The premise of Filipino-Korean joint venture You With Me is pretty outlandish from the start. Kim (Devon Seron) is the only daughter of a wealthy couple. To say her parents are overprotective is an understatement; she is kept on continuous surveillance, and her parents have built an office out of their own home so she won't have to leave the house for work (her actual profession is left vague). Spurred to rebel, she takes an interest in teaching foreigners how to speak English. Eventually one of her pupils offers to host her in Korea, ostensibly for an extended vacation from her family. Inexplicably, she ends up with another student of hers, Jayson (Korean TV actor Hyun Woo) and she decides to work for him. Let's just ignore the fact that Kim is presumably in Korea on a tourist visa and her working in any capacity on that visa is illegal.
You With Me is romance done at the most superficial of levels. It's as if whoever wrote the film decided that a number of cute "kilig" scenes make for a romance. That's not how things are done, and such superficiality only makes the romance unconvincing and awkward.There's a scene in this film that's pretty telling. When the stock dramatic turn arrives and Kim and Jayson are separated, Jayson reminisces on their time together. Funnily, there aren't a lot of scenes that show them legitimately bonding together emotionally, so all we get are their first meeting scene and a scene where Kim gives Jayson pastillas.
The film is directed by Rommel Ricafort, assisted by a Korean crew. Ricafort is responsible for the film Higanti, probably one of the worst films of 2017. Thankfully, his crew makes up for a lot of the lack of technical polish from that film. However, the film still suffers from a major technical problem. This movie has some of the worst sound mixing I've heard this year, with the endlessly droning soundtrack drowning out most of the conversations. Hyun Woo is a capable actor, but it's obvious that English is not his first language. Subtitles could have helped deciphering his heavily accented English, but the film has subs only for the Korean dialogue. In addition, even if he spoke perfect English, his speech is barely audible, making it as if he's mumbling his lines.
The music even swells at times to jolting levels, as if it anticipates the viewer getting bored. And that's what this movie is, if you take out the appeal factor of Handsome Korean Guys (tm) and superficial kilig moments: a boring slog through unintelligible dialogue and empty drama. An unexpected twist near the end is interesting, but the movie rushes through it instead of building appropriate conflict. In contrast, the ending drags for way too long, the movie ending 15 minutes later than it probably should have.
I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone. If you are interested in Hot Korean Guys (tm), then just put on a pair of headphones with your own jams, enjoy the eyecandy and make up your own dialogue. Maybe, just maybe, you'll end up with a better version of You With Me.
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