My Sassy Girl, what the hell were you thinking?
Were your parents being held hostage? Did they have photos? Or was it your
cloned phone that accepted this?* Or maybe she just needed a change after
being Korea's Sweetheart? Jun Ji-hyun took adorable to a new level in Il
Mare in 2000 and even more so in My Sassy Girl in 2001. Adorable but with
depth that showed levels of vulnerability. It made her a huge star and she
followed that with the spooky The Uninvited, more adorableness in Windstruck
and then Daisy that took her out of Korea into a more grown up role. So perhaps
the idea of being a half human half demon sword-wielding killer of demons
appealed to her. You can only play cute for so long before the audience tires
of it. And I would guess she expected a better film than this from director
Chris Nahon who had directed two solid films up to that point - Kiss of the
Dragon with Jet Li and Empire of the Wolves. Was she ever wrong about that.
This is based on an anime from 2000 that was very popular and generated a
number of offshoots from it. It was initially to be directed by Ronnie Yu
which could have been interesting. But it is a dimwitted mess with enough
CGI blood - or the demon version of it - to fill an Olympic pool. The dialogue
is painfully insipid and the acting by many of the characters has amateur
written all over it. When no one is talking it is somewhat better. One issue
may be the many fathers that it has. The list of producers is as long as
my arm and from all over - Hong Kong, China, France, Japan and the USA. It
was shot mainly in English and a bit in Japanese - no idea if Jun Ji-hyun
was speaking either or was dubbed. Because of this choice of language they
change the original film to one with a much more Westernized perspective
with primarily American characters. This was now targeted to an International
audience but it reeks of B straight to video all over it. But one with a
$30 million budget. It was released in theaters and brought in a whopping
$257,000 in America though better worldwide with about $6 million.
It begins with Saya (Jun Ji-hyun) on a subway at night in Tokyo with only
one other passenger on it. A salaryman. Or perhaps not. They look at each
other and he begins to run and she right after him. And kills him with her
slashing sword. When the subway stops Americans are waiting for her from
a Secret Organization. They clean up after she kills. They are after all
the demons in the world. Their aim is to bring out the head demon, the ultra-powerful
Onigen (Koyuki - The Last Samurai, Always Sunset on Third Street). They have
learned that some demons have infiltrated the US Air base community and taken
on human shape as students. Saya is sent in to the American school as a student
- in her Japanese school girl uniform. But of course. Japanese school girls
in uniforms killing is a genre onto itself.
In the anime the demons try and kill a Japanese nurse but here they go after
an American student (Allison Miller who much to my surprise has a solid career
going. She is so bad here but in truth with the dialogue she is given Meryl
Streep would be awful.). Saya comes to her rescue and after that the two
of them are tied together as Saya keeps her safe and kills demons on the
streets of Tokyo. There are a few flashbacks to where she came from and her
childhood - about 100 years previously. This almost saves the film because
her sifu is played by martial arts great Yasuaki Kurata as an old man. His
fight against the ninja demons in the forest is the highlight of the movie.
Jun Ji-hyun is still adorable even as a demon slayer. She can't escape her
looks and the camera lights up whenever it focuses on her.
After this Jun Ji-hyun's film production slowed down considerably. I think
she hated all the attention from the press and the whole business. She has
made a handful of other films and a few TV series. There were also legal
wrangles that took up her time. The asterisk above refers to her talent agency
cloning her phone in 2009 so that they could keep tabs on her. She was married
in 2012 and has two children.
