How My Sassy Girl with Jun Ji-hyun left a lasting impact on South Korean cinema 25 years on

Twenty-five years ago this week, Kwak Jae-young’s game-changing My Sassy Girl exploded into South Korean cinemas.

A surprise blockbuster at home and across the region, it resonated with audiences by radically subverting traditional gender stereotypes, driven by star-making performances from Jun Ji-hyun and Cha Tae-hyun.
The 2001 romantic comedy became a flagship title of the emerging hallyu (Korean Wave) phenomenon, which helped elevate South Korean pop culture from a cottage industry into the...