My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018)

Too boring and slow!

I have not read the webcomic, so I don't know if the original story is like this boring as the drama. The pace is so slow that I fast forward many scenes in order to finish this drama. The ML has a poker face with zero emotion all the time, and the FL have a constipated face the entire show. Maybe it's based on the original story where the actors need to portray that kind of boring personality, or these two actors really need to improve a lot their acting skills. I don't know how they could fall in love, they have no chemistry. You won't see any romance until the last 2 episodes, but still feel very bland and no much development.

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I really didn't like the first 2 episodes and didn't expect to like it, but the show totally won me over. That being said, I don't think it's genuinely a great show. It was just kind of an easy, fun watch.

The story is really nothing new. There is a love triangle set in a college, a rich guy, a mean pretty girl, family problems, a jerk, a lone wolf and all other tropes that typically show up in shows like that. The premise is slightly different with the plastic surgery and all, but the general tone reminds me very much of Sassy Go Go and Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo., which means: nothing new under the sun. On top of that, the show pretends that its message is that beauty is only skin-deep and shouldn't matter, yet the writing is too inconsistent to make really deliver this kind of message. For example, if we shouldn't focus on girls' looks, why is it ok that everyone, literally everyone, is interested in a super good looking male lead and completely ignores another male social outcast that resurfaces at the end of the show? The only difference between the two of them is that one is supposedly gorgeous and the other one is not. Also, it's not ok to publicly talk about the girls' looks yet objectifying DKS all the time is ok? There were a couple of more inconsistencies like that. Additionally, I didn't like how the show portrayed the vast majority of the male population at an elite college as a bunch of shallow jerks. That was kind of unfair and maybe even a bit sexists. I mean, even the secondary lead, who was a really nicely crafted character overall, was drawn to the FL purely because of her looks.

The acting very much depended on the individual actors, but I agree with all the criticism of the show that I'd read. The leads were sometimes very awkward together. I found it charming at times, but it got old. The ML was a bit wooden, and the FL looked so uncomfortable that in the beginning of the show it was uncomfortable to watch her on screen. In a way, I found it a bit refreshing, even though I doubt it was completely intentional on the part of the writers. It reminded me of Because This is the First Life. The leads were so awkward that it made it funny to watch them interact.

The music is on a cheesy side and not everybody will be a fan, but I didn't mind the corny tune that appeared whenever the leads shared another awkward moment.

With all of that, why would I give it such a high mark? Firstly, I can't explain why, but the show felt cute and fluffy, and it managed to pull me in without me even noticing in. The supporting characters probably had something to do with it. TA Yeon and Mi Rae's friend were such likable characters! There was enough variety in personalities among the college students that seeing the interactions between them was fun. I also absolutely loved the rivalry between the two guys. Many of their interactions were quite funny. The show also had a few pretty good comic relief characters, for example Mi Rae's father. This actor is gold in this show! Also, the mean girl isn't really too annoying in this show. This doesn't happen often. The other thing that was good for me was that there wasn't too much unnecessary drama in this show. Too much drama can spoil an otherwise fun production. I also appreciated seeing some more mature characters in this show such as the freshman representative who was a very reasonable and interesting character.

Generally, I seriously enjoyed watching this show despite many flaws I can point to. It will go on the list of my dramas that are my guilty pleasure.

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Flawed with some good points

I watched this drama as the concept (woman gets plastic surgery, it doesn't make life easy) is strong. But I don't think the show lives up to that.

The first thing I'll get out of the way is that I hated the first two episodes. The series does not start strong in my opinion, rapey characters are not something kdramas need. It does improve from episode 3 or so and that kept me watching.

First I'll talk about some of the strong points. Park Joo Mi as CEO Na is fantastic. The story line with her children is one of the high points of the series and is very well done. The fact that she was also wronged but is still to blame for not being involved is handled well as it feels like her children hate her but eventually can forgive her. Mi Rae's relationship with her parents is also good and her dad's anger, stalking, and reconciliation are all good. Jo Woo Ri as Soo Ah is also good though more on her later. I also quite liked the OST.

Now the issues... First up I'll say the leads are not awful, but they are not a strength. Both are pretty passive characters and while I do think some chemistry develops as the show goes on it's never very strong. The core romance of the show is also pretty weak with the only real obstacle being Mi Rae's self esteem. They are cut once they get together but that isn't much of the show's run time.

Next up I feel like the size of the cast hurt the show a little. It does a good job of making the college feel alive, you've got a bunch of classmates and seniors and various people. But it also means there are a lot of throw away story lines that generally can all be boiled down to "men being mean to women" and I don't that's a bad message or doesn't make sense, it just feels like the show repeats it too often in these brief side stories. Min Do Hee's character also suffers from this, it feels like she should be an important supporting character but as she's not part of the same department she only feels like she makes brief appearances once or twice an episode and her plot lines (such as they are) are never really given the time they need.

Now to go back to Soo Ah, I think the character is good and having the natural beauty who constantly lies and manipulates people is a great contrast to Mi Rae's honest personality and artificial beauty. But I feel like the writers didn't really now how to handle the character. Her backstory is confusing with her grandmother being mentioned or seen two or three times, her mom coming up once, and no mention of other family. The show also goes on far too long before trying to build sympathy for her. She is a sympathetic character but the show doesn't really make that clear until episode 15 or so. Her bulimia is presented in a strange light with it being a secret/lie being the bad thing, not the fact that she has a real and serious eating disorder. She's a much more interesting character than Mi Rae but by having her be a fairly one dimensional antagonist for the first 12 or so episodes this is squandered.

At the end of the day I think this drama had a fine cast and a good concept, but directionless writing lets it down.

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This show had so much potential. From the first episode I was really invested in the main character and was already excited to see how she deals with all these ridiculous beauty standards she has put up for herself and the people around her. I was expecting character development, I was expecting people to address these misconceptions they have over beauty and what makes one worthy of love and attention. I was not expecting however, for it to drag on so much without anything significant happening.

I can't say I remember anything that happened between the second episode and the fourteenth, which makes me believe this show could have been condensed into a six episode series.

The acting was fine, nothing to rave about, I don't think the actors are bad, the dialogue was. I would have loved to hear Kyung Suk to say more than three words an episode, he seemed like he could've been a more interesting character than Mi Rae. I think Mi Rae's character had so much potential to become a stronger and more self assured version of herself by the end of the series, instead they just gave us more of the same in each episode. She did grow a little spine in the last two episodes, and that's why I believe this series could've been shorter.

Another thing that was poorly done were the storylines of Yoo Jin, and Woo Young. With Yoo Jin they got us invested in his bar and his decision to leave home, and it seemed like it was leading up to something big, whether it was a relationship with Jung Boon, or him finding another way to do what he loves. Same thing with Woo Young, more than one time we saw him talking about finding someone to love, and it was heavily hinted it would end up being Hyun Jung, but nothing happened. I didn't want a happy cinderella-story ending, but it was a very poor writing decision to hype something up so much and not follow through with it until the end.

Overall, I think the main problem here is the writing. This could've been a really good way to think and talk about such an important topic, I'm sure it would have helped a lot of young girls who I know watch these shows religiously and probably compare themselves to beautiful actors, and think this is what they should look like.

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0/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND

*TRIGGER WARNING - Suicide and mental health concerns are mentioned*
Okay... *cracks knuckles*
I am not trying to bash the drama for no reason. I really want to hand it out to the production team - making a drama out of a well loved webtoon is always risky and they did a good job (I believe based on reviews of people that have watched the drama and read the webtoon) that the portrayal of the source material was done well. I however have many problems with the way the drama (well technically how the webtoon was written). It is infuriating and disappointing to say the least.

1. FAKE NEWS MORAL
*this may be a spoiler* - I am not going to shade Kang Mi Rae for undergoing plastic surgery - never ever. As a woman we have enough people judging our actions and she was bold and brave to be able to make a decision for herself - one that she believed would make her happy. Surgery is not easy nor is it cheap so she must have been really traumatized if she had to go to the extent of surgery. That said, the main social message in the drama comes when they are trying to "SAVE" Hyun Soo Ah from killing/hurting herself At that critical moment our main FL goes on to say something along the lines of you shoulnt have to change yourself and you should love and accept yourself. EXCUSE ME BUT WHERE WAS THIS REALIZATION WHEN SHE WAS UNABLE TO LOVE AND ACCEPT HERSELF??? It is a good message (albeit it is overused everything now seems to be hyping the Love yourself concept so it can come across as insincere) but I do not want to hear it from someone that still struggles to love and accept herself. She was so ashamed of herself and she still rates people and judges them based on their appearance. So for her to come round and say "Love Yourself" undermine the value and importance of loving and appreciating oneself. It would have been better if there was a character foil - a girl that was "ugly" and didn't change herself but learned to accept herself. If she came around and told both Mi Rae and Soo Ah to love themselves as they are inspite of their flaws then it would've been a much more powerful message. So plot-wise this drama was terrible.

2. CLASSIC PRINCE SAVES DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
The main ML's primary job seems to be the hot and popular guy that hangs around our main FL and saves her from distress. I already don't really like the shy, "weak" FL trope - why can't women be strong and independent? - and this Knight in shining armor concept makes it that much worse. I was hoping they could be a strong power couple - independently strong and amazing in their own right and together they are unstoppable. I really wished that for them but I was constantly disappointed.

3. UNREALISTIC TRANSFORMATION
I understand that a big part of the drama is showing how the main FL gains confidence and slowly becomes more and comfortable with herself but it takes years (if not decades) to erase the effects of trauma. If her childhood trauma had a such a deep effect of Mi Rae's self confidence then one year of college cannot flip her to becoming Ms Popular. Even if the world is deeply in love with her she is going to need a lot of time to accept herself so her sudden confidence halfway through not only seems unrealistic but also fake.

There however some good bits - they are not outstanding actors but they definitely have potential. The chemistry between the leads was cute. The OST was also really good. Other than that this drama was truly a miss for me. I watched it only after all the hype it got and I do not think it was worth the hype so sadly I was very disappointed.

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I don't think they could have picked a better "theme" song for this drama. Literally. This was literally a drama about first love and two mains who had zero experience in being with someone else, so a majority of the time they would just stare at each other and say, "what" and "huh?" The mains were cute and dorky and I truly felt the realness of how cringy it is to try and figure out what to do in your first relationship. I typically hate those cringy moments in dramas, but this one really hit home for me as someone who tends to ignore obvious advances because of doubts in my mind that no one would hit on me because I believe that I am not good enough. But that is past tense. I also believe that is also why I couldn't give this a 10/10 (as well as because of the staring contest between the two mains that made up 50% of the drama.) I felt like the main character never fully loved herself - I thought it was going to be a generic drama ending where the girl who has felt ugly her whole life, would at the end find out that she was always beautiful. Maybe even a cheesy ending where we would finally get to see a non-blurred out photo of her as a child (every photo of her as a child was blurred out,) but we didn't get that. It made me feel like the main character didn't get to that point of loving herself fully. Yes, the climax of this drama was her finally realizing that she deserves to be happy as much as everyone else, and she will do the things that will make her happy, like date the guy she likes, but that's it. I do appreciate this drama though because it isn't something that'll happen overnight. It isn't a switch where she can switch on and off. That it'll probably take awhile for her to feel comfortable with her past because her present is filled with the people she loves and that love her back. I also liked how every character in this drama was battling something internally. Mostly it was about these college girls constantly being told that they aren't "ideal types" even though they were perfectly happy with who they were. I do appreciate how different everyone's endings were - not everyone got with the guy they were crushing on the whole drama or found someone who loved them who they were from day one even if that character didn't know it. It was about these characters going through their own internal battle (some more intense than others) and finding happiness within themselves and expressing that to others. I will say though that Yoo Eun and Jang Won Ho are the best. Yoo Eun, the freshman leader, was always a homie towards everyone, even the villain knowing that something was wrong and she wanted to help. She never gave up on anyone. Jan Won Ho was just the cutest freshman who picked up on all the wrong signals and fell for the wrong girl. Honestly, if I was in this drama, I would have loved to date Jang Won Ho. I liked the second love interest, but the moment he told her the reason why he liked her was because she was pretty, I was like...dammit, I was rooting for you! You never lead with that. That is why I liked Do Kyung Suk. When he was asked the question if he liked her because she was pretty, he had said that he liked Kang Mi Rae because she was her. He was in love her soul and her bravery and her dancing skills. Overall, I loved this drama more than I thought I would and would def watch again.

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____

The story line is quite interesting. But I had to agree that the first main female role is a bit too old for her role. The age gap is just not it. But aside from age discussion, this drama is quite overrated because Cha Eun Woo is inside. Of course, there are downhill in this drama. It it quite boring after a few episodes. Overall, the drama is not bad.

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A big message

This drama brought a beautiful message ,"Dont judge any body on the basis of their looks and physique and even Don't compare ourselves with any body ,if you do so you might ruin your life".This drama about girls concern that how girls are judge on basis of their looks and even they compare themselves with others.
This drama show this message by showing two girls individual life one is lead actress and other first potrait as a villain but last episode shows she is a victim that's why she did those thing ,In this way this character also get sympathy from everyone.
Lead actress ,kang me rae who Don't look much preety everybody make fun of her but she endure all such thing because of her parents support but at last she ended up with plastic surgery then to she was not confident about her look slowly slowly she booster her confidence when everyone praise her beauty.
This drama is basically all about that, girls are more concern about their look and physique because of this they hurt themselves or other. Secondly rich people or famous people because of their position they never look after their children and make them do work according to their wish in this way those children become more irritating ,they even Don't trust anybody such things also their in this drama .
This drama synopsis shows that lead actor help her to boost her confidence but such thing not seen in the drama ,if such thing happen this drama become more interesting ,only one word he told to her that he never laugh on her and this make her to like him.
If woo young and Kyeong seo's friend ended up with their girlfriend then I would say ,it is a complete drama.
I like kang me rae parents ,I like their part and more other character like the one who like so a at the starting andhi friend they being some funny moments.
One thing this drama didn't shows that why So A parents abandoned her.they show her past history but that was incomplete.
So according to me many incomplete stories are their in this drama.But it was not bored drama.
Music is amazing.

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Okay. So People are hating this drama calling it mediocre but it is actually the opposite. Most kdramas would never touch the topic of suicide for being criticized by their looks but this series had the guts to do so. This tells a story of a girl who has gone though a rough childhood because of her looks and how she fears to live a life after she got plastic surgery from the acceptance of her father to the society's prejudice towards people who went under the knife.
The characters were played well especially the lead actor. Sure people would tell that he just sits and stands emotionless but that's the "character" that the lead actor possesses. He's supposed to be cold and just goodlooking just like his the character was written in the comic series and was probably the reason why the actor won the best actor award in that year. The lead actress also did a great job in showing her insecurites, probably brought by personal experience of being judged by the society through high beauty standards. Overall the series was heartwarming and will keep you wanting to binge watch.

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A realistic story to which anyone can relate
it shows the real situation in life and a couple who truly love each other regardless of who and what they are.????
The slow love story of Kang Mi rae and Kyung Seok touched my heart.They were so good .
Plot of this drama is breath of fresh air for me... extremely amazing. The way they give us message that inner beauty is most important than outer beauty... is beyond amazing. I liked that all the pairs did not show up together at the end... & it seems real.
Both actors that played kang mi rae and Do kyung seok were excellent in taking their roles. Eun is my favorite character in this drama, she was very understanding and nice with everyone. Every character is important & they all did their best.
Music is amazing...specially 'something in your eyes' is so mesmerizing.
I love this show!!????
If you want to watch something different & meaningful rather than romcom, This is worth watching.❤️❤️❤️
I recommend this drama because it’s something you can learn with. ????????

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An Amazing Drama to watch

I am still currently watching this drama and it's amazing, the nervousness and the awkwardness of first time dating but then slowly settling. I've seen true beauty and when you think about it Eunwoo's acting has immensely improved,the friendship is amazing as well they support each other and look for one another,overall it's a drama worth watching. It also portrays that everything cannot be done just based on your looks and how people will judge you no matter what you do and how feeling insecure about yourself can affect other people as well because if you feel unworthy or insecure about yourself it'll make your confidence fade and you'll think that you don't deserve to be with anyone , even if someone truly likes you for who you are and what you are it's gonna affect them as well since that person truly likes you , Just be yourself and don't worry about what other people would say

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