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.

1% of Anything

1% of Anything (1%의 어떤 것/1% eh uh ddun gut) is a 2003 Korean romantic comedy drama. It stars Kim Jung Hwa, Kang Dong Won, Han Hye Jin, Lee Byung Wook, Kim Ji Woo, and Kim Seung Min. The summary is as follows:

Kim Jung Hwa is a young and sincere middle school teacher, who has little interest in money. She is also extremely warm-hearted and loves to help other people. When she helps carry an elderly man's belongings from the train to another location, the elderly man is extremely thankful. This grandfather turns out to be the extremely rich owner of a well known conglomerate. His grandson, Kang Dong Won is a quick-tempered businessman who rivals his grandfather, but in an almost comical way. In an order to "tame" his favorite grandson, the grandfather agrees to give his entire fortune to the person who marries Kim Jung Hwa, therefore forcing Kang to meet the girl whom his grandfather chose. Although at first Kim and Kang don't get along because of Kang's extremely cute but bad temper, their arguments bring them closer together. Kang starts to get jealous when Kim's fellow teacher starts liking her too. Through the clever conditions that Kang's grandfather makes, Kang starts a relationship he does not look forward too. However, what looked like a relationship that would 99% not work out, turns out to be the "perfect" match, the 1% chance.

I watched it as something to take up the time while waiting for the next episode of Atashinchi no Danshi to come out. It was pretty popular on MySoju so I decided to give it a try - not to mention it sounded like it had potential. Honestly, it wasn't bad. It had it's cute and funny parts with the usual misunderstandings, but it was sort of drawn out (with a total of 26 episodes). I think it could have been cut a little shorter and been even better, but what I enjoyed about it was how not only did the story focus on just one main couple, towards the middle/end of the series, it started to expand towards other couples, instead of leaving them in the periphery.

However, I think that it sort of stretched itself thin. The main couple had already married, then we get a series of people getting married or having plans of getting married for the next five episodes or so. It's sort of overwhelming. I'm sure this kind of explosion of "wedding fever" might have actually happened somewhere, but to me, it's somewhat unrealistic even though they all have to go through some sort of obstacle, usually the parents' disapproval. In saying that, the end sort of took a nosedive though I didn't skip through it or anything. I was determined to see it till the end. Maybe all this is just me. I'm not saying I didn't like it - only it could be better, but don't take my word for it. Many others seemed to like it quite a lot. :)

You can watch it here.