Oh, the delicious meta irony! After his stint as an anarchist freedom fighter in Park Yeol, Lee Je-hoon will be coming back as a strict, law-abiding level 9 civil servant for a new movie called I Can Speak. He’s starring alongside Na Mun-hee (Dear My Friends), who is playing a “devil granny.”
After filing over 8,000 civil complaints, Na Mun-hee has been blacklisted by the officials at her local public government office. In fact, she’s at the top of the blacklist, as their most frequent troublemaking visitor.
In the trailer, a sunbae at his office tells Lee Je-hoon to be wary of her, and she’s seen coming in almost daily with new complaints and more evidence. Sighing heavily, the straight-laced Lee Je-hoon, whose love for rules can be seen from his OCD-neat outer appearance to his unbending moral stance under pressure, decides he’ll serve her according to protocol.
When these two first meet, they clash and butt heads, but when Na Mun-hee witnesses Lee Je-hoon’s near-perfect English skills, her eyes grow wide. She immediately requests that he teach her English, and he says no, suggesting that she learn through a prep academy, but she doesn’t budge. She insists that she wants him to tutor her (I would too, if I were in her shoes, but for an entirely different purpose: to stare at his beautifully perfect nose).
Eventually, it looks like he acquiesces because by the end of the trailer, Lee Je-hoon begins his first lesson with her teaching her the most basic English phrase: “How are you?” To which, Na Mun-hee seriously replies in the most heavily-accented English ever: “Pie-een, ddang-kyu an yoo?” Lol. Even though they continue to bicker with each other, the movie is about how by spending time with this rascally old granny, Lee Je-hoon learns to open his heart again and see through to her sincerity.
The first character poster of Lee Je-hoon says “By the rules, by the protocols,” while introducing him as the rule-abiding civil servant. The two other character posters begin with Lee Je-hoon’s copy reading, “How are you?” and Na Mun-hee’s replying back, “Fine, thank you, and you?” just like they say to each other in the trailer. The common text in both their posters say: “I have something to say.”
Awww, this is too cute already! Human comedy film I Can Speak will be released in Korean theaters around the Chuseok holiday season this September.
