Dae-woo, a college lecturer who has never had a girl, or never been to a date for that matter, one day meets Mi-na, a mysterious young woman who has just moved in to the same building as he lives in. He eventually manage to ask her out, quite awkwardly, but to his big surprise, she accepts. They keep dating for a while, and slowly begins to fall in love. She claims to be an artist and that she'll eventually go to Italy and study, but when having a couple's dinner with some of Dae-woo's friends, she can't answer any questions right, and doesn't seem to be the person she claims to be. But that's just a little thing compared to the terrible secret that Mi-na's hiding.
What came to mind before starting to watch 'My Scary Girl' was the old flick 'So I Married an Axe Murderer' with Mike Myers (Wayne's World). The concept seemed familar, but luckily it was far from it, even though these two flicks might have a few thing in common. Now, this movie was a strange mix of comedy, thriller and drama, delivering no real suspense to speak of, but still had some typical thriller elements baked into it. The comedy worked quite well at times, especially for the fact that the guy, Dae-woo, had never been with a girl before. Actually he had never even kissed a girl or hardly even talked to a girl for that matter, so a lot of the comedy came from that, awkwardness and so on. So "bad" that it sometimes made you cringe.
I can't put my finger on whether or not I liked the guy who played Dae-woo. Sometimes, well, a lot of times he came off as way too stiff and genuinely boring. I know that it was the way it was supposed to be, but he was still a drag to watch at times. Can't say that he's a bad actor though, it's just that it was a bit hard to watch every now and then. The girl who played Mi-na did a decent job, and she was still kinda likable even though she had killed a couple of people. Mi-na's friend, who she shared the flat with, came off as very annoying yet quite entertaining, being drunk almost throughout the movie, trying to break the couple up, and basically ruining things for everyone, and even herself.
Basically, Mi-na's involved in this big scam together with some other people which will make them a great deal of cash. She's not a murderer per se, and does not really want to kill, it's just the way things turn out, and situations that arises that makes her do it. While dating Dae-woo early on, the movie is focused on delivering comedy, and it manages to do so at times with some stuff that works really well, due to the kind of person Dae-woo is. Later on, it kinda changes from being a straight-forward comedy to instead becoming a thriller with a lot of drama in it, and things tends to get a bit more serious. Dae-woo finds out her true identity and for a while, things doesn't look too bright.
Overall, I think that it was a pretty decent flick, but I must admit that while I really liked some parts of the movie, some didn't do it for me at all. Still, in the end I guess it was slightly above decent, and might be worth a watch for fans of Korean cinema (not just horror). The pacing was ok for the most part, but at times it dragged a little too much, even though this was really no big deal. It looked like your standard Korean flick, which means it looked very slick and nice. But basically this is a movie that you'd wanna watch together with your girl/boyfriend since it's kind of a cute flick. Not disgustingly cute though, because then I wouldn't have seen the whole thing I'm sure.
Best thing about My Scary Girl was the comical side of it that worked well early on in the movie. Overall, it was an ok watch, but I'm not sure I'll ever watch it again if you know what I mean. The plot was ok, with an ending that was pretty satisfying as well, but there are of course way better Korean flicks out there. If you're a big fan of Korean films, I would recommend you to give it a go, and if not, there are plenty of better films to choose from.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Dal-kom, Sal-beol-han Yeon-in
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Son Jae-gon
WRITING CREDITS: Son Jae-gon
GENRE: Thriller, Romance
CAST: Park Yong-woo, Choi Kang-hee, Jo Eun-ji
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 110 min
RATING: 6/10
My Scary Girl Website/IMDB Click here
My Scary Girl Trailer Click here
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