My Mighty Princess 무림여대생 by Kwak Jae-Yong (곽재용) [2008]
12 November 2008The fourth film from Kwak, the director of My Sassy Girl, and still making movies with Sassy women, though this one is a silly modern Wuxia film with some cheesy wirework, but Sin Min-ah is super cute, and brings a real earnestness to the role that helps elevate the film, even with it’s storyline that gets a little convoluted and strange at the end, and one love interest is just dropped. Still I had fun watching it, even as just a silly little popcorn film, since the martial arts are done by complete non-martial artists. The film does veer in many directions though, making it a bit disjoined, but it is fun.
So-Hwi (Sin Min-ah (신민아)) is a college student, who was trained by her martial artist father Cheon-poong (Lee Dae-geun (이대근)) in an ancient form of martial arts, and she was always considered a child prodigy, being almost indestructible, and able to run to school off building tops. She does a play at a school with the martial arts club, but no one claps, and after going drinking with the club, where she can drink 10 times as much as the others and not get drunk, and having to carry everyone home, she hears that all the people think she is a crazy freak, so against her fathers wishes she quits the club, and goes to try and join the hockey club, where she can try to get close to the motorcycle riding heartthrob Joon Mo (Yoo Geon (유건)). Meanwhile her father meets up with the other 4 Masters of the old school martial arts schools, to talk about the fact that the next competition is only for their children, and only one other master has a child, Il-yeong (On Joo-wan (온주완)) who only cares about motorcycles, and yet he was almost as amazing as So-hwo when he was a kid, and the two were close childhood friends. They try to bribe him to come back and train with So-Hwi for the competition, so he shows up at her school to try and convince her.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….
The Region 3 disc is available at YesAsia.
Il-yeong has had a lifelong crush on her, so he doesn’t mind showing up every day to try and convince her and to see what is happening with her and Joon Mo.
She is meanwhile sharpening skates for the club, but Joon Mo is starting to suspect more, when she dodges a puck, and then breaks up a fight by throwing all the other players around as if they are china dolls, then saving Joon Mo in a gang fight, when he was trying to save a police woman, and So Hwi eventually joins the team as the hockey player, and starts to get closer to Joon Mo who is in love with an older police woman who saved him.
The second half changes gears completely into a Wuxia film, when an evil old master returns and starts challenging and killing off the masters. This guy who stole a famous sword, and has mastered a moon strike, and only a move of So-Hwi’s dead mom can stop it. Since So-Hwo the prodigy doesn’t want to do it, her father uses the mom’s martial arts book to try and learn the move, and goes to fight, but instead of the old master it turns out to be Il-yeong, who was brainwashed by the old master to fight for him, but the master died and he is still trapped. He originally got trapped because he and So=Hwo had stolen the sword and the man attacked them, and So-Hwi was poisoned, and he joined the man to get the potion, but he can’t talk about it, and can only scream mentally when it is happening, which So-Hwo can here.
With her father hospitalized after the fight, So-Hwo starts training, and gains the skill and goes to fight Il-yeong, but does not want to hurt him, and thus gets trapped, but she can hear him in her head, and her tears fall on the evil sword, and make a sound that allows him to break free. In the hospital he thinks he will tell her he loves her, and his father can hear him.
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Silly, and disjointed, but overall still pretty fun.
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