South korean comedies almost always turn maudlin by the end. Its just their local variation on the genre. But I don’t remember Spy Girl suffering too badly from it (its been 10+ years since I saw it). On that youtube page there are a bunch of other south korean rom-coms from the same era. If you just want fun south korean films, Sex is Zero (raunchier than American Pie) and Attack the Gas Station are two classics, both of them better than Spy Girl.
PS, Mother is kind of a sequel to Bong’s excellent Memories of Murder. Which a lot of people think inspired Fincher’s Zodiac.
