My Sassy Girl (Korean Movie)

The movie that launched the Korean Wave and the career of Jeon Ji-Hyun, the female lead.
Take a simple and common boy-meets-girl story, add a bit of Korean kimchi and it became a massive hit across Asia.

Young man (Cha Tae Hyun), wanting to meet the girl of his dreams takes the night train home and saved a drunken young girl (Jeon Ji-Hyun) from falling off the platform.
Inside the carriage she pukes all over a man and then passes out while calling out to Cha Tae Hyun "honey". Forced to take care of the girl by the other passengers who assumed he was her boyfriend, he carried her out of the station and to a motel. He's a nice guy so he didn't take advantage of her. Instead, he was taken to jail by a sudden police raid.
Getting home in the morning he gets beaten by his mother who disliked his constant staying out late. This time she's mad at him for not visiting his aunt who'd just lost her son.

Ji-Hyun calls him out to find out what happened to them the other night.
And thus, his adventures with this girl commences. She's not an ordinary girl but very wacky, hot tempered, prone to scolding strangers if she did not like their actions, and last but not least, violent towards Tae Hyun.
He tries to avoid her initially but always ended up together and he soon realises that despite her outwardly happy expression she seems to be hiding some deep sadness within.
He changes from a self-centred young man to one discovering the inner ability to feel caring, sympathy and the need to help others be happy even at some cost to himself. He learned to accept the unpredictable nature of his girlfriend and tries to please her, including bringing a single stalk of rose to her in class on her birthday, only to find out that her class was all girls and everyone looking at him as he walked towards her.

We can identify with this couple as we have gone through the stages of burgeoning love and all its insecurities. The story made me laugh and it made me cry as I too recollect my own past pain.

In the end, her own painful past forced her to leave Tae Hyun and they agreed to bury their letters to each other in a time capsule under a tree and meeting again 2 years later. What I could not stomach at this point was how Tae Hyun let her just walk away when he knew he does have feelings for her.
He spend those 2 years writing the story of how they met and the adventures they had together. That story was sold and made into a film.
The 2 years past quickly and he returned to the tree to wait for her but she did not come.
He returned often to that spot and even replaced the tree when it was killed in a lightning storm.

Not to spoil the story with the ending, I will let it end here but highly recommends this movie. The version is available with Chinese dialogue besides Korean and has English subtitle.

More info......

Cast:
Cha Tae Hyun

Jeon Ji-Hyun
(SPCNet forum)

Storyline

Rating: 4/5
Superb retelling of the age old romance story.