Remake of Korean film loses a bit of quirk and mystery
Quite a few years ago, a friend lent me a film I’d never heard
of before. It was a Korean movie with a title that translated
as
”
My Sassy Girl.
”
The story started with Ho-Sik Kim, a man who posted stories on
the Internet describing his relationship with his girlfriend, who
often treated him poorly. Kim later adapted the stories into a book
that Jae-young Kwak turned into a screenplay.
Remake of Korean film loses a bit of quirk and mystery
Quite a few years ago, a friend lent me a film I’d never heard of before. It was a Korean movie with a title that translated as “My Sassy Girl.” The story started with Ho-Sik Kim, a man who posted stories on the Internet describing his relationship with his girlfriend, who often treated him poorly. Kim later adapted the stories into a book that Jae-young Kwak turned into a screenplay.
In the movie, Kyun-woo is a college student who doesn’t really have any career plans and doesn’t really have luck when it comes to relationships. His mother tries to persuade him to visit his aunt because he reminds her of his son who recently drowned, but also because his aunt wants to introduce him to a girl. He puts it off, and on the night he finally plans to meet with his aunt, he runs into a drunk girl on the train. He is shamed into helping her home when other riders mistake her for his girlfriend.
He finds himself drawn to her even though she is continually abusive to him and gets him into trouble. She calls him names. She hits him. And whenever she seems like she is starting to care about him, she turns away from him. For some reason Kyun-woo can’t just walk away from the girl, perhaps because he used to the abuse he receives from his mother everytime he comes home late or gets a bad grade.
The girl constantly bosses him around when they spend time together, yelling at him to order coffee instead of Cokes on their date, and she asks him on many occassions, “Do you wanna die?”
The girl shares with him summaries of movies she would like to make, and even the plot of her movies suggests that she has an underlying sadness that goes beyond a simple break up with her boyfriend. Eventually, Kyun-woo discovers the secret of her bad behavior, though not before a long time waiting for her to make up her mind about being with him.
The movie is a hard one to find since it was never released in the United States, but there are a few copies for sale on Amazon and there are a few sites online where it came be viewed through an online video stream.
But for those who want a taste of the movie without the search or the subtitles, director Yann Samuell remade the movie in 2008 with Jesse Bradford and Elisha Cuthbert in the leads.
The movie follows the same basic plot, though some of the subtleness of the original is lost. Charlie Bellows (Bradford) is a business student who has his life planned out for him. Like Kyun-woo, his aunt has been asking him to meet her so that she can set him up with a girl she knows. He puts her off and soon finds himself distracted by a girl he’s met on his own.
He spots Jordan (Cuthbert) across a courtyard on campus. She is yelling at a man and soon wanders off. Charlie is surprised when later that day, he sees the same girl at a subway station. She nearly falls onto the tracks when he snatches her back in the nick of time. When she calls him darling just before passing out, Charlie doesn’t know what to do with her except carry her back to his dorm room. He and his roommate end up in campus security’s custody when Jordan wakes up and thinks she’s been abducted.
In the original, Kyun-woo hates being around drunk girls, but helps the girl only because he is shamed into doing it. In the new film, the director and writer make it clear that Charlie helps Jordan for two reasons, neither having to do with shame. He is attracted to her and he is just a nice guy who can’t walk away from someone in need.
Despite their rocky meeting, Jordan continues to draw Charlie into her life. She says she is having a rough time since she broke up with her fiancee, but she continues to spend time with Charlie. Charlie puts up with her even though she hits him; tries to sabotage his career; and eventually, makes him promise to wait for her as long as it takes for her to straighten out her life so they can be together. Like the girl in the Korean film, Jordan has secrets of her own that explain her bad behavior.
The original movie has a quirky feel to it that is somewhat missing in the remake. It could just be the unknown actors and the need for subtitles that added to the mystery of the first film, but it left for a little more interpreation for viewers. The remake follows the storyline closely, but it is missing a little bit of the heart in the original. Anyone who enjoys a bit of mystery in their romantic comedies will probably like the American version, and it has quite a twist at the end.
