This week I watched Kim Yonghwa's 2006 romcom, 200 Pounds Beauty, by recommendation; and I'll begin by saying if this was once a fave of Korean media enthusiasts, it absolutely did not stand the test of time. As one can expect, it's a glance at Korean beauty standards that's cute enough in its presentation, but layered in mixed messages about self-love and the importance of inner beauty to the point that it's unclear what exactly the moral of the story is. In its murky storyline, one thing is clear, and it's that while accepting yourself as you are is good, changing everything about yourself so people will like you is better (I’m being facetious!). I usually try to avoid spoilers, but this one demands a full analysis because it is, in a word: insane.

To be clear, I support cosmetic surgery, you’re beautiful and want to be more beautiful? As long as you’re doing it for you, absolutely.

Our 200 Pounds Beauty in question is Kang Hanna (Kim Ahjoong), a phone sex operator and ghost singer for K-Pop star, Ammy (Ji Seoyun). Hanna spends her days hiding from the public eye because, you guessed it, she's fat and ugly! Save for her brilliant and beautiful voice which is the only part of her that other people seem to like—and the people in her life won't let her forget it. She has feelings for Ammy's producer, Sangjun (Ju Jinmo), but when she confides this in her friend Jungmin (Kim Hyunsook), she's shot down instantly with talk of how it simply could never happen because pretty girls win and Hanna is a total reject whom no one could ever love—this is her friend, by the way, girl, Hanna didn't even ask!

Everyone agrees that Sangjun is too handsome for Hanna, though he's nice to her and shields her from Ammy's bullying, which seems like a good sign until she overhears him reassuring her that they're just using Hanna for her voice and nothing more. After a final humiliating jab from Ammy, Hanna's reached her limit with thoughts that she has nothing to live for and less to hope for. As she's about to take her own life, Hanna receives a call from a frequent phone sex patron: a plastic surgeon, and it spurs an idea to undergo a dramatic full-body surgery to become one of the pretty girls she envies.

The title 200 Pounds Beauty implies there'll be some revelation that she was beautiful all along because she's a good person, or something, but dear readers that is not so even while the movie attempts to say it—kind of. As far as everyone else is concerned, Hanna went missing, leaving her life, her dog, and her dementia-afflicted father behind only to return a year later fully healed and unrecognizable. Hanna is a fish out of water in her new body, not noticing longing gazes from passersby at the prettiest girl in the world since she's so used to either being ignored or ridiculed. This is actually one of the better parts of the movie, that Hanna’s personality is consistent, she’s ditzy and awkward, but of course it’s perceived cute and quirky post-op. She goes on to audition as a singer for Sangjun's company as her new alias, Jenny, which she passes with flying colors; Sangjun even recognizes her sound but dismisses the notion, eventually revealing to Jenny that he does miss Hanna, much to her surprise. 

Let's backtrack a moment here, first Hanna is fat and ugly which is bad, then she decides to become pretty because that's good. But once she's pretty, she's hit with the double standard that being pretty is good, but only if it's natural—but being prettier with cosmetic surgery is still better than being ugly. Hanna was always a gifted singer, but she's only ready for the stage and Sangjun's attention once she's pretty. Don't get me wrong, I think Sangjun has always respected her skill and he was nicer to her than most people, but he wasn't making advances until she was pretty—meanwhile he's shaming other men in the office for ogling her while she has that fantastic voice, she's so much more than her appearance, right? (Side note: I fully expected there to be some other man in the mix who likes Hanna regardless or something, I have no idea why she’d still like Sangjun after she heard him talking about her, but whatever). Hanna eventually finds that her focus on her own appearance bogs down her relationships and career when she tries too hard to keep up a facade, eventually sharing her deep dark secret with the masses. In the end, Hanna accepts who she used to be, and she thrives as her new self and everyone is happy, the end. 

200 Pounds Beauty is a commentary on Korean beauty standards even beyond what's on the surface with this labyrinth of principles, because while I think its original intent was to encourage self-confidence and highlight superficialism in K-Pop or just in general, it can't help but also say "...But plastic surgery actually is okay, and your life would be better if you were prettier so..." Because, you know, feeling good about yourself is good even if you have to take the bad plastic surgery route and change everything about yourself to achieve it—which is the mentality that made you feel bad about yourself in the first place. Every piece of this puzzle contradicts itself, and the end product is totally unreadable, but kind of a fun romp in a period piece kind of way. 

Among such mixed messages are these:

1. You should accept your flaws, and work on yourself to be better.

2. You need to be good-looking in order to experience healthy self-esteem.

3. Being a good person is what really matters.

4. You need to be good-looking in order to be successful.

5. Working diligently toward your goals pays off.

6. It’s best to be pretty and talented, but it’s okay to be pretty and untalented, if you’re ugly and talented then you’re pretty much worthless.

In light of this barrage of ideals, some good but mostly horrific, the fact remains that Hanna’s life is better after surgery. By the end, she looks back on her old self and acknowledges that she’d gotten her to where she is at present, but she was truly miserable, and being pretty has solved most of her problems—What’s the message here? Which one is it? Is it self-acceptance? Or is it self-acceptance only in retrospect?

At the end of all things, this is a fun movie to talk about if nothing else. The script is so tone-deaf that it’s jarring, the romance is terrible, the melodrama is like molasses, and lead actress Kim Ahjoong has had multiple plastic surgeries herself so there’s this overarching irony in all of it. Not to mention that 200 pounds isn’t even that heavy, but all the fat jokes act like she’s 2000 pounds, Hanna’s crashing through the wood floor, can’t be lifted by three grown men at once, knocking things over because she has no control over the reach of her stupendous booty—200 Pounds Beauty is crazy on the surface and it’s crazy to its core, might be the worst thing I’ve seen this year, so yeah, watch it.

Edited by Cara Musashi