Was trolling the net just now for reviews on this show in English, and they were all woefully inadequate. Only 1 proper one, and well, that version has been rehashed all over. Which leads to this post.
I have to tell you first that My Sassy Girl ranks up there in my personal list of favourite romantic comedies. Not that i’ve watched many, but this film was a very memorable one, so memorable that I remembered buying the vcd, then the OST, and subsequently re-watching it many many times. That was way back in Sec 4 though, and I was more intent on re-watching the brilliance of the twist (yeah I called it a twist then) in the plot.
Anyway shortly after that the movie was sent to the back vestiges of my mind, with only an occasional listening to the OST, and in my first year of NS, I lost the OST together with 20+ CDs (or more). Which explains why I have so many CD covers without CDs. In any case, I digress.
Losing the CD meant that I totally forgot about My Sassy Girl, and for a period of time, I hated the theme song too, no thanks to people spamming the song, and its chinese cover all over. And the truth is, I thought the chinese cover totally horrendous. I still shudder when I hear it. Admittedly speaking though, it’s just a quirk of mine, and perhaps the song is really not bad, and I’m just biased.
I’m digressing again. I’m finding it very hard to concentrate actually. Anyway, My Sassy Girl popped up again early this year, just 2 weeks ago, if I am not wrong. I can’t remember who I was talking to (supposedly its Marc, but I don’t have a clear recollection talking to him about it), but then the topic turned to favourite romantic comedies, and immediately I said “My Sassy Girl.” The discussion then turned into one on the aspects of the movie that we liked. The discussion actually opened my eyes to the other aspects of the movie which I had previously neglected. Lastly, what sparked me to re-watch it again, would be a trivia mentioned, which had something to do with a Man from the future and a spaceship. And yes, there was such a scene, to my pleasant surprise.
In any case, to the heart of this article, what is it that made this movie such a hit in Asia? To be truthful, I can’t exactly say. Perhaps its the absurdity of the antics, the raw emotional edge or perhaps even the unpredictability of the plot.
The movie is like this. Simply put, boy meets drunk girl, gets mistaken as girlfriend, has to care of her, ends up in motel. They start hanging out, guy gets constantly bashed by girl, and slowly, their relationship progresses. Guy eventually finds out why girl is emo, both find out they like each other, girl feels guilty for liking new guy, they make a promise to meet in 2 years, guy self-improves in that 2 years but girl does not show up. They meet coincidentally again 1 year later, and live happily ever after.
The key word here in this movie is: Fate. Fate plays a big hand in this movie (perhaps time machines too, but I’ll come to that later), from their first meeting, to the way to the moment they were reunited 3 years later. In fact, they seemed destined to meet, right from the very start. The male protagonist was supposed to have visited his aunt, while the female protagonist was supposed to have visited her ex-boyfriend’s (later revealed to have passed away that very day one year ago) mother that same day. As it turns out right at the end, the ex-boyfriend’s mother, and the aunt in question are one and the same. They were supposed to have met each other that very day, except in very different circumstances. I was so impressed with the “twist”, as I termed it then, because, well it was so surreal, yet I guess, on the other hand, deep down within I wished that it could also happen to me.
Upon rewatching, I was equally impressed with the way the main characters interacted with each other, and how the relationship developed. Originally, from the male protagonist’s POV, he had set out purely with kind intentions of wanting to cure her of her grief. While on the other hand, the female protagonist had started out wanting to retain her memories of him by forcefully (and violently) making the male protagonist do things reminiscent of her now dead ex-boyfriend. Gradually though, as the show progresses, sparks fly, the female protagonist realises that what made her stick to him was not him acting like her ex-boyfriend, and the male protagonist realises that well, he did not exactly help her for altruistic reasons. I think the blind date incident (especially the portion at the cafe) reflects the progression/change in relationship status very clearly.
I really like the way the plot develops. I have to agree that perhaps the change of tone from absurd to emo was abit abrupt, it being a movie, so perhaps it would have been better as a serial. Still, it doesn’t diminish the fact that the character and plot development was really good. It also helped that the Cha Tae-Hyun and Jeon Ji-Hyun gave really accomplished performances, Cha’s looks was perfect for acting in such a goofy role, while Jeon really revelled in her role as the tough-talking girl desperately seeking solace.
In any case, before I end this article, I’d like to point out the various trivia I had mentioned earlier in the movie, some of which enhances the plot, some of which are just… trivia. Here they are (it’s a compilation of most trivia online, with 1 or 2 points on my own):
1. One of the scenes shown during the sequence when the male protagonist is reading the female protagonist’s letter shows the female protagonist in the coffee shop touching her ex-boyfriend’s hand and is shown ordering a soda. (Throughout the film, whenever he tried to order soda, she would change it to coffee.)
2. The owner of the motel, where Gyeon-Woo and the Girl stay at twice, also is a subway operator and the gang leader that Gyeon-Woo encounters in prison. They are actually quintuplets (news of their birth is shown in an news article hanging at the door of the motel) Throughout the film you see all five of them.
3. On the female protagonist’s birthday, the male protagonist sets up a surprise where lights sequentially turn-on as they walk by in the theme park (dream sequence). The lights end up turning on sequentially as he and the army deserter pass by. I totally laughed my ass off when they screened that.
4. Some might be wondering why I have not stated the names of both the male and female protagonist at all. The reason? Simple: They did not t all reveal the name of the female protagonist. Amazing huh?
5. Maybe they did reveal the name. In the martial arts movie script, the villain is named Kyun-woo and the heroine goes on to become King Jung-jo. Therefore, it can be assumed that her given name is Jung-Jo. True or not, I’ll leave it to you to decide.
6. Probably the most stunning revelation not posted on the net. Remembe the cafe when the female protagonist show the male protagonist the wuxia script? She had consistently (even in her previous scripts) been fascinated with time machines and time-travellers (which stemmed most likely from the fact that she really wanted to travel back in time to relive the memories with her ex-boyfriend), and even stated her desire to see one one day. She did get to see one. Remember the old man sitting by the tree when she went to the meeting place 3 years later? He was a time-traveller, and most probably the male protagonist himself travelling back through time to fulfil her wish. How so? The scene after he tells her about the secret behind the tree at the meeting place, she is seen to be holding the letters in the time-capsule (if memory serves me right), and looking pensively in the distance. It is there, in that few secods, you see a spaceship zip past (with sound too!), and startled she turns to look at the spaceship just as the scene fades out.
7. I’m not sure about this, but apparently the guy she vomited on right at the start (the one with fake hair) is the same as the one who sat by the tree 3 years later. True? I really cannot confirm, but if you recall, it was only at the guy’s insistence (that the male protagonist was the boyfriend of the female protagonist) that the male protagonist (reluctantly) took care of her. Which of course, kickstarted the whole story. Perhaps even without the guy’s insistence, the male protagonist would have helped. Still, its quite interesting to see how fate plays a role (rather heavily) in bringing the duo together.
8. The Chinese dubbed version and the original Korean version had different ending theme songs. The Korean ending theme song featured “I Believe”, while the Chinese dubbed version featured the song “Its the Same”, sung by various artistes, presumably including Cha Tae-Hyun and Jeon Ji Hyun.
9. The story is actually based off a real story posted online via a series of love letters, by Kim Ho Sik.
Perhaps I should buy the DVD instead. The VCD quality is totally horrendous. In any case, there is a similarly titled movie to be released by Hollywood, also of the same title, starring Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford, slated to be released in 2007.