My Girl (2005)

Mostly light but does have some sad moments

8/10 is my rating. This is a 2005/2006 South Korean drama with 16, 45-60 minute, episodes.
Joo Yoo-rin (Lee Da-hae) grew up with a father whose gambling, swiindling, lying results in a lifestyle of constant moves. She is a native of Jeju Island but has spent many of her years in Japan, China and many other places on the run from either her father’s gambling debts or the fallout from the latest grift. She often bears the brunt of her father’s deeds and has learned to lie and scheme herself to survive and to repay her father’s many debts.. By chance or perhaps fate Yoo-rin encounters Seol Gong-chan (Lee Dong-wook) while running from some gangsters. Two worlds collide when Gong-chan (sole heir to a hotel chain) discovers Yoo-rin speaks multiple languages and he just so happens to need an interpreter. He hires Yoo-rin to Interpret for visiting Chinese businessmen. During her as interpreter, YAvisiting one of Gong-Chan’s vacant mansions. When the short term job is over, Yoo-rin decides her homeless situation can be solved by secretly staying in Gong-Chen’s vacant mansion. which sets them up for another hilarious encounter. Gong-chen is a bit distracted by his grandfather’s failing health and a search for a lost granddaughter which will fulfill his grandfather’s deathbed wish.
He is not having luck finding the granddaughter and is worried his grandfather will die with regret. A passing comment that Yoo-rin resembles the lost niece results in Gong-chen thinking up a way to utilize his home invader’s unique skills -playing the role of the lost granddaughter Seo Jung-woo (Lee Joon-gi) is Gong-chan’s friend since childhood and is also heir to a fortune. He encounters Yoo-rin and protects her from the gangsters. It is love at first site for him as he has traveled the world and been with many women yet never met anyone like The mysterious Yoo-rin. Kim Se-hyun (Park Si-Yeon. is a rising tennis star and the girl who broke Gong-Chan’s heart after leaving him to pursue tennis. She is back to win his heart back and is not happy with the growing attraction between aging-chan and Yoo-rin. Grandfather,energized by seeing his “granddaughter” makes a miraculous recovery and now it seems Yoo-rin and Gong-chan may be locked in their lie.

Spoiler ? I really like parts of this movie but didn’t like other aspects. It was almost cringe worthy in the beginning some of the lies Yoo-rin was telling and sort of hard to watch. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to like the couple together because I’m just not one that likes lies. However after the first couple of episodes, it calmed down a bit and some character development happened and I saw a whole other side to Yoo-rin’s character that made how she was more understandable. I found myself very angry at the past girlfriend for leaving Gong-Chan like she did and it seemed like he accepted her back too readily. I really liked his best friend and I actually liked him together a lot with Yoo-rin they were a lot alike in many ways and he was always rescuing her. Towards the end I had a hard time understanding why the grandfather couldn’t forgive her easier because she had saved his life and they all loved her so much and she lied to them but it wasn’t her choice to do so and they had a really good reason. I also didn’t like that they found the actual granddaughter towards the end and it really added nothing to the story. I thought maybe she would’ve been a character that we had seen but she was a whole new character and we didn’t even really get to know much about her at all to be able to cheer on her relationship with the grandfather. It felt like a missed opportunity for a plot twist. I guess coming from a family with someone who is adopted it just makes no sense to me that someone you love that deeply would not become the same as family to you. To me family is not so much about the blood but more about the relationship. And they spent a large part of the story showing how that type of relationship develops between Yoo-rin and Gong-Chan’s family members. I loved the friendship between Ging-Chan and his best friend and I’m glad that the competition over the girl did not ultimately tear their friendship apart. Their friendship reminded me of the friends in “Boys Over Flowers”. I felt like the ending was a bit rushed because we had waited so long to see them get together and some of the other story elements resolve but all of that really happened in the last half of the last episode and we only saw them together the last 10 minutes or so. I would’ve rated it higher if the ending had felt less rushed. I was really surprised that 3/4 of the way through I was having tearful moments because the story got really sad in parts. That was a surprise. It had been so comedic through most of it but having such heavy, sad moments was a real change. I also liked the relationship she developed with the entire family and felt sad towards the end when they basically turn their backs on her although they did go to bat for her later with theGrandfather. But you didn’t get to see the reconciled relationships very much because it ended so quickly. It was good and I would recommend it just not as a top choice. It is an older drama and it’s amazing how you can tell by the filming and the way people act without even knowing that ahead of time.

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