My Sassy Girl

Part one    

 The film tells the love story of a male engineering college student, Gyeon-woo (Cha Tae-Hyun), and the Girl (Jun Ji-hyun) who is never named in the movie. Gyeon-woo just cannot seem to catch a romantic break. One day, at dinner, Gyeon-woo is interrupted by a call from his mother, telling him to visit his aunt and meet a potential date. At the train station on his way to his aunt's, he observes a drunk girl, standing precariously close to the edge of the train platform as the train approaches; he pulls her to safety just in time. Inside the train, Gyeon-woo cannot help but stare at the girl who is his "type" but repulsed by her drunkenness. Finally, she throws up on a passenger and faints but not before she calls Gyeon-woo "honey". The passenger aggressively chides Gyeon-woo and tells him to take care of his "girlfriend". Gyeon-woo, completely flustered, carries her all the way to the nearest hotel. Thus begins his comically ill-fated relationship with the Girl whom he realizes is a xanthippe. They meet each other again after Gyeon-woo gets locked up in jail over a misunderstanding, and over soju the Girl cries, admits to breaking up with her boyfriend the day before and gets thoroughly drunk, resulting in a second trip to the same hotel.

After this second overnight stay at the hotel, she begins to become a more active part of his life. She visits Gyeon-woo in school and pulls him out of class, telling the teacher that Gyeon-woo is the father of her soon-to-be-aborted baby. The Girl's mood swings wildly from joyful to downright violent, but Gyeon-woo puts up with it and lets her abuse him for her amusement.

She is an aspiring scriptwriter and throughout the movie gives Gyeon-woo three different screenplays from different genres. The first is an action movie—The Demolition Terminator—which switches gender roles, symbolically having the Girl save her helpless lover (Gyeon-woo). The second is a wild perversion of a Korean short story—Sonagi—in which the Girl, having died, asks that her lover be buried along with her—even though he's still alive. The last is a wuxia/samurai movie spoof full of genre clichés and anachronisms. All three feature the same common thread: the Girl is from the future.

Despite all the horrible things Gyeon-woo endures, he is determined to help cure the girl's pain. He decides to surprise her on her birthday and takes her on a nighttime trip to an amusement park which ends up quite differently than how he planned: the pair encounter an AWOL soldier who holds them hostage and rants about his misery after being jilted. Gyeon-woo convinces him to release her, and she in turn convinces the soldier to free Gyeon-woo and go on with his life and pursue another love.

Part two
The Girl and Gyeon-woo's relationship takes a turn for the better and he sends her home and meets her father, who is a habitual drinker. Her parents do not take to Gyeon-woo and on leaving, he overhears an impassioned argument between the girl and her mother over her relationship with him. He does not hear from her for quite some time and his life without her begins.
One day however, the Girl calls him and tells him to bring her a rose during class to commemorate their 100th-day anniversary. He does this, leading to a touching and romantic scene where he arrives in disguise into a packed auditorium and watches her play the melody of George Winston's variations on Pachelbel's Canon in D on a piano onstage. The classmates applaud in approval at his romantic gesture. As the night unfolds he is confronted at her house by her parents again, with her father demanding the two to break up.

The Girl does not contact him again and Gyeon-woo naturally thinks they have broken up, until one day when she calls Gyeon-woo to meet her for dinner with a blind date. The Girl introduces Gyeon-woo to the date and, while she leaves for the washroom afterwards, Gyeon-woo candidly offers advice on how to ensure her happiness by asking her potential suitor to follow ten rules: preventing her from overdrinking and giving in to her at every circumstance, even if it means enduring the occasional "violence". It is at this point that she realizes how well Gyeon-woo understands her. She abruptly leaves her date and searches for Gyeon-woo at the subway station.
Once reunited the two realize they are at a turning point in their relationship, but, for some unspeakable reason, the Girl decides it is time for them to part. As a gesture to their happy times the two write letters to each other and bury them in a "time capsule" under a particular tree on a mountain in the countryside. They agree to meet again at the tree after two years to read the letters together. After burying the "time capsule" they go their separate ways.