Portraits

Despite all the horrible things Gyeon-woo endures, he is determined to help cure the girl's pain. In one scene, he decides to surprise her for 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. Gyeon-woo convinces him to release her, and she in turn convinces the soldier to free Gyeon-woo and go on with his life. Throughout the first half of the movie she is resolute in her pain, dishing it out in plenty. As the second half comes around, however, she begins to change: she shows vulnerability.

During the two year span, Gyeon-woo works hard to improve himself in many ways, even writing My Sassy Girl which someone has bought the movie rights to, an event he eagerly anticipates telling the Girl about. When the agreed upon date arrives, he travels to the mountain but the Girl does not show up. Eventually, he opens the time capsule and reads her letter and learns the root of her angst and behavior: Gyeon-woo reminds her of her previous boyfriend who, rather than breaking up with her, actually died before she met Gyeon-woo. All through the sexe time the Girl and Gyeon-woo were seeing each other she had been seeing her dead boyfriend's mother, who wants to introduce her to a nice young man.