The College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) is the undisputed heavyweight of South Korea. It is the ‘final boss’ of college entrance exams, capable of grounding airplanes, pausing stock market trading, and bringing the entire country to a standstill. Who exactly writes these all-powerful CSAT questions, and how? Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng is a slapstick comedy that doggedly digs into that very secret. Excited to find her name among the question-setting committee packed with high-profile professors, Maeng Boram (Lee Sun-bin) arrives at the secluded exam-drafting camp, only to discover it was all an administrative error - as if such an honor were possible for a teacher from a small town. However, Moon Joo-yeol (You Chea-myung), the head of the Korean language committee, actively ropes Boram into the committee to satisfy his own ambitions and dodge accountability in his rivalry with review committee chair Park Kyung-tae (Kim Young-min). The film then raucously unfolds Boram’s bittersweet yet rewarding confinement at the camp, pitting her against shameless figures whose only asset is their pedigree. Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng is a brilliantly strategic comedy that sharply diagnoses and satirizes South Korean society through the ludicrous and fiercely turbulent conflicts surrounding the drafting of the CSAT.
Lee Yong-jae studied economics at Yonsei University and worked as a newspaper journalist and stock trader. He won awards at the KBS Drama Screenplay Contest for his screenplay Professors (2012) and the Korea Creative Content Agency’s Korea Story Contest Story Awards and Festival for his screenplay The Rice Magnate (2017). He also wrote the screenplays for the feature films Secret Zoo (2018) and In Our Prime (2021). Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng is his feature directorial debut.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
