321. My ID is Gangnam Beauty 내 아이디는 강남미인 (2018) Korean

Im Soo Hyang, Cha Eun Woo, Jo Woo Ri, Kwak Dong Yeon

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A+

I really had to steel myself up to watch this because you might know how I feel about surgery scenes and how it keeps me from watching medical dramas because boo surgery scenes every single episode. Well plastic surgery is worse I guess because it is on the face and makes me cringe. So I started this one, got to the scene where the scalpel was touching the face and I was like "nope!" and stopped. But I kept seeing cute spoilers and I wanted to watch it, so I tried again, and looked away at the scalpely parts. This show was much more about how beauty standards and bullying affect women than it was about plastic surgery. That was more the byproduct of how Korea views women and beauty. So that scene at the start was actually very well done and poignant. The montage between her childhood trauma from bullying and the surgery scenes was super well done. It hit me in the feels, and really told you what this show was going to be about.

It was actually really good. I loved all the characters showed how women navigated through the messed up world of objectification and obsession with beauty. This seemed to be magnified to make it obvious, but I wouldn't know how blatant the objectification of women on Korean college campuses is, but this seemed a bit over the top. But since it was to create the context, it worked although it was awful. There obviously some characters that were not likeable. Like 50% of the men in the show. But I also really struggled with Soo Ah, who seemed at first to be an evil bitca for no reason. However, I did like how we slowly got to know of how even she had a backstory that was messed up and didn't forgive her behavior but helped us to understand her.

So the main couple might just be the cutest things ever. Their connection is cute. He's of course the hottest guy is school, while she became one of the hottest girls through a total surgical make over, however their connection comes from their middle school experience as classmates when they were both lonely and struggling. I love how protective of her he is, and even how bad at expressing himself he is. He is like a little chick who is cute but has really bad social skills, and she is one of the only people who understands him for him rather than how hot he is (although I think she understands that too). He likes her because of who she was and is as a person, and could care less about looks.

I also like that the second male lead, Kwak Dong Yeon, is a really nice guy. I was worried that he was just going to be another shallow douche, but while he is a bit shallow with his love at first sight bit, he was solidly nice and treated everyone good. I still ship him with the tomboy. She was my favorite. I absolutely loved her. I'm sad she was in it less than others. I also loved the bromance between him and Astroboy.

Overall I was really impressed. I thought all the actors did a really good job. The story was interesting. It was cute. It made me smile. I only struggled with bitca and scalpel scene. Which for a 16 episode drama is really good.