I watched a podcast episode where two people reviewed a South Korean romantic comedy film called My Sassy Girl.
After listening to them talk about the movie, I decided to watch the movie myself.
The film is about a man who started an unusual, but amusing relationship with a woman after encountering her in a drunken state at a train station.
They slowly become more active in each other’s lives, and in the end, fall in love with each other.
Of course, the story goes much deeper than that, but I’m just giving an extremely brief summary.
But the film was extremely successful in South Korea. It became the highest grossing comedy film of all time and there were a lot of remakes.
Seven years after the release, there was an American remake.
I watched both versions.
And while the American remake is decent by itself, there were some bits that were carried over from the original version that didn’t end up working well, and that’s mostly because those bits depend on Korean culture for them to give off a stronger effect.
For example:
In the original version, there was a scene that took place inside a train car. There was an older man standing and a younger man sitting down. The older man cleared his throat, hoping the younger man would notice and give up his seat, but ended up being ignored.
(In Korea, they’re more strict about reserving priority seating for elderlies, pregnant women, disabled people, etc.)
The woman got angry and started yelling at the younger man, only to get ignored as well. But it took a slap to the back of his head to get up.
In the American version, the woman approached a young man sitting on a bench and slapped his head multiple times so he could get up and let the elderly man standing next to the bench sit down. At least where I live, giving up your seat in public transportation for elderlies is a nice gesture to do, but it’s not as big of a deal as it is in Korea.
In my opinion, the scene in the American version felt a bit more random, whereas in the original version, there’s a bit more of a righteousness to it.
With that said, I don’t necessarily have anything against movie remakes. I just always prefer originals.
But this is what can happen when you copy and paste other people’s emails and use them as your own, especially if they’re personality based emails.
For example:
I heard a story where a copywriter wrote an email series promoting an affiliate product and he outperformed every other affiliate despite his list size being smaller.
The product owner was so amazed that he offered to license his email series.
The copywriter was flattered but declined in the end. He explained that unless he had his audience, his personality, and relationship he has with his audience, it won’t perform as well.
If you want to learn how to write your own personality based emails that can build strong relationships with your subscribers and bring in more sales, check out How to Become an Email Titan.