Spy Girl

Cute film. But the only reason I gave it 8 out of 10 is because it's extremely enjoyable just to look at Kim Jung Hwa. Not only is she staggeringly beautiful, but she has a graceful demeanour and delightful innocence which makes guys want to marry her and women want to be her. This is the main quality of the film.

The cinematography is adequate, the North Korea/South Korea plot is more significant if you're Korean (the old spies pining about the old days are quite funny), the comedy is too safe to be funny, and perhaps most frustratingly, the romance is kinda wack because the relationship never really develops.

The problem I tend to find with most Korean comedies is that they rarely actually make you laugh but keep you smiling at best. This is no exception although it has some nice touches.

"Spy Girl" has an inventive first half: it starts telling its story from the male lead's point-of-view, then it switches to the female's, sometimes covering the same events. After a while, however, it becomes clear that despite all the flashbacks, flashforwards, different perspectives, etc. the movie doesn't really have much story to tell. There is a little comedy, a little (goofy) action, but about 80% of "Spy Girl" is really a romance. To the film's benefit, the two leads are very charming. Yu Kong is likable as the nerdy, well-meaning college dropout, and Jeong-hwa Kim is incredibly beautiful, and well-cast as the spy-in-disguise who can draw male looks simply by walking and smiling. But the script meanders without much sense of direction, and there are a few too many "finally! they're together now - oh wait, not yet" endings. Recommended for romance fans, but not for action/spy fans. **1/2 out of 4.

"Spy Girl" (aka "Geunyeoreul moreumyeon gancheob") is not an extraordinary movie by the usual standards of these types of South Korean movies, but it is still entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. While it is not up to par with "She's On Duty", for example, this 2004 movie does have some good moments and a nice story.

The story is about a North Korean spy who travels to South Korea and goes undercover, where she finds her life thrown upside down with a lovestruck young man fighting desperately for her love and attention.

Story-wise then "Spy Girl" is adequate, it doesn't really offer any laughs though. It is just not that type of comedy. However, it is a nicely told romantic story.

The actors and actresses in the movie were doing good jobs with their roles and characters. And the two lead talents had good chemistry together on the screen.

"Spy Girl" is the type of movie that you watch a single time, and am very unlikely to watch a second time. It just didn't have that repeated viewing quality to it.

If you enjoy South Korean romantic comedies then you should sit down to watch "Spy Girl" if you have the time and the chance to do so. I am rating it a five out of ten stars as it just didn't stand out from countless other South Korean romantic comedies.

Just watched this movie. I definitely recommend it to anyone familiar with asian movies and to a lesser degree to anyone else. "Typical" movie goers might be slightly dissapointed though I think this movie had enough aspects that would please a wider audience then just asian movie lovers.

It's about a female spy who takes a job at Burger King to wait for her "target", a regular customer. The boys from the school next door all fall in love with her. One of them even devotes a webpage for her on his friends site that seems to offer a collection of the hottest girls in town. Unfortunately, this puts her mission in danger and she ends up dating the guy in order to make him delete the pictures of her.

Though the premise is pretty far fetched it works charmingly well. But it could have worked so much better. The movie can't decide if it's a romantic comedy or a spy comedy. What makes the movie stand out is the acting especially from the lead actress, whose charming presence adds quite a lot to the appeal of the movie.

Given its proximity to one of the world's most secretive states, it's perhaps no surprise that the South Korean box office is dominated by films about spies – whatever the genre. In that vein, this perfectly serviceable (if unoriginal) rom-com sees a hapless young dropout fall for a beautiful North Korean spy, who is working undercover at a Seoul 'Burger King' while hunting down a defector on the run from Pyongyang. Although the concept would later be redone – and far better – in 2007's My Girlfriend Is An Agent, those looking for a charming and inoffensive romp could do a lot worse than this…

Spy Girl begins from the perspective of Ko-bong, a perpetual loser whose bachelor status is a constant source of ridicule. Hoping to inspire the lovelorn chap, Ko-bong's friends direct him to a website they've set up that allows young men from across Seoul to share pictures of attractive girls working in local fast food restaurants. Ko-bong – along with half the population of Seoul, it seems – soon falls head over heels for newcomer Hyo-jin, who is described on the site as being "so beautiful, anyone who doesn't know her is a North Korean spy".

You can probably guess where this is going.

After switching to Hyo-jin's perspective, we learn that she actually is a spy for the North and is in Seoul to track down a defector wanted for embezzlement. The fast food job is a useful cover for this, but when Hyo-jin stumbles across the 'hotties' website – and misinterprets the "North Korean spy" reference as blowing her cover – she quickly tracks down the owners of the site to demand they delete her photos. They agree, but on one condition: Hyo-jin has to go on a 'blind' date with their friend, Ko-bang. And so it begins.

In one sense, it is difficult to criticise Spy Girl because it delivers much of what it promises at the outset: some proper laughs, a sprinkle of genuine charm and lots of screen time for the strikingly attractive Kim Jung-hwa. But even judged by this lower standard, it isn't a perfect film by any means. I think what ultimately lets it down is its lack of clear focus and direction. Perhaps due to the dual-perspective opening, the whole film feels like it's just setting the scene for something bigger; it never really gets out of that 'first act' mentality into something approaching a conventional narrative.

By the time we approach the final act, then, we're still not really sure if the two protagonists are even in a relationship, let alone if it's a strong one. This obviously makes it difficult to empathise with the characters when they face inevitable tough decisions towards the end. So although there's plenty of genuine laughs and some very funny scenes along the way, the overall structure for those scenes seems sadly lacking.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. This isn't meant to be taken seriously: it's a fun, leave-your-brain-at-the-door romantic comedy that hopes to raise a smile or two en route to a warm and fuzzy ending. Judged by that standard, Spy Girl succeeds - although if you haven't yet seen the similarly themed (and quite brilliant) My Girlfriend Is An Agent, you might want to check that out first.

6/10 - more than watchable.