My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀 written and directed by kwak Jae-Yong (곽재용) 2001 by Kwak Jae Yong [ê³½ì¬ì©] (2001)
23 February 2006This was the smash hit in Korea of 2001, and became the highest growing comedy in Korean Box office history. And is the film that launched the career of the absolutely cute Jeon Ji Hyun. She is absolutely amazing in this film, and really carries the film through all it’s ridiculousness to it’s touching ending, in fact she won the Grand Bell Best Actress Award for her portrayal of the Girl (who is unnamed in this film). I like the sillyness, and the leaps that this film goes through, though admittedly I never really got into Cha Tae Hyun’s lead too much, really this whole film is about Jun Ji Hyun and the entire gamut of her emotions from angry to sad to happy to silly and confused and everything in between. This film is really a great film, and I can understand why they want to remake it here in the states, but it can never be the same without Jeon Ji-hyeon (전지현). I got Kelly to watch this film and she really enjoyed it as well. It is just a hysterically funny film. I love that this actually a true story based on the stories posted by Kim Ho Sik on the internet describing his relationship with his girlfriend, and trying to find her later.
Kyun Woo (Cha Tae Hyeon 차태현) plays a hapless college student, who while on the way home on the subway saves a Girl ( Jeon Ji-hyeon 전지현) from drunkenly falling under the subway. And then on the train when the girl starts vomiting over another passenger, she turns and says honey to him, and the rest of the passengers thinking he is with her, make him take care of her. He takes her to a motel, where she passes out and he takes a shower to clean of the sweat and vomit, but he runs out and answers her cell phone, and says where she is, but before he can get dressed the police come and arrest him. When he finally gets home, his mother beats him for not coming and visiting his aunt who is trying to introduce him to someone. Then he gets a calling from the girl telling him to come out now, where she orders him to a bar, gets completely loaded, and he takes her back to the same motel, and this time takes care of her, and starts to fall her, deciding he is going to cure her of her sadness. What follows is much madness, as she calls and demands he do things, like leaving class at a moments notice to go be with her, bring her a rose to her class, wear his high school uniform, and change shoes with her, so he has to run around in high heels or she will kills him! And he believes it. She also writes, and he has to love her crazy stories, which are shown as 2 film’s within films, one with her as a female terminator and one in a martial arts film (with Ashes of Time music even), both of which he
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
can’t stand, but can’t help but say he likes them to her, and also ties in because her stories are always about someone traveling to the past. For her birthday he takes her to a closes amusement park, for a special show since he used to work their, but they run into an army deserter and he is almost killed. Still she is getting happier and happier, though her parent’s are doing everything to keep them apart since Kyun Woo is a bit of an idiot, has a brain but never studies so does horribly in class. He thinks they are broken up and is on a date with a woman that turns out to be a man when she calls to get her because she is on a blind date, once he realizes the woman is a man, he goes and meets the man with her. A nice man her mom set her up with. They talk outside, and he tells her he realizes her ex is dead, and takes off her necklace she had from him because she shouldn’t wear it to meet new people. When she returns to the table the man has learned 10 lessons about her from Kyun Woo, and when she hears it she runs out to find him, and finally do when she starts calling on the loudspeaker for him.
Eventually she gets him to go with her, each with a letter telling each other their feelings and burry them under a tree on a hilltop, and promise to meet again their in 2 years to read the letters. He knows he is being left, though he doesn’t want too as he has fallen madly in love with her. He improves himself over the 2 years, learning to swim, to play racquetball and fence, all things she bested him at, and he returns after 2 years to find her not showing up, and he reads her letter, which explains her story. The day he met her the love of her life had died, and she thought that he had somehow led her to Kyun Woo, but as she liked him more and more her dead boyfriend became jealous. That they had discussed their future under that very tree. And she hoped that she had become courageous enough to be with Kyun Woo in that 2 years, but if not she would need more time. She talks how during the time she kept meeting with her dead boyfriend’s mother who kept trying to hook her up with someone, but she wasn’t ready (yes you guessed it). After another year she shows up at the tree and finds an old man who has not only read the letters, but tells her that the tree had died a year before and a young man had found a replacement tree and planted it so that someone would not be sad if they found out the tree had died, she has the feeling she is meeting a man from the future. She tried to find Kyun Woo, but his number is changed, and she can’t find him. And he sees her at the train station, but as her car is leaving and she doesn’t see him.
Another year and a half later, the girl is meeting with her dead boyfriend’s mother after returning from England for the time and finally tells her that she has gotten over her son, and can move on. The mother is quite happy, and the young man arrives to meet her and of course it is Kyun Woo who was planning to go to England, but no longer needs too. Instantly they are holding hands under the table because they have found the ones they love, and could have met so much earlier. The mother/aunt was right he is a lot like her son, and treated the girl just as well.
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Such a cute film, and Jeon Ji Hyun is just amazing. You could fall for her so easily even though she is totally insane, but mostly because you do see that vulnerability in her, because no matter how tough she is acting, it is just an act after all. Some moments disturbed me, like him carrying her purse since my ex always used to force me to do that, and I was nice enough to just let it go. And her just being totally ridiculous, which actually detracted from the film a bit because of bad memories, but overall it is really an incredible film even for it’s little flaws.
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