I know it isn’t Thursday. 🙂 But this is one of the posts I should have transferred over here a long time ago from soompi.

Bridges are ubiquitous in kdramas because not only are bridges visually pleasing, but they’re also easily understood as a symbol. Crossing bridges means building a relationship.

The tv version of “My Sassy Girl” (2017) starred Joo Won and Oh Yeon-seo.

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On Bridges.

In my very first post in this thread, I compared this romcom with the original movie. I said that I was going to name 5 similarities/differences but stopped short. I’m still missing one more detail so here it is.

5. Bridges.

In the original movie, GW explained in a voiceover what he thought fate was all about. He defined fate as “building a bridge of chance for somebody you love.” It’s the last scene actually in the movie. 🙂

In our romcom, the bridge is taken both literally and metaphorically.

From the beginning, I suspected that bridges were going to be important in this romcom because the writer and director were going to build on where the movie ended: fate as a “bridge” of opportunities. And I told the readers here to watch out for them.

You see, the director always took a panoramic or an extreme wide shot view of the bridges with GW and HM on it. Do you know how much work that entails to move the crew for a wide shot? The BRIDGE would have to be the subject there, not the actors on the bridge so an angle had to be chosen to capture the whole bridge in one shot.

I said their “first” meetings were always on bridges. They had two “first” meetings, oddly enough: the “first” encounter after he arrived back from Joseon and she was in her very best and brightest, intoxicated state.

Then, the other ‘first” encounter when they were officially introduced to each other. I also jokingly said that if I were to write this story, their first meeting — or the EARLIEST introduction to each other — would have been on a bridge as innocent children. They would have been strangers to each other, too. All “proper” kdramas should have couples meeting each other as children to signify that they were predestined for each other.

On as side note: check out Officer Kang. He too met on a bridge with the Princess once but he didn’t cross the bridge…which is an apt metaphor for his romance, don’t you think?  Just like the pretty pagoda is a “dead end” on the bridge, his love is heading towards a “dead end,” too.

Anyway…

these bridge settings are the director’s way of showing that “fate is building a bridge of chance for somebody you love.” Visually, fate is a bridge.

But there’s also a symbolic meaning to these bridge encounters.  Whenever GW and the Princess cross the bridge TOGETHER, they’re overcoming challenges TOGETHER.

In the beginning, when GW fled his Chinese fangirls by going over the bridge, he was just running for his own safety.

But whenever he and the Princess crossed the bridge together, after their embarrassing first introduction,

like here,

here,

and here,

then here,

they were crossing a bridge between their reality and their future dream of happiness together. Their bridge encounters weren’t pretty. In fact, they would be either be at odds with each other or fleeing trouble they caused. But whenever they walked a bridge together, they were giving each other another opportunity to love deeper.

🙂

So there you go, my fifth and final comparison between the film “My Sassy Girl” and the kdrama one. The kdrama expounded on the message of the original version.