She's on Duty

I am a huge fan of Asian cinema, and this Korean movie is worth a watch.

The story of a police officer having to go undercover in a school, and no one really wonders about her age? Yeah, already there is the first laugh.

The dialogue is good and funny, the scenes are well put together, and the movie works well all throughout. And the characters are well portrayed and have that sparkling on-screen chemistry going on.

The lead women, Seon-a Kim does a marvelous job in her role as the undercover police woman.

However, if you are unfamiliar with Asian cinema, you should know that many things in these movies are fairly extreme and out there, so you should approach this movie with the intention of being entertained and not having to think too much about what is going on.

It is a movie that you will pick up again later and watch it for a second time. It has good entertainment value, and could use a sequel for sure.

It just amazes that people critique a film as though they were film critics and such connoisseurs. When I pay money to see a movie, it's an investment of time for me. Then the questions that arises are; was it entertaining, was I able to escape from reality, and did I feel like it was worth my money, waste of my money or just ehhh? This movie fulfills 2 out of the 3 criteria. It was entertaining and I was able to suspend my disbelief for the duration of the movie. I loved the gym teacher, I loved her commanding officer and I loved Kim Seona.

I loved how this movie subtly teaches what goes around comes around. She beats up the high school bullies then the PE teacher disciplines her. I love the relationships in the movie. I won't go into much details of the movie, but it wasn't a waste of money nor was it a more than my money's worth. But if you want to watch a movie that allows you to escape for a coupla hours and be entertained, this is the movie for a nice Friday or Saturday night snuggle with the significant other.

This is a light-hearted cop comedy about a young female policewoman who reluctantly goes undercover in a high school. Her assignment is to get close to the daughter of the second in command of the "Whacker", the biggest crime syndicate in Seoul. Actress Seon-a Kim is wonderful as Detective Chun Jae-in. She has the kind of plastic face and flexible body that can perfectly convey comedy in a physical way, a useful asset in a foreign language film where words and phrases often don't translate well. It's interesting to note that she is roughly ten years older than Sang-mi Nam, the actress who plays Seung-hee, the daughter of the crime boss. Sang-mi Nam was about 21 years old when the film was made, yet Seon-a Kim is totally believable as her peer. The film is a bit weak in the occasional action set pieces, and a lovely female gang member is woefully underutilized. Still, the movie, whose English title is "She's On Duty", is charming, delightful, and quite amusing. The DVD, which I picked up in New York City's Chinatown, looks great and has some decent extras: a still photo gallery, a music video, and an enjoyable video of the photo shoot for the film's posters and box art.

To get right to the point, South Korea is not known for comedy films. But can they do it? Seems yes. Actress Kim Seon-a puts on a rubber face and hits the right note in a lot of setups. Honestly I laughed. This review is done in 2024 and not a lot of humor is coming from either Hollywood or Washington these days. The high school setting has been done a lot on this side of the pond, but remains fresh in the Korean perspective. Overall I would say this film, like many others of the pre-2019 area, gets better with age.((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

After ruining a sting operation which might have apprehended a top-ranking South Korean criminal named "Cha Young-jae" (Kap-su Kim), a female detective named "Chung Jae-in" (Seon-a Kim) is subsequently assigned a mission in which she has to keep tabs on the criminal's daughter, "Seung-hee" (Sang-mi Nam). This requires her to go undercover--as a high school student. Not only that but she has to somehow make friends with Seung-hee and at the same time try to fit in. Neither of these are very easy. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it I will just say that in order for this particular type of film to work it typically has to have some really good comedy to back it up. That being said, while there is certainly some comedy here, I didn't see anything special about any of it. Even so it wasn't too bad for the most part and as a result I suppose it was worth the time spent to watch it. Accordingly, I rate it as about average. But no more and no less.