Spy Girl

Spy Girl (Geunyeonleul Mooleumyeon Gancheob/그녀를 모르면 간첩) is a 2004 Korean romantic comedy featuring a female North Korean spy and a goofy, head-over-heels guy. It starts Kim Jung Hwa and Gong Yoo. The synopsis is as follows:

Go-bong has a huge crush on Gye-soon who works at a fast food restaurant. He puts her photo on their internet and she becomes the hottest girl in town. But she is frustrated because she is a spy from North Korea to catch a betrayer...

I was browsing around and next thing you know, I spot someone and my first reaction was, "Is that the dude from Coffee Prince??" My second reaction was, "I thought he just got back from the army!" haha, then I saw the date the movie was released and it all made sense. Anyway, I was hoping it would be one of those cool spy movies, but not quite; I don't know why I even had that expectation anyway, considering the fact that it's a romantic comedy. Kim Jung Hwa plays this kick-butt spy who displays a mix of innocence and a separation from everyday things. I don't know if they're trying to say something about North Koreans and how cut off from the rest of the world and sheltered they are, but there you have it. I particularly liked the paint balling scene that she treated as a shooting exercise. Then you have Gong Yoo's character. He's a rather goofy guy that's pretty average; he couldn't get into college because he slept during the entrance exam, is constantly teased by old high school friends, and he has this humongous crush on the girl of everyone's dreams. The good thing is that they're eventually together, the bad thing is that she only did it in order to get his friends to take her photos off the net. In the end, you see her slowly becoming fond of him and it's rather sweet, but it's not your traditional relationship. In a way, that made it even better because it was something different, even though they couldn't truly be counted as officially together until the very last bit. Even then, I still wonder.

It was pretty funny and entertaining, though I couldn't help but see it as a bit dramatic and generic; some moments (the fighting scenes) reminded me of anime - or old kung fu movies. It's also pretty interesting to see this new side of Gong Yoo after I was used to seeing him in Coffee Prince as someone who's suave and is talented (when he puts it to use).

You can watch it here, but keep in mind that it's out of order (or at least it was when I watched it), so watch it in this order: Part 2 -> Part 3 -> Part 4 -> Part 5 -> Part 6 -> Part 1.