Title : My ID is Gangnam Beauty, ID: Gangnam Beauty
Episodes : 16
Genre : Romance, Social Message, Drama, Bullying, School, College, Comedy, Cute
Story : 7 out of 10
Characters : 6 out of 10
Cinematography : 8 out of 10
Mt ID is Gangnam Beauty is a drama with a strong message to pass on: looks aren’t everything, love yourself, embrace it, you are beautiful as you are, don’t judge people by their looks. However, I can’t say that in the end, it delivered.
Story
Mi Rae used to be ugly. She has been bullied all her life for being so. So, before going to college she has plastic surgery and she finally gets the looks she always wanted. However, she soon finds out that looks aren’t everything. She is being outcast now because she is a Gangnam beauty, a term used for a pretty girl who had surgery and now she looks like all the other girls in Gangnam who supposed to all have one to make them look pretty. A fellow student even calls her a monster!
While Mi Rae is struggling to find herself and to accept who she is, Kyung Suk, a boy who was always praised for his looks, finds it shallow to be judged by one’s looks. His mother was a beauty and she left him and his sister when they were young, to their politician father, who only cares for his career. Therefore he hates people who only care about superficial things.
Things get complicated, as Kyung Suk and Mi Rae used to be old classmates and now they are both in the same college department. Mi Rae is afraid that Kyung Suk is going to recognize her and reveal to everyone who she was.
The story was really great for the first part of the drama. It was clear that Mi Rae is obsessed with how she looks and how everyone else does as well. Not that she thinks that she is pretty. Her self-esteem is so low that she is always on the lookout for being bullied again and for doing something wrong that will result in her being outcast again. So, there was some solid foundation on which a good character development would have been built. In addition, the second lead lady, Soo Ah, a girl who appeared to be all cute and good willing, but was a snake, in reality, created enough intrigue to keep the interest high.
However, the story focused on the romantic element halfway through and all the way towards the end. Not that the love story wasn’t cute, but for what the drama had to deliver, it just felt like it lost it purpose and just fall for the cliché trap of the rom-com k dramas.
Characters
Mi Rae is a full potential character. She is pretty, but she doesn’t feel like it. She acts just like the time when she was bullied for her looks. Her whole personality is driven by how everyone perceives one another. Even from the beginning, it is clear that looks matter to her. At the initiation day, when she meets her fellow classmates, she starts giving them numbers according to their looks. She even admits it to Kyung Suk that she is that kind of person to whom looks matter. Of course, there were some moments of enlightenment, when she finally realizes that some people weren’t whom she thought they were after she got to know them. However, overall, and all the way to the final episode, Mi Rae had small character development. She only gained some confidence in herself and maybe a new perspective that she was willing to work on.
Im Soo Hyang was nice in her role as Mi Rae. Although her haircut didn’t do her justice, she was perfect acting as the girl who was always scared that everyone would turn on her. She has those cute and soft qualities that helped her with portraying M Rae, even though the script didn’t help her.
Kyung Suk, on the other hand, is Mi Rae’s opposite. He has the looks that make him popular without trying, but he doesn’t care for them. He cares more about his family and his sister especially. As a character, he starts by being this cold, isolated guy who starts to open up, makes friends, learns how to live on his own, makes up with his mom and helps Mi Rae. Actually, there were two things that he mainly did : helping Mi Rae and being spoiled to the point that he was so helpless surviving that it was comical to watch.
I don’t know whether Kyung Suk was supposed to be that emotionless and poker-faced, but Cha Eun Woo was. I’ve seen him in other works and I can’t say that he is a bad actor. He was more energetic and emotional. However, in this one, he feels stiff and just uncomfortable. I was hoping that that was his role for the first episodes before Kyung Suk was starting to open up and change, but he just kept that two emotions face throughout the drama. It also felt like Soo Hyang was the one trying harder to make them appear as a couple, as the chemistry between them felt lukewarm.
Now, for the villain of this drama, Soo Ah. Right from the beginning, an experienced K drama watcher would have sniffed out that something was wrong with her. She was acting all nice to everyone to the point that it was being ridiculous. She, as a natural beauty, was immediately it girl of the campus. And sure enough, soon her true colors came out. She started plotting against everyone and especially Mi Rae. She wanted to be the queen of beauty and to have everyone confirm that to her. More than Mi Rae, she is obsessed with how she looks and to have everyone her slaves.
Jo Woo Ri did a great job making us not like her. Even though she could have been sweet and cute, she actually managed to pull off that evil persona wonderfully.
As for the second lead, Kwak Dong Yeon is an experienced actor, even though he is not that old. Having a solid filmography under his belt, his acting felt natural. His character, Woo Young, moreover, is the daddy-long-legs of the drama, who mentors every character. And yet, he was too driven by looks rather than personality. Nevertheless, he was a strong second lead in the love triangle.
Cinematography
Not much to say about cinematography. The drama was well made, and it didn’t have any mishaps, so it was aesthetically pleasing.
Overall
My final rating for this drama would be 7 out of 10. It would have been 6, but the first half of the drama was good and enjoyable and the messages that represented are respectable.
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