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.
