Thursday, August 21, 2008

My Sassy Girl - the American remake

Rating:★★
Category:Movies
Genre: Romantic Comedy
It was painful to go through.

I love Jesse Bradford and have always enjoyed watching him in different roles. He shines here, as the poor mistreated guy who just happens to have saved the formerly-unnamed-sassy-girl-but-since-this-is-an-American-remake-had-to-be-given-a-whole-complete-name played by Elisha Cuthbert. Elisha Cuthbert fails utterly, however, to play the female lead role in any way that is utterly endearing or convincing.

Seriously.

Even in the scene with her playing piano and Jesse showing up with a single rose felt flat, forced and sadly scripted.

Gone were the poignant touches of emotion and bonding. Gone were the naive growing attraction to one another which seemed unthinkable at first. Gone were her infamous likes "You wanna die?" and her strange horrible anger towards anyone wearing a certain color. Gone too was the mystery of what made her so sassy and angry and instead we are left with a rich blonde fuck up of a gal who we forcibly HAVE to feel for after her long drawn out letter explains in absolutely unnecessarily long exposition why she is such a bitch.

And yes, in the first scene Jesse sees Elisha, he is talking about wanting to have sex with her.

So wtf?!?!??!

Gone was the main theme song.
Gone was the hilarity of the amusement park sequence.
Gone was the immensely touching scene when they meet the other guy.
Gone were the high school uniforms and the perfect comic timing shown by ianna Jun (aka Ji-hyun Jun) and Tae-hyun Cha with perfectly wonderful dialogue like this:

The Girl: You know why the sky is blue?
Kyun-woo: Because the reflection from the sunshine causes...
The Girl: Wrong! It's to make me happy. I wanted it to be blue, so it's blue. You know why fire is hot? It's all for me. I wanted it to be hot, so it's hot. You know why we have four seasons here in Korea?
Kyun-woo: For you?
The Girl: Correct.

The movie has some saving graces however.

The art direction was superb, with great choices for some scenes. While they replaced "The Shower" of Hwang Sun-won with the Titanic movie instead as the reason "all ________ love sad movies", the visual style for the movie scene was nice. Horrid beyond belief was the western sequence they used to replace the "bounty hunter samurai" sequence. But other moments like the part where Jesse is against a wall with a huge arrow pointing at him, and such were nice.

Lighting was horrid. In one particular scene, Jesse is in class when Elisha shows up to tell the professor some reason to get him OUT of class. Guess what! One single spotlight was on, illuminating Jesse amidst a room of other students. Sobrang obvious naman na set-up.

Then the struggles to adjust the beautiful scenes into a New York context were painful. The mountain confessional was instead the length of the Central park walkway.... which was plain boring to watch. The catching up with one another at the train, as well as the goodbye scene at the train just fell flat. The soldier sequence seemed boring rather than amusing.

And again, no high school uniform dance!
No high school uniform dance!
No high school uniform dance!
No high school uniform dance!

Kasi, wala silang high school uniform sa USA.

Hay.

If you have NEVER seen the original Korean My Sassy Girl, watch this. You'll probably like it cause it does retain some level of the message the original wanted to impart. Be warned however, the American version LOVES to spoon feed as usual. So where you'd have a nice silent moment shared by the characters in the original moment, you'd have all this unnecessary voice over dialogue in the American one explaining one or the other.

Hay.

So there's my rating. 2 stars.
Simply because this movie may interest others to find the original one.

Oh and here's the 10 simple rules from the original.
The American remake fucked it up too.

Kyun-woo: The 10 Rules: 1. Don't ask her to be feminine 2. Don't let her drink over three glasses 3. Drink coffee instead of Coke/Juice 4. If she hits you, act like it hurts. If it hurts, act like it doesn't 5. On your 100th day together, give her a rose during her class 6. Make sure you learn fencing and squash 7. Be prepared to go to prison sometimes 8. If she says she'll kill you, don't take it lightly 9. If her feet hurt, exchange shoes with her 10. She likes to write. Encourage her


5 comments:

  1. I agree.

    And to think the kind of pain I associate with Elisha Cuthbert has always been a good one. ;p The movie was just bland.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elisha Cuthbert shines in Captivity.
    But that's probably cause she's a victim of a serial killer.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm giving it three stars for making me teary eyed in the part where she was saying sorry. but yes, it's WAY TOO FAR from the original. Nothing will ever beat that. :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. you love jesse bradford? I thought you loved me? Hehe.

    Joke lang baby. I know who you really love. Rachel Ann Go. Haha.

    I won't even WATCH this movie. Not after they butchered the Lake House

    ReplyDelete
  5. Will resist the urge to comment on Rachel Ann Go and how Sarah Geronimo would be more applicable for one reason or another.


    *mwah*

    I love you sweetie!

    ReplyDelete

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