Park down the stairs into the basement, dousing her with gasoline and planning to light her on fire. However, before he can use his lighter, the killer appears behind him and, after a brief struggle, kills Myung-Ho by forcing their fingers through his eyes. Mi-Ja arrives in the basement as the killers reveals himself to be Jung-Won.

The film returns to the present day, and the police begin to search for the whereabouts of Jung-Won. They arrive at his apartment to discover it partially flooded and in disrepair. They discover the desiccated corpse of a woman, assumed to be Jung-Won's mother. The Detective discovers that Jung-Won was a woman, based on the female clothing and a photo of her with her mother, which was found in the apartment. In addition, he discovers a wall covered in newspaper clippings, which reveal that the other murdered students were in fact successful, Dal-Bong having become a star athlete and Sun-Hee a famous model. The Detective then receives a call stating that there was nobody named Mi-Ja in Ms. Park's class, and that the victims found in the basement were killed by poison, rather than torture. The detective rushes to Mi-Ja's residence, where he discovers various poisons and materials, proving that Mi-Ja was in fact Jung-Won. A flashback reveals that Jung-Won had killed her former classmates, who had been visiting Ms. Park for yearly reunions, by serving them poison disguised as a homemade raspberry alcohol.

While the police discover all of this, Jung-Won wheels an awakened Ms. Park to the end of a stone pier at the hospital, where Jung-Won reveals the reason for her actions. She explains that the spring breeze had brought the smell of dung into the classroom, which mingled with the scent of her first menstruation. The students assumed she had defecated, and Ms. Park removed her from the class, mistakenly believing the same thing. It is also revealed that Jung-Won was in fact the one who had suffered at the hands of Ms. Park. She tripped and stumbled during the race, and she was ridiculed by Ms. Park for being overweight. Her mother, who was a poor street vendor, had drawn the card saying "I love you Ms. Park" as the only way she could show her thanks for her daughter's teacher, having stayed up all night writing the phrase over and over. When Jung-Won came home after being removed from the class, she showed her mother her blood-stained panties. Her mother became angry, and as she began to walk to the school to explain the situation, she was struck by a car and became paralyzed, which caused Jung-Won to drop out of school in order to care for her. Jung-Won's resentment for Ms. Park and her classmates grew until her mother passed away, leading Jung-Won to decide to get revenge. She assumed the name Mi-Ja and became Ms. Park's caretaker, and began planning.

On the pier, Ms. Park desperately apologizes to Jung-Won, who states that because her classmates had good lives, she killed them. She goes on to say that because Ms. Park was suffering while alive, her revenge would be to let Ms. Park live in pain. Jung-Won proceeds to commit suicide by jumping off the pier, despite Ms. Park's attempts to save her, which fail due to her paralyzed legs. The film ends on a scene of Ms. Park's empty wheelchair sitting on the pier, with Ms. Park nowhere to be seen.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ "Box office by Country: To Sir With Love Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-04

External links