My Sassy Girl

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.

I must admit when I first heard they were making an American remake of My Sassy Girl my stomach kinda churned. I wasn't sure that Hollywood could recreate the amazing korean film from 2001. Now there's good news and bad news... let's start with the good.

I like how they added a bit more playfulness to the movie giving it strange cut-scenes in between the main story. This added to the fun factor of the movie, but some may see it as just a simple waste of time. Using New York as the place setting for this film seemed typical but executed decently. And using one of the most recognizable cities in the world helped users become semi-comfortable. Both leading actors do a decent job, nothing too overly noticeable but decent.

Now the bad news, though the actors did a decent acting job.. you could still tell they're acting. When an actor feels his role and becomes the character the more enjoyable a film can be. For example Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight, he did an amazing job. I wish the actors did the same, but to be honest it seemed to be stale at times.

Overall the movie is 1/2 bad. As a stand alone rom/com it does a pretty decent job. But for the hardcore fans it's really obvious that this movie will just never be as good as the original. It's definitely worth watching once, that way you can develop your own idea on this film. They did an OK job trying to port the movie, a lot of things were lost in translation and unfortunately with that happening it simply makes the movie OK.

Its a fun film with a lot of surprises some things doesn't make any impact but overall it works with fascinating camera directing amd acting is good to. The writing could have been more original the full potential of drama was missing, its a good to have a look into it.

Story!

The film opens with a brief background story on the hero, Charlie, who we learn was raised by an old-fashioned, extremely "nice" couple, who have instilled in their offspring an extremely "nice" character. This proves to be an important backdrop for the ensuing storyline, which requires the viewer to believe that anyone would be "nice" enough to want to continue seeing "sassy" Jordan Roark, who from their first meeting is completely rude, disrespectful, and even downright cruel toward Charlie. There is nothing charming about her, and it is made clear that she is being deliberately mean-spirited, not merely making innocent social blunders.

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.