By Tatiana Ho
The Beauty Inside, a Korean movie directed by Baek Jong-Yeol, is a romantic film centered around a shape shifting character. Previously based on American mini series also titled The Beauty Inside, the main character Kim Woo-Jin changes his face every day after he wakes up from a night’s sleep. This condition forces Woo-Jin to live a life of seclusion and make money through an online furniture store in which he designs and handcrafts the products. However, this life of seclusion changes once Woo-Jin meets furniture store employee, Yi Soo. From this point on, viewers watch the struggle between learning to handle a relationship while simultaneously learning the effects of dating someone with a different face every day.
The main character within the film is played by over one hundred different actors, including some well known faces such as: Park Seo Joon, Chun Woo Hee, and Lee Hyun Woo. With all these faces to portray one character, the most impressive thing was the actors’ ability to make the viewer believe it is the same person. This also goes along to compliment the co star, Han Hyo Joo, who remains the same with every different Woo Jin as if nothing had changed.
The film is used to touch on an underlying topic of self love, which is shown is an extreme manner that would not happen in real life. The main character is filled with a lot of self loathing throughout the story because he cannot live a normal life. It is only when girlfriend Yi Soo is introduced, that Woo Jin can learn to love himself for the person he truly is inside. The Beauty Inside also shows the effects the relationship has on Yi Soo, as she learns to love a person through personality and not appearance. In a society where emphasis is placed mostly on a person’s outward portrayal, the film is a testament to what true love is suppose to be based on.
The movie was released first in Korea on August of 2015, and in the United States on September of 2015. With english subtitles, the film is not hard to get into for English viewers. To watch the trailer go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XcK4Elpn0s
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