20 years of My Sassy Girl
On July 27, 2001, the film "Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo" was released on the screens of South Korean cinemas. The literal translation of the title of which into English looked like "That Bizarre Girl". The film is directed by Kwak Jae-yong.
The creation of the film began with the fact that a certain Kim Ho-sik in his blog described his accidental acquaintance with an unusual girl, which led to the exchange of phone numbers and further SMS correspondence. Kim Ho-sik's post attracted the attention of a large number of readers of his blog, which prompted him to continue this topic. Kim Ho-sik described all his meetings, correspondence, conversations with this girl in detail in his blog, and when a rather voluminous material accumulated, he published his blog in the form of a separate book.
Meanwhile, director Kwak Jae-yong was going through a creative crisis. In the early 90s, he made three films, but all of them, to put it mildly, did not win much sympathy from either the audience or film critics. The result was a deep depression in the director, which lasted for as long as 8 years. And then he caught the eye of the book by Kim Ho-sik. Based on it, he wrote a script and made a film that literally blew up the cinematic space of South Korea. In the first year of the demonstration, it was watched by more than 6.6 million moviegoers, or more than 14% of the population of South Korea. According to its box office receipts in South Korea, it ranked 2nd among all the films of 2001. And today it is one of the five most box-office successful films in South Korea.
About the same as in South Korea, the moviegoers of Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong perceived this film. But outside of Asia, Kwak Chae-yong's film did not achieve any serious results at the box office. And it's not about the quality of the picture at all. The fact is that the story that took place with the Japanese film "Hachikô monogatari ハチ公物語 (Hachi-ko)" by Seijirô Kôyama was repeated. Namely, American film producers, sensing a serious commercial potential in this picture and in the story itself described in this film, prevented the penetration of Kwak Chae-yong's film into the American film market and, as a result, into the film markets of many other countries, including Russia.
In 2008, American filmmakers made a remake of the film Kwak Jae-yong, which was called "My Sassy Girl", and only after that the South Korean original was allowed to enter the American film market, however, on DVD. The American translation of the title of the film by Kwak Chae-yong also looked like "My Sassy Girl".
Russian film distributors, who are in awe of American film production, released an American remake on the screens even before this film was released on DVD in the United States. The American remake, and with it the South Korean original, was called "Crappy Girl" by Russian film distributors. Agree that there is a very noticeable difference between the adjectives "Bizarre" and "Crappy". The English word "sassy" also has very little in common with the word "Crappy". It is quite clear that the word "Crappy" is included in the title of a South Korean film for purely marketing reasons. And from here we can draw only one conclusion: the Russian film distribution is focused exclusively on fans of crap.
But let's return to the film Kwak Chae-yong, which was called "Crappy Girl" by the will of Russian film distributors. Due to the circumstances that prevented this film from reaching cinemas in America and Europe (including Russia) at the time, the film was also deprived of the opportunity to participate in European and American film festivals. But the film "My Sassy Girl" by Kwak Chae-yong received the nomination Best Foreign Film from the Japanese Film Academy. The film did not win in this category, and this is quite understandable, since Roman Polanski's film "The Pianist" was recognized as the winner. But the company of relative losers of "My Sassy Girl" was made up of such films as "The Hours" by Stephen Daldry, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" by Peter Jackson, "Chicago" by Martin Richards. Not a bad company, isn't it?
An indirect recognition of the outstanding merits of Kwak Chae-yong's film "My Sassy Girl" can be the fact that not only American filmmakers decided to make a remake of this film. Remakes and sequels of this film were also shot in India, China, Japan, Nepal, Kazakhstan and even in Lithuania.
Despite all the tricks of American and Russian film distributors, Kwak Chae-yong's film "My Sassy Girl" received very high ratings from moviegoers. 72% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film a rating from 8 to 10. And 26% of users gave the film the highest mark - "ten".
With that said, the rating of Kwak Chae-yong's film "My Sassy Girl" according to FilmGourmand was 8.05, thanks to which it took 648th place in the Golden Thousand.
By the way, the rating of the American remake of the South Korean "Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo" on the IMDB website was only 6.3. And the financial indicators of this picture are as follows: the world box office - $ 1,479,544, of which $ 610,082, or 41%, were received from rental in Russia. What would Hollywood do without the Russian film distribution?! Where else could it sell it's illiquid?!
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