There are some things better left untouched. And one of them is 엽기적인 그녀 or My Sassy Girl (literal translation is My Bizarre Girl), the 2001 movie that made superstars out of Jun Ji-hyun and Cha Tae-hyun.
My Sassy Girl is one of those films/dramas that marked the beginning of my Asian pop culture fan life together with Meteor Garden and Infernal Affairs plus an earful of Cantopop (Andy Lau mostly) and Mandopop. I loved the movie so much that I started to adapt “yupkigirl” as my online identity. (“Yupki” is the translation of 엽기 or “yeobgi” in the full title 엽기적인 그녀.)
It was my friend @kayteegee8 who gave me a copy of the movie on a CD. She had watched it but not before suspecting that it was some “porn movie”. I couldn’t blame her… My Sassy Girl does sound fishy for a movie that will turn out to be funny and heartwarming at the same time.
And now, according to The Korea Times, they’re turning MSG into a drama. A. Drama. A. Bloody. Drama.
But what’s more bizarre is they have opened the project to scriptwriters to submit two episodes for a 16-episode series around the MSG theme. I suspect this has something to do with the rights to turn this into a drama after the controversy in 2006 when the writer supposedly relinquished all rights to future productions. Now, the same company that claimed this is saying the case is closed and the writer together with the movie company share rights to produce MSG as long as it’s within Korea. Sounds like a complicated math problem to me.
I can’t even begin to imagine how they’re going to stretch the story to 16 episodes. And with different writers? For the sake of the original MSG material, I would hope the drama succeeds. But surely, they have learned their lesson from the remake done by Hollywood, and I heard, even China did its own version too? I didn’t even bother to watch the Hollywood version. I was burned by The Lake House (a remake of il Mare); even Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock couldn’t save that movie. Maybe the only consolation from this piece of news is it’s still a Korean production that will handle the material. So maybe it won’t end up mangled. May-be.
Watching the teaser makes me want to watch the movie again. My favorite part would still be the ending: when they meet again and they both realized that they were supposed to have met before but both of them tried to escape that destiny. It only goes to show that if it’s bound to happen, you can never escape from your fate.
I wonder if a drama is part of My Sassy Girl’s destiny then. Not all destiny, however, ends up happily. They can end up bizarre.
(Please DO NOT lift content of this entry in part or in full and post them in other websites without the owner’s permission.)
Copyright © 2012. theasianpopculturist. All rights reserved.
orange jasmine purple yam 
Sounds like a disastuh waiting to happen. I feel like they’re going to cast a slew of idols for this drama. Strange enough but I really like Lake House not my fave but it was pretty entertaining, that or I was just distracted by Keanu.
LikeLike
hahaha! Keanu! maybe I have decided even before watching the movie that it’s going to suck. iL Mare is one of my fave Korean films. I guess when a different culture translates a material, it changes. like what happened to The Departed. with The Lake House, I still can’t forget the tree that grew overnight. it was for me literal, more than poetic and lyrical, which the original managed to convey with the time lapse.
LikeLike
I agree on the culture thing. The hollywood version of 엽기적인 그녀 was just blah. I have yet to watch Il mare and that’s probably why I didn’t have any expectation at all. The Departed didn’t feel like a remake though credits to scorsese. You just reminded me to rewatch Infernal Affairs (tony leung is unf).
P.S. yupki I didn’t know you hated XXX and XXX so much
LikeLike
re. your P.S.
I don’t hate them, I just don’t like them. particularly in this blog.
and I need to edit that comment coz I don’t want those keywords to lead Google search to this blog 🙂
sorry but I’m kind of OC that way lols I even want to delete my previous posts on the actor in Love You so my blog would be out of the search engines when it comes to his name. but in the end I decided to keep it coz it shows how people outgrow and change their opinion sometimes.
who knows there will come a time that I will blog about those two again with putting an “XXX” in their names.
yeah, I’m really OC 😦
LikeLike
LOL I didn’t know those things would wind up in google search I would’ve been more careful with my words. Not fond of chang too but elva’s ex on the other hand…
LikeLike
they do! I can see the keywords that go to my blog. sometimes it makes me laugh. I’ll give you examples:
“Roy Qiu Rainie Yang why they broke up”
“Roy Qiu Mike He twins”
“Kazunari Ninomiya plastic surgery”
“Roy Qiu plastic surgery”
sometimes they make me really go WHAT?! lols especially on the plastic surgery part since I have never blogged about them and certainly, I don’t think Qiu Ze and Nino have gone under the knife.
re. Elva’s ex, do you think they’ve really broken up? did you watch or read about their appearance together on Kang Xi? it’s fishy to me or Elva is just willing to be used. whatever it is, it’s their lives lols!
LikeLike
I actually liked The Lake House, since I’ve never watched Il Mare…Not a particular fan of Korean Movies at that stage.
But My Sassy Girl I most definitely watched, how are they going to fit such thin plot into a series?
The movie was entertaining because it was short so we didn’t have much time dueling on the plot holes…though I did find the whole arch of the solider really random.
LikeLike
I don’t know if it would be advisable then to watch iL Mare after you’ve watched The Lake House.
which soldier scene? the one on the train? or the old dude by the tree?
LikeLike
LOL yupki those keywords made my day. I think Elva and XXX broke up a long looong time ago. There was even an article about XXX having a child or something he even posted a couple of pics on weibo and facebook. The rumors about him and Rainie are ridiculous though. It might have been started by their company but who knows…
LikeLike
as anything in the ebiz, things are not what they seem. and SuperMars is one of the dirtiest company around. well, they all play dirty anyway.
oh I get so many funny keywords sometimes it boggles me how people can think of those lols
LikeLike