September 28, 2008

• My Sassy Girl (Remake) Review

    

  This…became this?

  I just watched the remake of My Sassy Girl today, starring Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford.  What did I think about it?  I’m gonna go a little in depth into what I liked and didn’t liked, but if you want you can just check out my quick summary of my thoughts at the end of this entry.  You should also do that if you wanna avoid spoilers.  Otherwise, continue on . 

  Because I’ve watch the original and absolutely loved it, I can’t help but compare this remake to the original.  What changed?  Wow, where do I start…

  Here’s the trailer to the remake.  I’ll make references to certain parts later on in this entry:

  The movie generally follows the same storyline as the original, except it has been Americanized.  The “Girl” has an actual name in this movie and is played by Elisha Cuthbert (24, The Girl Next Door), who is quite pretty in the movie, but I personally prefer Jun Ji-hyun still.  I wasn’t expecting her to be that good based on the trailer, but I’ll admit that she was alright playing the part of the sassy girl.  Compared to Jun, however, she is no where near as sassy in this movie.  She laughed too much and showed too much affection for the main guy throughout the movie.  She also didn’t say “Wanna die”, not even a version of it!  That was definitely one of the more memorable parts from the originial. 

  The main guy was play by Jesse Bradford (Swimfan).  I’ve always kinda liked him from past movies, and he’s acceptable here as well.  Ah but again, after seeing the original you can’t help but compare him to Cha Tae-hyun.  The character that Jesse plays is not the same character as the original.  Both character are too nice for their own good, but this new version is not timid nor bumbling enough.  He also has a recurring best friend (guy at :39) and is striving to get this one job that wasn’t in the original.  Those two things never really add much to the story, especially since the friend is not really funny nor that likable.

  Generally, the movie didn’t feel…smooth.  Transitions were quick and the pacing was totally off.  The movie is only about 90 minute long, compared to the over 2 hour original movie.  Thus,  many scenes felt very rushed and made the movie lose a lot of the depth of the original.

  The original story was hilarious.  Even though it was so long, I would laugh throughout the whole thing.  This new movie did not do it for me.  There were a few scenes that were funny (i.e. the scene playing during the 1:00 mark in the trailer), but the remake was overall just kinda amusing because of the pacing problem and slight changes to scenes from the original that don’t work in this remake because of cultural differences.

  Alright, I’m gonna make a series of quick comments on scenes from the movie (some spoilers):

  • This initial meeting was not hysterical like it was in the original.  They cut out the part where the girl throws up on the old man!  Instead they replace that with her yelling “you’re welcome!” to him after shooing away the kid sitting in a seat.
  • The hotel scenes were totally cut out.  The jail scene was barely referenced.  Way to brief.

  

  Aw, I was looking forward to that hilarious hotel scene.

  • The main guy’s mother has a totally different personality.  No son beatings!  Bummer.
  • You remember the slap game?  Yea, that was really bad in this movie (check it out at 1:31).  The guy slaps back and the girl is laughing too much.  Her crazy speech was also omitted!  Booo.
  • The girl’s dead fiance commits suicide in this movie, when in the original he died from an illness.  Why change that?  It doesn’t make much sense for him to have killed himself.
  • The soldier scene was much shorter.  This is actually good because I didn’t like that part in the original too much.
  • No freakin’ school uniform scene!  Although I’m not sure how they would have implemented that in this remake due to cultural differences.

  

  Classic shot.

  • I understand this movie had a low budget, but seriously those short stories reenactments were so horrible to watch.  Not good.
  • Instead of yelling across mountains, they yell across a big park!  I know it’s set in New York, but it really made that scene lose a lot of its effect.

  
  Ehh.

  • The part where they read each other’s letters towards the end was pretty good and probably the only slightly emotional part.
  • No UFO!
  • No frog in time capsule!
  • Way too many hints to the “surprise” twist at the end.  The way they shot the ending made it not as sweet as the original

  Summary
  Overall, the remake isn’t horrible.  The story is still a good one to watch and it stays mostly faithful to the original.  However, this new movie is no where near as good as the original.  A lot of what made the original movie so great is lost in this one due to cultural differences and shortening of this new movie, which causes a lot of pacing issues and makes the movie lose depth. 

  For someone who saw the original, I would rate this a 2 out of 5.  If you never watched the original this movie will be okay, but if you have then expect to be disappointed.

  • 8:41 pm
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