Ironias do Amor

Yann Samuell's version of 'My Sassy Girl' is pretty much 95% a scene by scene copy of the beautiful Korean film. The hackneyed plot really lacks soul. It's not as bad as the trashy Indian version called 'Ugly Aur Pagli'. The friend character in this American version is annoying and one of the many Hollywood clichés including the Hollywood ending. The Americanized rewriting also makes the characters clichéd. For example the sequences of Charlie's and his friends discussion about relationships is something we have witnessed in numerous sitcoms and movies. No marks for creativity. Jesse Bradford tries to make the best of Charlie (despite the poor writing). Charlie comes across as whiny but remains tolerable because Bradford manages to make some of him likable. Elisha Cuthbert has never looked better but she fails to deliver in the comedic scenes. She's better during the more intense moments.

I loved Jae-young Kwak's 'Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo' which is one of my favourite romantic movies. So I was curious about this remake more so because I liked Bradford in his other movies and Cuthbert is quite pretty. This movie is no match for the original but it's not absolutely terrible (like the Indian one). Watch Kwak's movie if you haven't seen it yet and then give this one a try if you really want to.

Not seeing the original My Sassy Girl, a Korean film from 2001, I appreciated it more than I probably should've. Once in a while, on a weekday, I'll watch a romantic comedy for the hell of it. I'll usually wind up liking it, but sometimes I don't want to watch something very negative and I'll just turn on something uplifting and positive like this film. There isn't much really to hate on a film like this.

Basically, you know the story. Guy meets girl, they fall in love, they break up, they get back together. Movie is over. This one decides to tweak the formula just a bit to try and stand out. Charlie Bellow (Bradford) is a high strung up and coming businessman who just wants one thing; to succeed. One day he is in a subway and finds a girl (Cuthbert), drunk out of her mind, who is about to get struck by a train. He pulls her intoxicated self to safety, and chemistry begins.

He takes her back home to his friends apartment where they await her recovery. When she finally does, the relationship from the two is a bit rocky, but soon they become closer and closer. That is when both realize they are beginning to fall for each other. Of course the audience has known that since the beginning.

Jesse Bradford was also the guy who played the misogynistic jerk in I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell a year later. It's fun seeing him actually fond of girls. Especially after he played such a simple minded character acting on impulse. It's nice to see him appreciate women. Elisha Cuthbert is also a gorgeous, and wonderful add to the film. Neither her or Bradford do anything wrong and their chemistry is believable.

It's not hard to get me to like a romantic comedy. If the story is cute, the characters are believable, the dialog is realistic, and it doesn't seem forced it works for me. In the grand scheme My Sassy Girl doesn't stand out, but it's enough to keep you interested. Still, I will go ahead and assume the original is the one worth seeing.

Starring: Jesse Bradford and Elisha Cuthbert. Directed by: Yann Samuell.

This movie is an American adaptation of the Korean version of the same name. Cuthbert and Bradford both fail to recreate the integral chemistry of the characters from the original version. In comparison to Jun Ji-hyun's portrayal of the "sassy girl", Cuthbert's performance was uninspired and often times painful to watch. Jun Ji-hyun's organic performance of a lively yet complex girl becomes forced and unconvincing in Cuthbert's attempt. One is awkwardly aware throughout the film that Cuthbert is trying to mimic a character rather than becoming the character herself. Besides Bradford's "good boy" image, he contributes nothing to the role. He lacks the emotion and passion of the original character. As for the movie, it is a scene by scene copy of the original version, each more poorly executed than the next. Rather than a cute romantic comedy created by the natural interactions of the characters, this movie feels fake, choppy, and poorly made for budgeted movie. If you're going to watch both versions, make sure you see this one first before the original. To do the opposite would be akin to reading the book and then seeing the adapted movie.

I saw this film a while ago now, but I didn't forget it. It simply is one of those films that not a lot of people know, not a lot of people like, but I am one of those people. It just has something magical inside. I will confess that I've never seen the Korean version, but I do like this one very much. The cast was brilliant, the story, the film itself was so artsy, if that's the right word. Just beautiful. Now, I will not go into the details, because I may not remember everything clearly, but I do remember the end and as we all know, the endings are the best part and this film had a brilliant one. http://citizen-cinephile.blogspot.co.uk/

I usually do not like remakes of movies but this one wasn't half as bad as the ones I have seen in the past. I mean look how honest it was and remakes usually don't do that. I mean this remake really had me thinking how does one get over a great love. And yes her way was a little crazy but she also helped him in a way only it takes awhile to realize it.I think they tried to make it as honest as possible for Americans which I love. We like to censored our movies more than other countries but even so not that bad people. I know that us as Americans love movies we don't have to read, but sometimes reading subtitles is truly worth it. This movie was great but the first one was better because it was funnier and it had way more emotion. And I like how in the original the girl had no fear she did what she wanted when she wanted. Especially the train scene that they did not put in the remake. Maybe remake movies would be better if you make them exactly like the first one in our languages.

But I love the fact they picked Elisha because she has that whole sweet innocent crazy girl going on like her movie the girl next door. She is really growing as an actress.