Teaching Practice 2 Has Already Won at BIFAN — Now It Is Coming to Korean Theaters on May 13

When Teaching Practice: Idiot Girls and School Ghost 2 had its world premiere at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in July 2025, it did not just screen — it won. The film took home the Korean Fantastic Film Award at BIFAN, and Han Sun-hwa earned the festival's Best Actress recognition for her lead role. Now, nearly a year later, the film is finally making its way to Korean theaters, with a nationwide release set for May 13 exclusively at CGV.

The cast gathered at CGV Yongsan iPark Mall in Seoul on April 29 for the film's official press conference, where Han Sun-hwa, Hong Ye-ji, WJSN's Yeoreum, Lee Hwa-won, and Yoo Seon-ho were all in attendance, bringing together a cast lineup that has drawn considerable attention from audiences anticipating a comedy horror that takes the genre seriously without losing its sense of humor.

What the Film Is About

Teaching Practice 2 is a standalone sequel to the 2024 film Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary, meaning audiences who missed the first film do not need any background to follow the story. Written and directed by Kim Min-ha, the sequel puts a new protagonist at the center: Kang Eun-kyung, a passionate Gen MZ student teacher played by Han Sun-hwa, who arrives at her old high school for a teaching practicum and quickly discovers that the school harbors something far stranger than disengaged students.

Eun-kyung finds herself entangled with the school's black magic club — whose members have been conducting rituals tied to a 400-year-old spirit named Idainashi (Yoo Seon-ho). The club's leadership structure has a very specific internal dynamic: Aoi (Hong Ye-ji) commands attention with a charismatic, enigmatic presence; Riko (WJSN's Yeoreum) is timid and easily startled; and Haruka (Lee Hwa-won) projects bold intensity. Their collective dynamic, combined with the supernatural threat they have inadvertently invited into the school, forces Eun-kyung into a battle she did not sign up for — taking a deadly mock exam against the ghost of the college entrance exam itself.

The tagline — "A deadly mock exam begins" — signals the film's approach: horror with a sharp satirical edge, using the specific anxieties of the Korean college entrance system as raw material for genre filmmaking that lands a little differently than most.

An Award Winner With a Message

The film's premise is funny on the surface, but director Kim Min-ha has spoken previously about the thematic concerns underneath the comedy. The film uses its supernatural setup to explore something real: the collapse of teacher authority in contemporary Korean education, the erosion of institutional trust, and what it means to be a person invested in traditional educational structures when those structures no longer function the way they were supposed to.

Han Sun-hwa's character, a student teacher full of genuine enthusiasm for the profession, becomes the vehicle through which those concerns are examined. The horror elements are not separate from the social commentary — they are the social commentary, filtered through the specific fears and pressures that Korean students and teachers navigate every day.

That combination of genre competence and thematic substance is part of what impressed BIFAN's jury. The Korean Fantastic Film Award recognizes filmmakers working with speculative and genre material who bring something beyond craft to their work. That Teaching Practice 2 won it while also delivering the kind of entertainment that fills theaters speaks to how successfully Kim Min-ha has calibrated the two.

A Cast Worth Watching

Han Sun-hwa has been one of the more consistently interesting performers in Korean film and television over the past several years. Best known internationally for her years in the idol group Secret, she has since developed an acting resume that demonstrates a willingness to take on tonally complex material — roles that ask her to navigate comedy and unease simultaneously, which is exactly what Teaching Practice 2 requires.

Hong Ye-ji brings her own considerable credibility to the ensemble, having earned significant international recognition through Netflix's Squid Game Season 2. Her involvement in a comedy horror from a celebrated genre director signals a genuine investment in the film's potential, not just a prestige lending.

WJSN's Yeoreum — Lee Yeo-reum — continues building a parallel acting career alongside her music work, and the contrast between her character Riko's timidity and Yeoreum's onstage confidence as a performer is likely to be one of the more interesting elements of her performance for fans who know her primarily from her group activities.

Yoo Seon-ho, who rose to public attention through Produce 101 Season 2 and has been developing his acting work steadily since, takes on the film's central antagonist in the form of the centuries-old spirit Idainashi — a role that requires something very different from the charm-based work he has done elsewhere.

Why May 13 Matters

Korean theatrical releases do not always follow straightforward paths from festival premiere to wide release, and the gap between Teaching Practice 2's BIFAN debut and its commercial opening reflects the realities of distribution timing rather than any uncertainty about the film's quality. The BIFAN win, and the attention it generated, has built anticipation steadily.

The CGV-exclusive opening is worth noting: it positions the film as an event release, concentrating the audience rather than spreading it thin across multiplex screens. For a genre film with a built-in cult fanbase and strong word-of-mouth from its festival run, this distribution approach makes sense. Fans who have been waiting since July 2025 finally have a date to mark.

With a runtime of 94 minutes and a main poster that shows the full cast draped in red capes against a backdrop of looming supernatural threat, Teaching Practice 2 arrives fully formed — an award-winning comedy horror with a sharp premise, a cast worth watching, and a director who has already proved she can deliver both the scares and the laughs. May 13 cannot come soon enough.