My Sassy Girl by Kwak Jae-Young (Review)
Romantic comedies are all about contrivance. They never take place in the real world, but in this imaginary world where dumb luck and coincidence are all too common and always work out in the most hilarious and heartwarming of ways. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from falling in love with the best of them (and ridiculing the worst for being so predictable, or perhaps not being as good at it as others). My Sassy Girl falls squarely in the former category; it’s an infectious, lighthearted romp that’s so entertaining you’d have to have a heart of coal to not enjoy it.
What’s ironic about My Sassy Girl is that it does have an element of reality to it. The movie’s plot is based on a series of letters that Kim Ho-sik posted on the Internet detailing his relationship with his girlfriend. However, I’m going to assume some liberties were taken in the movie. At least, I hope so. I doubt anyone could go through the movie’s many situations and remain sane.
Kyun-woo is completely average in every way. He’s a mediocre student at best, and is perfectly content to spend his days hanging out with his friends and dodging his aunt’s matchmaking attempts. He’s not terribly bright, but he’s a good-natured, decent fellow. While returning home one night, he saves a girl from falling off the subway platform. The girl, who is drunk off her arse, begins making a fuss on the subway (including a hilarious scene with a toupee and some vomit).
The other passengers assume she’s with Kyun-woo (she calls him “Honey” before passing out), and soon enough, he finds himself feeling responsible for her. After carrying her throughout town, he finally gets them a hotel room so she can sleep it off (don’t worry, the film is quite chaste). In the morning, he emerges from the shower to find the police breaking down the door, his face filled with mace, and his butt winding up in jail with some gangsters.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Unfortunately, the mysterious girl he saved isn’t just sassy. She’s loud, abusive, obnoxious, and selfish. She has no social graces whatsoever, she isn’t afraid to yell at total strangers, and her attempts at screenwriting makes editors sick to their stomachs. For some unknown reason, however, Kyun-woo continues to hang out with her. In his mind, her rowdy behavior must be masking some pain, and he decides to heal her, with suitably hilarious results.
Much of the movie consists of watching Kyun-woo play the foil to “The Girl” (we never learn her name) and her crazy shenanigans. Cha Tae-hyun is simply hilarious as Kyun-woo, his face expressing varying shades of discomfort and embarrassment, and he has a real gift for slapstick. Whether he’s getting beaten by his mom for coming home late, slapped by “The Girl” as the result of some bizarre wager, or getting held hostage by a deserting soldier, his squeals of discomfort and oafish bumbling are always good for a laugh.
Jun Ji-hyun does equally as the “The Girl.” Jun first came to my attention in the wonderful Il Mare, but her character in My Sassy Girl is the complete opposite of the gentle, lonely soul she played in her previous film. On the surface, “The Girl” would be every guy’s last choice for a girlfriend, and Jun plays it to the hilt. But it’s clear that there’s some hurt beneath the façade, and Jun portrays her character’s sassy and wounded sides very convincingly.
Much of My Sassy Girl is certainly contrived, such as the birthday romp in an amusement park that turns into a hostage situation (okay, okay… I suppose it could happen). But the film moves with such ease and humor that you’ll probably be laughing too hard to notice. Now it could be that, since I was watching this movie at 1:00 in the morning, some of the laughter was due to delirium, but I doubt it.
I won’t lie, though. The movie does get pretty sappy — “The Girl“ ‘s speech on love to the deserting soldier comes to mind — but there’s always some offbeat antic or humorous situation — at Kyun-woo’s expense, of course — to offset the cheese. When the movie finally does take a serious turn concerning the duo’s relationship, you already like the characters so much it’s easy to be on their side. This is sentimentality done right. So far, it seems like Korean movies have a corner on that market.
I found myself enjoying My Sassy Girl much more than I probably should. I was actually bummed when the credits started rolling. Like Amelie or Chungkung Express, My Sassy Girl is true escapist fare. Not the kind that shuts you off from the world, but rather opens your eyes to the little coincidences and makes you want to take advantage of life’s accidents. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where true love takes the form of a loud, obnoxious girl who, contrary to all rhyme or reason, turns out to the perfect match? Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where embarrassments and accidents always work themselves out? Where being in the wrong place at the wrong time turns out to be the perfect thing?
