Based off a true story posted on the internet (later a novel), My Sassy Girl is about a rather underachieving college kid who accidentally meets this one odd girl in a subway, who through various silly situations, winds up becoming his girlfriend. My short fiction professor often said one of the good indicators of a well-written (esp. in a short) story is that the characters will go through some form of change in the story due to an event or a situation. They become better or worse people as a result. But, there's always change (and must be a believable one at that). And, those kind of things make a character interesting (as they are challenged) and three-dimensional. That said, it is also one of things you rarely see in modern action movies (John Woo's HK movies excluded) and romantic comedies these days. That said, one of the many things I really dug about My Sassy Girl is the way the characters progress. (Spider-Man is also another good one, given the fact it's an action movie) Throughout the movie, the director expertly throws various hints and ideas that there's more to it than meets the first eye (if that's a proper term).

Indeed, My Sassy Girl is a romantic comedy. It is also a bit of drama, mystery, character study, and a bit of other things. I think we as movie-goers (perhaps more so in terms of Hollywood movies) have a tendency to feel a movie should operate within the confines of a given genre. If not, we sometimes feel the movie did not succeed as a movie should, for we generally want to get what we hoped to expect. But, I think we should also look at the movie as it is..a movie. Genre-pieces tend to be safe, have lots of "wink wink" homages to the genre, yet most often, pretty monotonous, and predictable. That said, when I first saw "My Sassy Girl," I certainly expected a certain kind of movie, with a certain kind of expectation. (To note, I tend to dislike romantic comedies, because: they are not funny, are not meant to be funny, except "cute." Women tend to generally like romantic comedies more than men, and even when asked what they thought of it, their answer is usually this: "It's cute." We men don't mind "cute" really, but we could probably get the same fuzzy feeling watching Eewoks in Return of the Jedi, or Smigol in LOTR) Anyway, that said, as I watched the first 10 minutes, I was almost ready to dub "My Sassy Girl," the worst movie of the year 2001. It was pretty cool I had such low expectations, however, as I slowly came to a realization that the movie, other than being easily hilarious, was quite thoughtful, unexpected, intricate, and easily one of the most joyously clever movies in a long time (certainly one of the best of 2001). That said, I now have the DVD and still watch it often (repeated viewings, a must) and become a romantic sap every time. I also got my friends (and many of them are guys) hooked to it.. This may just be a gateway drug to Korean Cinema (like John Woo's "The Killer" was a gateway drug to Hong Kong Cinema in the early 90's), although not a gateway drug to the romantic comedy genre (it still doesn't change the fact that Hollywood romantic comedies will not have anything new or deep to offer). But, don't let my hype fool you. I'd hate for people to see this movie with unrealistic expectations. It's important to note, I did indeed first watch it with low expectations.

I think people who expected MSG to be a straight-out comedy (as opposed to romantic comedy) and becoming disappointed finding romantic (even sad) elements afterwards could be from a bias developed from years of watching many "unfunny" romantic comedies (basically, the idea that if a movie is actually "funny," the movie is probably just a straight-out comedy, not romantic comedy, and should follow those conventions thereof). On the contrary, the movie, like a lot of good, fleshed-out movies, delivers a variety of emotions, as opposed to just one. On that note, as many increasingly popular modern one-phrase commentary critics would say, "ThIs MoViE rOcKs!"