Bong-goo (played by Lee Ji-hoon) is an attractive teacher with a horrible secret...whenever he becomes sufficiently sexually aroused, Bong-goo farts. But for this obvious flaw, Bong-goo is still chased by a bevy of girls at his new school, who are determined to make him fart. As obviously stupid as this premise is "Wet Dreams 2" manages the bizarre mistake of making itself harder to watch via character development.

Not Bong-goo's character development. We never do find out why he farts whenever it's sexy time and really, Bong-goo only ever does this to provide a weak joke. No, instead the focus is on Seong-eun (played by Kang Eun-bi) who really wants to have sex with Bong-goo because she is an idiot teenage girl. And as "Wet Dreams 2" goes on she learns that...what does she learn anyway? That she was sexually attractive all along, but never needed validation?

Any "students clumsily hit in teacher in hopes of sex" plot is pretty inherently fetishistic. That's the first strike against "Wet Dreams 2"- it's really hard to root for Seong-eun or want her to succeed in any way when the girl's entire motivation is so basically childish. It's ironic, granted, when we consider that what Seong-eun wants to become a metaphorical attitude, yet the script demonstrates no apparent self-awareness of this point, so I am hesitant to grant the movie much credit in that regard.

What "Wet Dreams 2" does have in abundance is raunchy humor that is, visually at least, surprisingly tame. Don't let the opener where Bong-goo and a lady friend strip half-naked fool you- the sexuality in "Wet Dreams 2" is of the look don't touch variety. This is true even as some weak laughs are attempted through the use of authority figures touching nubile girls under the excuse of physical discipline. When swimsuits pop up I was actually surprised at how little skin they showed. I suspect this modesty was less due to the characters being teenage girls so much as a general decline in swimsuit standards in the last ten years.

Yes, that's a bit of a puritan sentiment I'll admit. But here's the thing. Sex only really works as humor if there is some kind of baseline puritan element telling us that what's going on is naughty and shameful. We giggle because of crudness is offensive, not simply because crudeness is humor incarnate. By being so blandly uncritical of Seong-eun's desires, director Jung Cho-sin renders her journey meaningless. There are no obstacles save for Seong-eun's own immaturity.

Or maybe I just think that because the jokes were unfunny, and the drama just sort of...placidly standing there. There's an entire bowling sequence about which I can remember pretty much nothing, because that's all that happened. Everybody went bowling. There were no stakes, no jokes, and I can't even remember who won. That's how I feel about most of "Wet Dreams 2". The whole thing just felt weirdly obligatory, a rite of passage that only exists out of obligation rather than because anyone needed it.

Review by William Schwartz

"Wet Dreams 2" is directed by Jung Cho-sin and features Lee Ji-hoon, Kang Eun-bi, Jeon Hye-bin, Park Seul-gi and Shin Joo-ah.

Available on DVD from YESASIA



DVD (HK) (En Sub)

Wet Dreams 2 DVD