8 Signs My Sassy Girl 2
(And A Second Chance)
Are Metaphors For Your Own Lovelife
By Kel Fabie

When they announced a sequel to One More Chance last year, most of us looked at it with nothing but skepticism. After all, the way they ended the first one was perfect: an apparent reunion, but no promises.

For the most part, we did like the sequel. But you would be hard-pressed to find anybody who thinks it was better than the first one.

You can take the above two paragraphs and replace One More Chance with My Sassy Girl, and the results would be the same. You don’t need a movie review here: you know My New Sassy Girl, no matter how good, couldn’t have possibly beaten the original.

We have no idea why this picture is here. This abomination never happened.

Instead, here are the signs that these much-derided, but not-so-bad-after-all sequels could actually be metaphors for your very own lovelife (where applicable). Or maybe I’m just projecting. Either way, this is pretty meta.

8. You can’t help but compare.

The Film:

Imagine you had the best girlfriend ever. Now, imagine she suddenly left you. That’s exactly what happens to Kyun-Woo (Cha Tae-Hyun) at the start of the film, and Jeon Ji-Hyun disappears from his life literally in the first minute of the sequel. Replacing her was Chinese actress Victoria Song, and you couldn’t help but compare her to the first Sassy Girl. For our purposes, let’s call Jeon Ji-Hyun’s character “Sassy 1,” and Victoria Song’s “Sassy 2,” because what do you know, neither of them were given names in the film.

And you can’t help but wonder if anyone involved with either film even knows what “sassy” means.

Your Lovelife:

Whenever you find a new love in our life, you can’t help but compare it to our past loves. Who was sweeter? Who was hotter? Who was nicer? The problem when you do that is you’re being unfair both to the past loves, and to the new love. You are making a comparison that makes you smug if you feel you’re trading up, and regretful if you feel you aren’t, instead of simply appreciating who you have with you in the here and now.

7. The new one might feel like they’re overcompensating.

The Movie:

Right off the bat, you see that Victoria Song is no Jeon Ji-Hyun because not once did she threaten to murder Gyun-Woo. Unlike Sassy 1, Sassy 2 is actually ridiculously sweet, and while she might seem tsundere like Sassy 1 totally was, Sassy 2 actually isn’t hostile for no good reason at all. In fact, you might say, typical Korean rom-com exaggerations aside, Sassy 2 is a perfectly rational lady.

But that’s exactly the problem—in contrast to Sassy 1, Sassy 2 seems a little too perfect.

Because somehow, this wasn’t perfect enough for us.

Your Lovelife:

When the new love walks into your life, everything seems better at first. They avoid the dealbreakers of the ex/es, they behave much better, they’re everything you think you need in someone new. The problem is, this is especially true when your new love is actually your rebound. These are the unbelievably great people in your life that you can never quite explain why you let go of them to anyone. But that’s exactly how love is – it’s not supposed to make sense. Just like making sequels to My Sassy Girl or One More Chance, unless…

6. The new one makes you cynical.

The Movie:

Everything seems to be going so great for Gyun-Woo, seeing as he has a hottie who actually wants to marry him, but as soon as she meets Gyun-Woo’s mom, the mom immediately becomes suspicious. Why would this amazing lady marry a loser like her son?!? And why would someone make a sequel to a movie that ended perfectly, except as a way to milk the franchise for more money?!?

Pictured: the production meeting for “My New Sassy Girl,” probably.

Your Lovelife:

What is up with the new love of your life?!? Why is he or she hitting all the right notes? You can’t help but be wary, and you can’t help but think, maybe the other shoe is going to drop, and soon.

5. You mess things up for yourself over the new one.

The Movie:

In an unprecedented move, one key scene in this film makes Cha Tae-Hyun, perhaps for the first time in his entire career, completely unsympathetic as a character. The minute this happens, all you could think is, “who are you, and what have you done to the ever-simpatiko Cha Tae-Hyun?”

How is it even possible to make him the bad guy?

Your Lovelife:

Knowing full well that you think all of this is too good to be true, you come clean and tell your new love just that. As flattering as that may be, it only goes to show that you don’t think you could possibly do better than you did, and by virtue of saying maybe you don’t deserve her, you self-fulfill your prophecy and end up not deserving her, after all. Way to go, you just shot yourself in the foot because you refused to let yourself be happy!

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