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My Sassy Girl
86
8
Story
9
Cast
9
Fun
8
Subs
9
Overall
Janick Neveu
January 25, 2002
Movie poster for My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Country South Korea
Year 2001
Running Time 137
Distributor Starmax Co. Ltd.
Producer Chul Shin
Director Gwak Jae-Yong
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Synopsis

Gyeon-woo is a single Korean college student, still not very sure of what he wants to become in the future. One night, on his way back home, he meets an extremely beautiful girl, but who is also completely drunk. Because the girl talked to Gyeon-woo before falling unconscious, the people surrounding them begin to think that the girl is Gyeon-woo`s girlfriend. Having no other choice than helping the girl, he decides to leave her in a motel, since he doesn't know were she lives. The next morning Gyeon-woo gets a call from this mysterious girl who is very angry about him and wants to know everything that happened the past night. She tells him to meet her right now at the exit of the metro. Gyeon-woo thinking about this, decides to go see the girl.

From that night, Gyeon-woo and the girl will become good friends, in a strange sense. As the relation progresses, Gyeon-woo begins to discover how crazy the girls really is, with all her wacky behaviors, angry attitude and always wanting him to please her the way she wants, even if it mean that Gyeon-woo will pass for a complete idiot in public places or gets beaten by the girl. But even if Gyeon-woo suffer, physically and mentally, he really thinks that this beautiful girl will have some sorrow in her and he really wants to help her to get better. But at what price?

Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Review

Why do I hate teen movies so much? Because of their uninteresting crappy love story and their unbelievable typical characters (you know that the supposed ugly girl is a perfect super babe when she takes off her glasses). Also because I can't support all the clichés and stereotypes that these kinds of movies like to exploit so much. It's just not funny to me anymore. Of course, because in most cases, cinematography wise, these movies mean absolutely nothing, for me they have almost no artistic values, I just found them a complete waste of time.

But why do I love "My Sassy girl" so much? Because of that unpredictable and enjoyable love story and that the two characters in the movie were awesome and touching, especially that memorable and beautiful Korean girl. Also, that the humor was always right on time, not trying stupid sex jokes or stupid humor, unlike other movie of its genre right now and that visually the movie was surprisingly very well done.

Okay, I know what you are thinking right now, "He said love story, this is a freaking chick flick then!" No not at all…well okay, this movie has a lot of material to please more to a female audience but trust me, just once. I really don't like these kind of movies and drama makes me sleepy, but I was really touched by this sweet romantic story. The story looks simple and yes it is, but there are a lot of things going on during the movie that you will probably miss some of the subtle details the first time you watch it. These details are not essential to the comprehension of the story but it makes a second viewing even more fun. The first part of the story concentrates more on the development of the characters, it really gave us the time to know them and begin to feel attach to the two main characters. Feeling sorry for Gyeon-woo when he gets beaten or humiliated by the girl, but also that a guy can't stay indifferent by that sweet little face that girl can make when she wants to be taken care of. The story is really only about the two main characters and I can't tell you anymore about it because it will spoil the development of their relationship.

Strangely, the cast is almost composed by only two people, most of the rest of the characters consist of the parents of the two main characters and that is about it. And to be entertained during more than 2 hours by only 2 actors, that is a real challenge and they succeeded at it. The characters are far from those cliché teen movies, Gyeon-woo looked at first like the average guy, but this will change as soon as he will become the slave of the girl. Cha Tae-Hyeon played the role of the poor victim boyfriend very good, making every humiliating moment a great laugh for us and also making us feel pity for him when things were not going as he would like to.

As for the girl itself, well I never saw a female character as crazy as this, I mean on a realistic level of course. The girl was played by Jeon Ji-Hyeon and be ready to be amaze by this Korean queen beauty. Her acting was great but how she personalized that girl was even more amazing. How a sweet little girl like this can be so violent, disturbed and extreme will probably amaze you but what is sure is that it will make you laugh. Love her for her beauty or hate her for her behavior, this character was the shine of the movie. Unforgivable that's for sure, specially if you're a guy who likes Korean girls.

Since it is a love story, there are a lot of melodramatic moments in the movie, but these moments appear in the movie only near the end, at the moment when we are really attach to the characters and that is why the drama really works in the movie. Unlike other films who try to make us feel sad right at the beginning, "My Sassy Girl" takes its time to let us appreciate the two characters and to wish the best for them. The first half of the movie contains most of the jokes, since it tries to introduce us these two wacky characters. Apparently, the film was based loosely on a true story, it's not hard to believe since most of the jokes were very realistic, in a way that by pure chance or bad luck, these situations could have really happened. Also the humor was easy to understand and was not much about Korean culture, so even if you are not familiar with Asian comedies, you won't have any problems in liking the type of humor in the film. Unless you are looking for stupid sex jokes or over the top humor, you might be really disappointed. Be ready for a lot comical situations, great laugh and some unexpected surprise along the way.

Visually the movie was also interesting and great to follow. Using colorful and cartoonish backgrounds to make the transition to different events or just how the camera was handling on some scenes was just perfect. It really gives the right touch to make all these laughing scenes ever funnier. I can't point out any exact scenes that I have in mind because it will give you some spoilers about the development of the story. Also the music fits the humoristic and dramatic tone of the movie very well.

I have no real idea why I wanted to see "My Sassy Girl" in the first place. Maybe because I wanted to watch every Korean movie available or it got my attention because it was the second best selling movie, behind "Friends," in South Korea during 2001 and god knows how bad blockbuster movies usually are. I didn't expect too much from that movie, maybe which is the reason why I was so surprised about its quality. Or maybe, I was just simply in the right mood to watch this kind of movie. But what I am sure is that "My Sassy Girl" is one of the best Korean comedies I have seen and my favorite Korean movie for 2001 so far. If you like sweet comedies, don't miss this movie at all cost. If you are more into coarse humor or action oriented movies, maybe you might find the ride a little long but you never know, maybe you will also get a great surprise.

Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie My Sassy Girl - Review | KFCC
86
Story
Cast
Entertainment
Subtitles
Overall
Janick Neveu January 25, 2002
Media Review
Media Review by
Janick Neveu
Distributor
Starmax Co. Ltd.
Media Format
DVD
Region
Region 3
Encoding
NTSC

For their first movie DVD release, StarMax put together a great packaging. The DVD comes in a big metal case that you can use as a piggy bank, but what is also great is that inside the metal case the double DVD set come in a normal plastic DVD keep case, unlike those big metal cases form Anchor Bay that can't fit in your DVD shelf. The DVD is labeled as All regions on the metal case but only the extra DVD is All regions, the movie is Region 3. You have an excellent Widescreen Anamorphic transfer and a very good original audio track in Dolby Digital 5.1. The only problem with the DVD is the subtitles, the timing is good, the grammar too but they used the original script to sub the movie with. No problem with that of course, but they also put every characters name or expression on the sub too. Very annoying at first but you will get use to it. After a while you begin to skip the first few words on a sentence automatically, but this might be a big problem for someone who is not used to watch movie with subtitles. The second DVD is also full of extras, un-subbed again: Director & Cha Tae Hyun's audio commentary on the film, Production note (Original novel, county, hunting, CG making), Must See (NG cut w/ Commentary, Deleted Scenes Making Film), 3 separated short films. Except the scripted subtitles, this DVD edition is almost perfect. If you want to watch the movie, this DVD is the way to go, be sure that you can play region coded movie. (The Metal case is now OOP, but you can still find the regular release, containing the 2DVD set, easily everywhere they sell Korean movies).

Easter Egg: To get into the secret menu, insert 'disc 2' first. Then go to 'Must See' and choose 'first round (chonbanchon)' from 'Making Menu'. You will see the first 9 items there. Move your underlined indicator either to 6th or 7th item, click right-arrow button. Then you will see 'Time Capsule' icon displayed between Cha and Jeon change to blue color. Clicking will turn 'Time Capsule' into the yellow, and you will be entered to the hidden menu at last. And here is one more hidden feature there. Go to 'CAST & STAFF', choose 'Director/Kwan Jaeyong'. The name of his previous movie is typed in red color. Click that, you can see music video of the movie. This is easter egg inside of easter egg. (Thanks to Tim Choe for the Easter Eggs info).