At that time, the goddess Jeon Ji-hyun had not yet met Professor Du from the stars;
Nor did he become a zombie-fighting Northern Ashin;
She's just a newcomer who has been debuting for two or three years.
With the support of SidusHQ, the largest artist agency in South Korea at the time, her star path was relatively smooth.
She has a clear positioning, specializing in films with love themes.
With 2000's "Untouchable Lovers", she was nominated for the 38th Grand Bell Awards and grew rapidly.
The script that came to her next was somewhat different, and the male number one she worked with was also very different from handsome guys like Lee Jung-jae and Park Shin-yang.
"My Savage Girlfriend" was destined to be a special work from the beginning.
On July 27, 2001, the romantic comedy was released in South Korea.
Characters with distinct personalities and new rare characters, funny and touching stories, suddenly became popular throughout Korea.
Jeon Ji-hyun naturally jumped into the first-line popular actress, and even the male protagonist Cha Tae-hyun, who has always been just filming TV dramas, was also a mess and entered the film world in one fell swoop.
With the release of overseas markets and DVDs, the film quickly conquered audiences in different countries and regions. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong movies were all over Asia, and it was the turn of Korean films to start to develop.
After the abolition of the censorship system in the 1980s and the implementation of the grading system in the 1990s, Han Ying gradually began to break the convention of genre films, and authors and directors such as Bong Joon-ho and Lee Cangdong were given the opportunity to display their talents.
Guo Zairong saw an opportunity in this undercurrent market, and after graduating from college in 1986 to work in the film industry, he remained obscure until 1999, when he saw a web novel, adapted it into a script, and finally got a commercial project.
The revolution in Korean cinema, the rise of the Internet age, are two of the keys that have made it all happen.
He is not a famous director, and it is not bad to have a new person like Jeon Ji-hyun.
It is also thanks to Jeon Ji-hyun's wonderful interpretation of the image of the savage girlfriend that "My Savage Girlfriend" really succeeded in breaking the convention.
The women in the story are no longer gentle and elegant, but they are brutal and violent, fierce and fierce, and occupy an absolute dominant position in getting along with men.
This is exactly what makes the majority of women cool.
Why cool?
Because if people have not been able to do what they want to do, and suddenly have an opportunity to do it, they will feel happy. Therefore, the network cool text is often filled with dick silk counterattack, open and hang invincible plot, write out the things that are difficult to achieve in reality, whether it is written or read by people can feel cool.
Korean society has always respected the tradition of the country, the feudal idea of male superiority and female inferiority is deeply rooted, and the status of women in the family has generally not been improved. Until 2019's "Jin Zhiying born in 82", we can still see women's struggles.
However, this kind of resistance has triggered collective difficulties and confrontations among men.
Why "My Savage Girlfriend" can set off a "barbaric wave" of women in South Korea, because Korean women generally lack cathartic channels in life, and they dare not incriminate the dominant men.
When they see that Jeon Ji-hyun can treat men like this, what they have always wanted to do is achieved in the way of movies, and they put themselves into it, which is somewhat emotional cathartic.
Guo Zairong's adapted script conceals the name of the heroine, and only uses one "she" to refer to the whole process, as if to say that thousands of her can actually do like Quan Zhixian.
Of course, that is preconditional.
And why is it so popular throughout Asia?
Because the whole of Asia is basically influenced by Confucian culture, respecting tradition, and inevitably, the idea of male superiority over female inferiority and preference for sons is also deeply rooted.
Quan Jixian's role in the film has become a representative of a woman's counterattack to the patriarchal society, and it is not known how many girls have been attracted to imitate, some of which are positive and negative, anyway, after 20 years, the savage girlfriend is no longer different, but it is not strange.
In fact, not only women have cool points, but also men.
The morning glory played by Cha Tae-hyun is a typical di si, and di si can fall in love with a goddess like Quan Ji Xian, which also satisfies the fantasies of many men.
Even if you are beaten, it is a kind of happiness.
Unfortunately, in reality, such a kind boy as Morning Glory, even if he miraculously exists, it is difficult to have the luck to get the favor of the goddess.
Just like in the movie, one of the cores that is easy to ignore is the kindness of morning glory.
If it weren't for the kindness of morning glory, there wouldn't be this love story;
If it weren't for the kindness of morning glory, the savage girlfriend would have been abandoned long ago;
If it were not for the kindness of the morning glory, the heroine would not have been deeply moved and triggered the final happy ending.
Regarding the ending, Guo Zairong made an interesting change to the original book.
The old man who appears last is believed to be a morning glory from the future, and it is he who reminds the heroine and changes the original regrettable ending.
In fact, it can also be interpreted that the old man is the morning glory in the novel, and the movie makes up for the regret left by the novel.
Perhaps the regrettable ending of the continuation of the original work will be more difficult and the classic degree will be more victorious. But the tragic core of the story, Guo Zairong, is retained.
My Savage Girlfriend is a real comedy because comedy is always about tragedy.
Throughout the film, "she" played by Jeon Ji-hyun is healing emotional wounds, and her brutality is actually a catharsis, a self-defense mechanism.
She uses morning glory as a substitute and fantasizes that her ex-boyfriend has not left.
The two people walked together, a bit like Zhang Weijian's song.
"Actually, you love me like who;
I will play any role;
I don't care if I'm happy or not;
For your pleasure I forgot to be tired or not. ”
If she can't forget that ex-boyfriend in her life, Morning Glory is a substitute for this life. In this way, the ending is still a tragedy.
"My Savage Girlfriend" may not have had a decisive impact on reality, at least in these 20 years, the impact on asian film and television works as a whole has been enormous.
Directly search for "barbarism" to find a variety of follow-up works.
Even if there is no savagery on the table, like the 2009 Taiwanese drama "Haipai Sweetheart", the male and female protagonists, He Yanfeng's admonition to Dalang, are not all explicitly borrowed from "My Savage Girlfriend".
The female image of the big and small screens has become stronger, and the female actors have therefore had a greater space for performance, which undoubtedly has a certain role in promoting film and television works.
"My Savage Girlfriend" is also a starting point for domestic K-pop culture, which is actually not only the pain point of the entire Asian Confucian circle in the film, but also has a great relationship with the beginning of Sino-Korean cultural exchanges in 2000.
I have to mention the theme song "I Believe", and the "Cannon" piano song that is used just right.
These two songs were later used elsewhere.
But for a large part, whenever I hear the melody of these two songs, the first thing that comes to mind is Quan Jixian and Cha Taixian.
20 years has changed a lot, but nothing seems to have changed.