My Sassy Girl
My Sassy Girl (엽기적인 그녀) is a South Korean romantic comedy movie from 2001, written and directed by Kwak Jae-yong. It was a massive hit when released in Korea, and has spawned an American remake, a Japanese drama series remake [1], a Bollywood version [2], and a Chinese sequel named My Sassy Girl 2. The events in the movie are more or less a true story, based on series of love letters that were initially posted online.
The story is mostly told through a flashback. The plot basically involves Gyeon-woo, a milquetoast college student, who falls in love with a crazy domineering girl (who remains unnamed in the film) that he meets on the train. As she calls him "honey", and people berate him for not taking care of his girlfriend properly, he feels the responsibility to take care of her, and help her deal with whatever issues she has. This turns out to be quite a task.
While Gyeon-woo, played by Cha Tae-hyun, plays his part excellently and with no hint of irony, the star of the movie is without any doubt Jun Ji-hyun as the titular sassy girl, who comes off as simultaneously infuriating and utterly charming.
The American remake is considered to be extremely embarrassing.
- Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male: The Girl regularly delivers punches hard enough to give Gyeon-Woo bloody noses but it's played for laughs.
- Boy Meets Girl
- Catch Phrase: "Wanna die?"
- "Falling in Love" Montage
- Her Codename Was Mary Sue: The titular girl's scripts.
- Inspired By: the series of letters posted on the internet.
- I Should Write a Book About This: Gyeon-woo does this, and it even gets picked up to be made into a movie. It's like, circular, man!
- Love At First Sight: Gyeon-woo is immediately attracted to the girl, almost despite himself.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: pretty violent and dangerous example.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Not marriage, per se. At the beginning of the film the protagonist's mother tries to get him to meet with his aunt because he resembles her recently deceased son. At the end of the film, he meets with his aunt and it turns out she's been trying to set him up for a date with his cousin's girl left behind... the eponymous My Sassy Girl. This helps explain why she says 'Honey' at the train station in the beginning when she's drunk and stricken with grief.
- Reality Subtext: In-Universe--all of the stories the girl tells revolve around time travel and/or lost love.
- Replacement Goldfish: Turns out Gyeon-woo is this for the girl of his dreams.
- Spiritual Successor: Windstruck.
- Romantic Comedy
- Two-Person Love Triangle: Gyeon-woo is trying to avoid his aunt setting him up with some girl. The Girl is trying to avoid the mother of her dead fiance setting her up with his nephew. Turns out that they're the same people.
- Uptight Loves Wild
- Yandere: The girl.