...And... yup, my heart just broke.
The reason I am putting these two films together is that they are essentially a pair. Kwak JaeYoung wrote and directed these two movies as well as Cyborg She 僕の彼女はサイボーグ , classic 클래식 , my mighty princess 무림여대생 starring Shin MinAh, all with very strong characters and stories full of warmth and purity. He has become one of my favourite writer/directors if I can really bring myself to say that considering how many Korean directors I am eternally emotionally indebted to... but I do need to not gush so much and get on with the review.
Basically these two films together are linked by Jun JiHyun playing the female lead in both, also the characters in both films are kind of connected too but in an abstract way which should not be ruined by an explanation. The beauty of these films not only lies in their individual stories but also of the two together – My sassy girl comes first, then Windstruck second.
Towards the end of Windstruck you will be brought full circle back to the beauty of the first film and it pays homage to the point of My Sassy Girl as the relationship between the two movies is exposed in a nice way as if to say “I know this was heartbreaking so you’ve been crying for the last hour while watching this movie, but here, have some extra overwhelmingly emotional sh*t to cram into your heart.”
My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀
There is a huge vein running through these two films (as with the others too) of love and fate. There are some ridiculously sad moments in both but for My Sassy Girl there is also lots of humour and in general it is a pretty easy film to watch.
This movie stars Cha TaeHyun (hello ghost) as the male lead who finds himself accidentally in a relationship with a girl he met when she was drunk on the train and causing havoc. After being jailed, beaten up, held hostage by an army deserter, and forced to chase his girlfriend around campus while wearing her heals, you would think he couldn’t do any more for his headstrong girl, but as he suspects, she is indeed troubled by something and all he can do is try to heal her pain by being in her life.
This is a beautiful funny movie, that does stand alone as a generally great romantic comedy (I hate that term though). It gets very sad and all y’know, sat on a hill reading a letter with some random old dude telling stories about a tree... but it is still a pretty fluffy film so don’t worry too much. Save your tears for Windstruck. You will need them.
Ok, so Cha TaeHyun is lovely to watch, I’m not sure what it is about him that works but he just has a nice quality that he brings to his characters. One of my favourite scenes in when GyunWoo gets repeatedly hit in the face with the squash ball – I nearly died laughing so hard.
Jun JiHyun is not only beautiful but she delivers her strong, feisty, almost boyish actions with grace and poise – even when she juts out her chin, widens her eyes and snaps “do you want to die?”
I can’t fault this movie really, the two of them were cast spot on, the story is sweet, and the movie is shot beautifully. It is usually most people’s favourite of the two films, and I guess it is mine two but to be fair they are very different in the sense that one is a story on its own and the second has more meaning once you have seen My Sassy Girl already.
Windstruck 내 여자친구를 소개합니다
Ok, so on to Windstruck. I was thinking near to the end of the movie that it maybe wasn’t worth the last absolute heart wrenching hour of tears, but if you have come to love the characters from My Sassy Girl it will be worth it as the two movies together create a whole beautiful picture of love and fate and all the in betweens that tangle us to one another.
Windstruck has a similar format to My Sassy Girl where the female lead is a headstrong and slightly thoughtless woman who demands and commands without hesitation. This time she is a police officer called KyungJin and through her odd attempt to catch a bag thief she meets MyungWoo (JangHyuk) who becomes handcuffed to her and led around into a gang shoot out – among other things. Their relationship is more than just eventful as MyungWoo becomes involved in her attempts to catch criminals and the two also have a car accident that almost kills him.
By almost exactly half way through the movie you start to feel an impending sense of dread that something terrible is going to happen, but also once terrible things have happened there is still a long way of the film to go so do be prepared for the story to not be paced in a familiar way.
In the same way that Korean dramas often pick you up then drop you then pick you up again, Korean movies often blow apart all the fluffy good moments and leave you devastated in pieces waiting for the bit where it all turns bright again only to then be so utterly moving that even a happy ending still makes you cry so much your heart feels like it is going to turn inside out. Happy endings are rarely straightforward and actually happy in Korean movies, they are usually brilliant, but not how you would tie it all up pain free if you had the power to. I like that most Korean films of this nature seem to show that life is layers of happiness and pain and happiness and pain, one on top of the other.
I have fallen into the trap of ranting about Korean movies again instead of just talking about this one. Never mind. That is the feeling this movie left me with. So I can’t help but linger on it.
I’m not really sure how to round this post up.
My Sassy Girl is a film most people could find something in, Windstruck may be a little emotional for some people and viewing situations, (If you just want a nice easy fun movie then maybe don’t go for that) but I do think they are both worth watching.
Here are more promo posters for both films below:
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