An excellent Korean romance-comedy released in 2001 based on a guy named Kim Ho-Sik's online serial (which we now affectionately refer to as blog journals) detailing his relationship with his eccentric girlfriend. By the way, Dreamworks recently acquired the rights to a remake of the movie and you know how bad Hollywood is when it comes to remakes. Uh-huh.
The movie starts with Kyun-woo (Tae Hyun-cha), a smart yet naive 20-something college student that, while waiting for the train at the train station, saves a drunk girl (played by the beautiful and mesmerizing Ji-hyun Jeon) from getting nicked by the incoming train. Inside the train, the girl gives us a preview of her being sassy by hitting a guy in the head after he refuses to give his seat to an elderly man standing, and even gives a parting shot to the guy telling him not to wear pink. The girl later pukes on the elderly man and right before passing out, looks over to Kyun-woo and calls him "honey". The passengers including the old man are pissed that he didn't look after her which they assumed is his girlfriend (due to the honey comment), the constant nagging leaves him no choice but to claim responsibility for everything... well part of it is, the other is that he's partially attracted to her.
He carries her on his back roaming around the streets of Korea spending quite a long time looking for a motel to leave her and go their own separate ways. He eventually finds one but since he reeks of vomit, he decides to take a bath first and is interrupted by the girl's
phone ringing. He answers the phone naked and tells the woman asking where her daughter is: "she's sleeping here right beside me"! The cops come barging in shortly and finds him naked in the room -- what else would you think he did? This leads to him getting arrested and kept in jail for a while. After he was released the girl orders him to meet her and explain what happened. They go from one restaurant to the other with the girl ordering what food he should eat/drink and make him pay for it. That's how their relationship pretty much goes throughout the movie with Kyun-woo coping with the the girl's "bossy" covering and trying to tear that shell piece-by-piece.
When you read the synopsis you'll assume that My Sassy Girl is another one of those typical romance-comedy movies, but it's not. Sure the fact that they will end up together is a staple in romantic-comedies, but the way they accomplish it is very unique and ties up pretty well with some events that takes place earlier in the movie. It also helps that the actors (Tae Hyun-cha and Jeon Ji-Hyun) have good chemistry and also put up some great, convincing performances that's unmatched by any of their peers in the RC Hollywood scene where most people liken it to. It's also a very good movie on the comedy side of things... I'm telling you -- this is quite possibly the funniest RC you would ever see in your life and that is not an overstatement. Watch it, I guarantee you that you won't be disappointed.
Movie names: Yeopgijeogin geunyeo (Korean title), My Sassy Girl, Bizarre Girl, Yupgi Girl (Hong Kong)
Country: Korea
Release date: 2001
Director: Jae-young Kwak
Running time: 123 min. (Original Release), 137 min. (Director's Cut)
Cast: