People like to point out how everyone in South Korea gets plastic surgery. But without knowing her value as a human being - which has nothing to do with the shape of ones eye’s or having a small face – she is still a mess. Yes, she may still have opted to get work done on her face. What Mi-rae needed more than plastic surgery was sessions with a therapist. But as beautiful as she has become, she doesn’t see herself as attractive.Īnd therein lies the real issue that I wish had been addressed more.
Shortly before she enters her freshman year of college, Mi-rae has her face re-done to the point where she is unrecognizable to her own father. Her one childhood friend, Hyun-jung (Min Do-hee), got into so many fights at school defending Mi-rae, that the latter told her friend not to hang out with her at school. But her reputation as being ugly - and therefore unworthy - carried over to middle school and high school. Once an ugly, overweight little girl who was bullied in school and derisively nicknamed, “The Hulk,” she managed to lose weight and become very thin. Here, Mi-rae (Im Soo-hyang) is that beauty. The term “Gangnam Beauty” refers to an attractive person who looks like they had cosmetic surgery. Still, it held my interest, thanks to likable leads and some things I hadn’t seen before in K-Dramas. There was too much redundancy and padding to fill out the 16 episodes.
DRAMAS LIKE MY ID IS GANGNAM BEAUTY SERIES
With some taut editing and fewer episodes, this Korean series would’ve been more interesting. “My ID is Gangnam Beauty” specifically tackles South Korea’s obsession with physical looks, but the storyline carries over to many cultures, where the standards for beauty - especially for girls and women - are unrealistic. ↑ Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.