She Was Pretty (2015)

This drama was absolutely adorable. I have to admit, after watching the first couple of episodes, I put this on hold because the story seemed kind of annoying. I wasn't super crazy about the main lead and I just wasn't in the mood at the time. But after someone begged me to finish it, I quickly fell in love with both the story and the characters. The story dragged a little too much at the end, but I enjoyed watching it none the less. Siwon did absolutely fantastic in his role, and he honestly made the whole show for me. This is really my first time ever getting second lead syndrome. I loved the main lead as well, Siwon is just more my type, and his story line was done really well. Overall, a really great drama.

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Loved it, comedies are the best!!!

I'm a little late to the K-drama scene.  I liked this show a lot.  First, before I forget, Park Seo Joon, who plays the male lead, looks uncanny like my late Japanese friend, Matsumoto-san.  Not at every angle and all facial expressions, but especially when he smiles.  First Japanese person I became friends with, an unbelievably kind guy whom I miss a lot.  I first saw Park in "Itaewon Class".  Seeing him made me happy and very sad at the same time.  I think we all knew the female lead, played by Hwang Jung Eum, even with the weird hair was going to turn out to be attractive.  Besides the physical part, her character being bubbly and sweet, is something that is a very attractive quality!

Star of the show has to go to Choi Si Won's character, Kim Shin Hyuk.  Hilarious and creative role that Choi was perfect for, makes me want to go find some other things he's been in. I hope there are some Korean guys in real life who are like that character, maybe not as crazy though with the pranks though, lol.  I like to joke around too, because I enjoy making people laugh and forget their problems.  Shin Dong Mi, who plays Cha Joo Young, is also an attractive lady and stood out, maybe because she was the only lady who had her natural hair color.  I know this drama is dated, but I hope Koreans, like Japanese and all Asians, STOP dying their hair color, natural always looks best!  I realize people in Asians countries tire of black hair, as almost all people tend to have it, unless they are seniors, but if everyone dyes their hair brown then people with natural locks stick out amongst the crowd, hah hah!

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Warm, funny, great!

I just loved it... I didn't have much expectations at first but the drama turned out to be very nice.
The romance is great and not so great. The childhood romance is warm and sweet. Once they get together, it's warm, sweet, funny, i smiled a lot. They understand each other, they talk and say what needs to be said (well note at first but later) it's very refreshing! The not so great is in the in between, there aren't really any sparks , not enough "impossible love moments" or not enough great "falling in love moments" but it works anyway.
The 2nd ML is great, the friendship between him and the FL is great, event if it's turns into a love triangle, they are absolutely great together.
The ending is perfect.

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I'm not sure how I ended up watching this show, but I think I remember being like sure why not.

I didn't think too much about it at the start, but as I continued watching it I thought it was soo cute, the story and everything and I really like the actor Hwang Jun-eum this was the first drama I watched her in, and just loved how her character embraced her naturality in the end and liked the actor Park Seo-Joon from Secretary Kim, he always plays the CEO of something, but yet I still enjoyed the storyline and plot.

I think my favourite character was Kim Shin-Hyuk who was played by Choi Si-won, I think his character was soo funny! And really interesting what he ended up being. Would totally watch it again!

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Would recommend to any new drama watchers

I was enjoying this one until we got past the main leads getting together. As expected, I got bored and had to fast forward my way to the end. It did wrap up nicely and cute though! We even got a child!

Taking it back to the beginning:

Hye-jin’s reason for lying about her identity is really shallow and she should have been honest. Sung-Joon had already experienced what it’s like to not have ‘the standard’ looks of a Korean man so he of all people should have understood how Hye-jin was feeling. Besides, a ’true’ friend would love and accept them no matter what.

I didn’t really like Sung-Joon in the beginning because of how rudely he treated Hye-jin. If a man is gonna be a good man, they should treat all women the same. I didn’t like they way he fired Hye-jin in haste - he was so aggressive!

Another thing that bugged me was why did Sung-Joon think that Hye-jin was going to be romantically available anyway? That is so presumptuous of him to think that after 15 YEARS he can waltz back into her life and expect something between them that is more than friendship.

I was honestly shipping Hye-jin with the second male lead and to be fair, they would have had a decent shot at being together so really I feel like this drama could have gone either way.

Hye-jin’s transformation really had her looking like a whole another actress!

I don’t understand how Sung-joon could be so upset with Ha-ri but fine with Hye-jin - ike Hye-jin was the root cause of the predicament anyway! I thought he would have been equally mad at the both of them, even more so Hye-jin.

Finally, as we recached the end of episode 14, I literally sighed relief that the second male lead shaved his beard. Damn that should have been done AGES ago!

Overall, this was a decent drama with an okay story. Certainly nothing to rave about. For anyone who is new to kdramas this is one I’d recommend.

-E

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for me i should give it low rate for 2 reasons
1st i hate (hwang) sooooooooooo much i feel her pretending to be superfine &
she is acting absurdly in general the way she talks make me nerve
but i've to admit that she is so good at choosing her dramas

........................................................
2nd SPOILER IS COMING

cause she left (choi) for (park)
it wasn't a big deal if the writer made her continue with choi i do really loved every thing about him in this drama more than (park) LOL
..........................................................

but i should say it's a very good drama you should really watch
without joking this is complete 10/10 excluding both 2 reasons :)

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She Was Pretty is ur typical kdrama rom-com. The comedy aspect of this drama is hilarious! This drama does the comedy very well, this is a true 'laugh-out-loud' drama. The romance part is sweet, but the chemistry between the actors is just lacking.

This drama focuses on a woman named Kim Hye Jin who used to be beautiful when she was younger, but grew up to be ugly. I really loved the fact tht Hye Jin had a beautiful personality even when she was younger and more beautiful. She's just a good person, and remains tht way throughout the drama. When she was younger, she befriended this fat ugly kid named Seong Jun who was her neighbor, and he ended up becoming her first love. This is where my first issue/complaint comes into play. Well, it's not so much as an issue/complaint, I don't know wat to really call it, my distaste of the 'romance' between the younger versions of Hye Jin and Seong Jun. I just didn't buy it. Idk, I just thought the whole pretense for their initial friendship/romance was pretty lame. But w/e, Hye Jin was a sweetie pie throughout the whole thing. As time passes, Hye Jin and Seong Jun lose touch with each other. The last time Seong Jun saw Hye Jin was when she was pretty. So when Seong Jun finally gets in touch with Hye Jin and wants to meet up, Hye Jin is nervous about what he'll think of her because he doesn't know tht she's ugly now. So she gets her best friend, Min Ha Ri (who i love), to pretend to be her to meet him. Ands thts basically the premise. The story focuses on friendships, inner-struggles, and workplace drama. It's really fun!

But the romantic chemistry between the characters/actors is really lacking. Especially between Seong Jun and Ha Ri, uggghhh those scenes were the most boring of the whole drama. Hye Jin and Kim Shin Hyeok (the second male lead) had zero romantic chemistry, and I was annoyed tht the drama chose to make Shin Hyeok like Hye Jin in the first place. They had excellent friendship chemistry, but no to the romance. And lastly, the chemistry between adult versions of Hye Jin and Seong Jun was non-existent. I mean, their scenes didn't make me cringe or anything like tht, but i didn't really care about they're romance in the scheme of things. The friendships were the best in this drama, and everyone did have chemistry with each other, just not romantic chemistry.

All in all, this was a really fun drama to watch (and it's ttly marathon-worthy)! You'll have several laughs, and some of the moments throughout are genuinely sweet. Do I think it's a must-see? No. But its a good rom-com and it's not a bad watch. I liked it, maybe u will too!

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I genuinely enjoyed this drama for about the first 11 episodes, then it started to get a bit boring and mushy for me such as with the love story between Hye Jin (Hwang Jung Eum) and Seong Joon (Park Seo Joon). At first it was really cute their relationship and really funny, but it started to taper off... (in my opinion). However, towards the end of the drama I was starting to really root for Siwon's character and Hye Jin (Hwang Jung Eum) and just overall loved their chemistry as opposed to Seong Joon (Park Seo Joon) and Hye Jin. I felt as though Siwon's character had WAY more charisma and was just overall more interesting than Park Seo Joon's character. After episode 11, I started to skip a lot of scenes and kinda just skimmed through an entire episode. Although, I do recommend watching this drama as it is hilarious, but I was disappointed with the last few episodes.

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First impressions:

Good:
- I like the backstory between Sung-Joon and Hye-Jin. It's nice that they formed a neighborly friendship, despite how superficial school children can be, and that it deepened into a "first-love" type chemistry before they parted ways as children. The umbrella/earbud moment was really cute.

-Park Seo-Joon.

-Ep 6 - the whole dynamic between Sung-Joon and Shin Hyuk was comedy gold. I *loved* the subverted trope with Shin Hyuk nursing Sung-Joon back to health.

-Ep 7 and on - really love the chemistry that FINALLY has a chance to breathe between our main leads. I enjoyed watching them go on their business trip together and seeing the real layers of Sung-Joon come to the forefront, and Hye-Jin being a (little) less crazy than her usual self.

Bad:
- Kim Ra-Ra in her entirety. I could tell they were trying to pull off the "eccentric, out-of-touch, overly-artificial boss" archetype that I sometimes see in KDRAMAs, but it was so poorly executed, I couldn't help but grit my teeth every time she appeared on screen. Her lazy attempts at Spanish and Italian to sound cultured and her over-the-top body language antics never came across as funny for me. If you want to see this type of character type done *perfectly*, watch Kim Sun-Young as Eom So-Hye in Her Private Life. SO FUNNY. I'll give Kim Ra-Ra a little credit later on in the series when her antics toned down a bit, but I still didn't think she was nearly as funny or endearing as Kim Sun-Young.

- Hwang Jung-Eum as Hye-Jin during the first few episodes. Her overreactions and over-acting antics really really bother me. No normal person would react so ridiculously. She looked like a cracked-out lunatic in the elevator scene and it made no logical sense. Running away screaming, arms flailing to avoid a person. Falling over herself hiding under furniture. It's all just too much. She did the same craziness in the beginning of Lucky Romance and I nearly dropped the show because of it. Eventually, her character (and her over-acting) mellows out, so I'm hoping it does here too. I really loved her in Mystic Pop-Up Bar so I know she's fully capable in her acting and ability to play a well-developed, well-rounded none-Jim Carrey-esque character.

Conflicted:
- The very premise of this show is pretty problematic, but it does do a pretty decent job at digging more than skin deep. I wasn't a huge fan of the office atmosphere changing as soon as Hye-Jin had her makeover. Like being prettier suddenly means she deserves respect. At the same time, I know it's also because she gained her confidence and probably exuded a different aura that allowed her to seem more approachable to her colleagues. I don't know, it's a little wishy-washy to me. It's also laughable that Hwang Jung-Eum is conveyed as "ugly" with just a bit of rosacea and frizz.

- Intentionally misleading Sung-Joon with her friend, Ha-Ri, was upsetting. He hasn't seen you in 15 years, give the guy a break! He looks completely different as well. I was upset his reaction didn't fit the crime. The reaction should have been bigger, and more drawn out. It was morally grey, at best, to lie to him and play with his emotions like that.

- I do think the romantic tension fizzled out a little too quickly by having their issues resolved and their romance in full bloom by the end of Ep 12/13.


*** I ended up dropping the drama by Ep 13 because I lost interest in the "will it or won't it" close-down issue with The Most magazine. I skipped through the last few episodes just to watch the cutesy moments between our leads, and because I love Park Seo-Joon so much, but I literally had zero interest in the plot after his collapse/they solidified their relationship. All of the tension I felt with the series was with the truth behind their relationship, and his health issues. I also wish they expanded on his health issue a lot more- I thought it was very interesting that they were alluding to Sung-Joon having an eating disorder, especially considering how taboo of a subject it is in Korea (and even in western countries) for men to have eating disorders even though it's definitely a thing. I wish they'd expanded on that a bit more and confronted it.

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