Kwak Jae-Young’s 2001 adaptation, My Sassy Girl will have you laughing, cringing and gasping all within a span of a few minutes. The film is a pure romantic comedy with quirky main characters and I can understand why it was so acclaimed at the time of its release, but if you are looking to gain pleasure and root for the two main characters being together— like you would from a typical romantic comedy— this film would not be for you.
The film centers around Kyun-woo (Cha Tae-Hyeon), an unambitious college student that was raised as a girl the first seven years of his life, meeting a very drunk and abrasive girl (Ji-Hyun Jun) on a subway platform. After she throws up on an old man on the train and passes out, people assume they are dating and Kyun-woo is pressured into taking care of her. From his brief interactions with her, despite her nasty temper, he finds her pretty and decides he would like to fix whatever is causing her to behave so brashly. The rest of the movie follows the development of Kyun-woo and the girl’s (Ji-Hyun Jun) relationship, which consists of the girl physically abusing Kyun-woo and embarrassing him in public to prove his love for her.

There is a certain appeal that comes from learning that the film was based on a series of true events posted by a blogger (Ho-Sik Kim), on the Internet describing his relationship with his girlfriend. It is hard to believe if his accounts were directly followed in the film, especially considering how much the concept of fate seemed to be present in their relationship. From the movie, it implies that they were destined to be together. In this film, we get a great idea behind the concept of filial piety in Korea. If Kyun-woo had listened to his mum in the first part of the film and visited his aunt, he would have met Ji-Hyun Jun anyways as they were trying to set them up in the first place. The process they went through to fall in love with each other was generally tormenting and even life-threatening at one point, but all of that could have been avoided if they had listened to their elders. Essentially, the movie was a good mix of being ahead of its time (with the relationship between male and female character), and also sticking to traditional Korean perspectives like filial piety.

The girl and Kyun-woo

Kyun-woo and the girl’s relationship is dynamic, and they are generally quite entertaining and amusing to watch, but I was not rooting for them to be together throughout the film like I would usually do while watching other romantic comedies. The girl was vile and abusive, and Kyun-woo was too much of a pushover. The movie did attempt to explain the girl’s behavior (her last boyfriend died and she was still hurt), but her abusiveness was still hard to overlook or just find funny. For most of the film, I was not particularly fond of either of the characters, even though they were fun to watch.

  • They were kind of cute when she wasn’t assaulting him

The female lead, in particular, was hard for me to like till the end. However, I may be biased to certain traits in romantic comedies, as I have watched some modern dramas in this genre. Although most of the time the women are headstrong and assertive (maybe they were somewhat inspired by Ji-Hyun Jun), it is unlikely you will have come across a female lead to have these traits to the extent of Ji-Hyun Jun’s character. If Kung-woo and Ji-Hyun’s genders were reversed, this movie would not have been amusing at all.

Essentially, this movie does not hit the mark for a global audience in 2019. Some may argue that I am looking at it from a non-Korean point of view, but modern Korean dramas such as; My Love From Another Star, Strong Girl Bong-soon, The Goblin, and Weightlifting Fairy feature headstrong female leads that do not include domestic abuse and violence like the girl from My Sassy Girl displayed. If you want to gain pleasure and root for the two main characters being together, this movie simply does not provide the cute feelings you would hope to get from watching a Korean drama.

Some subtle violence in Weightlifting Fairy (2017), but this one was actually cute

I suppose the gender-dynamic adds to the film’s appeal because it is so against the norm, but I doubt a modern audience could fully support the relationship of Kung-woo and the girl. Perhaps my views have been skewed by other more subtle and cute kdramas, and the modern idea of equality between genders. If someone was looking for a good Korean romantic comedy, I would not recommend this one, as I feel like they are more enjoyable adaptations within this genre. If you think about it, what is the point of watching a romantic comedy if you can’t support the two main characters being together?