My Mighty Princess
Director: Kwak Jae-young
Year: 2008
Rating: 6.0
Country: Korea
Director Kwak Jae-young was coming off three successful
films when he directed this one - the incredibly popular My Sassy Girl, The
Classic and Windstruck. Two of those starred Jun Ji-hyun who the actress
of this film reminded me of a bit in looks. Which is a good thing. This feels
like a step down from those three but it still is reasonably entertaining
even if totally schizophrenic. The first half is a full on barrage of cuteness
like someone sent you a box of kittens. It is very silly but it is hard not
to want to pet it at times. Then out of the blue it turns into a melodramatic
wuxia film that isn't bad, but feels like it belongs in another film. But
this is a Korean film and you just roll with it because they have the habit
of throwing you change ups in the middle of a film.
The cuteness is provided by Shin Min-a (the girl in the amazing gangster
film A Bittersweet Life) who must be 99% hydrogen as she seems to float on
air - literally at times. She radiates enough cuteness to energize a store
of Hello Kitty dolls. When she wakes up late for school, she just runs and
jumps across rooftops to catch the bus. You see, she comes from a martial
arts family who belong to a larger martial arts clan. But she is in college
now and is done with all that much to the chagrin of her father who wants
her to keep the tradition and learn the deadly Lightening Strike with her
sword. This was her mother's unique skill before she passed away. But all
So-hwi wants to do is chase boys, one in particular who barely notices her.
But she stalks him till he does. Even to joining the ice hockey team as goalie.
But he still seems more interested in a much older police woman. She also
needs to hide her extraordinary skills - so when she has to save him from
a group of gangsters, she draws on a fake moustache and pulls down a cap
- but keeps smiling at him in glee. Very adorable.
An old friend from her childhood and fellow martial arts student when they
were young begins to stalk her in order to persuade her to start training
again - Il-yeong (On Joo-wan - who much to my surprise is not in a Boys Band)
is sort of gender neutral but seems to want to rekindle their old friendship.
So at this point you think you know where it will go - is she going to end
up with the hockey guy or Il-yeong - because this is clearly a corny comedic
romance. Uh-uh. It goes way off course from your expectation as a martial
arts killer with the Green Destiny Sword begins killing people in the martial
arts family. And even then it doesn't go where you expect it to. A somewhat
frivolous film that finally won me over at some point through pure osmosis.
I watched it on YouTube.
