The Beauty Inside (2015) is a South Korean movie with an interesting premise. On his eighteenth birthday, a heterosexual young man named Woo-jin discovers that everyday, he wakes up looking like someone else—a person with a different skin color, gender, nationality and/or age. Other than his mother and his best friend, will he ever find someone that he can share his secret with? Will he ever find someone who can love him for who he is?
I did not know the following when I watched this movie, but apparently this movie is a remake of an American tv social series with a single season containing six episodes starring Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and it has since become a TV series in South Korea with a few tweaks to the premise such as the love interest is a man who suffers from prosopagnosia, i.e. face blindness. In addition, there will be an American remake of this film starring Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke. I’m completely uninterested in the South Korean series, and I love Clarke as Khalessi, but she isn’t that great an actor so hard pass to the American remake of the South Korean cinematic remake of an American mini-series. If anyone knows how to watch the original series because I really enjoy Grace and Winstead, please let me know!
The Beauty Inside is a great example of premise fiction-a fictional, creative work that explores realistic reactions to an extraordinary event. A judicious use of fantastic elements is an effective way to spice up any genre and spark character development without instantly following well-worn tropes from the beginning. I needed to be tricked into watching a romantic drama.
I was not wild about the idea that when he changed appearance, sometimes it meant changing nationalities so he would suddenly not be able to speak Korean. He is supposed to be the same inside so if he would still think in Korean, he should still speak Korean. Also appearances do not equal nationalities. I have no idea the level of diversity in South Korea, but black and white people are from all countries at this point so there is no guarantee what language would correspond to their appearance. Some transformations got lost in translation. Because I don’t speak Korean, and I can’t automatically tell from looking at an Asian person which country that person is from so when the character was suddenly Japanese and speaking in Japanese, I was clueless because everything is subtitles to me. Otherwise I enjoyed the premise.
I was really interested in the practical consequences, and The Beauty Inside addressed those issues quite well except that the character was not always wealthy so how could he afford the transformation logistics initially? I thought that it was brilliant to make his choice in career reflect the way that he experiences the world, and how that career and the way that he expressed himself became a gateway to meet someone with similar interests. I don’t buy that any young adult has never stayed up all night at least once in his or her life especially with the invention of electricity and public transportation.
The acting of all the people who played Woo-jin was incredible because every different actor still managed to convince me that they were playing the same person! A special kudos goes to the woman who is in the scene explaining everything to the love interest. She was probably the best Woo-jin of the lot.
The Beauty Inside is two hours seven minutes long, and if it was a half hour shorter, I probably would have loved it, but it wore out its welcome and became repetitive in its maudlin tortured our love can never be third act. The third act really relies on tension only implied in earlier scenes.
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It is obvious why he couldn’t sustain a relationship. When he has one night stands, he has to leave immediately and can’t stay the night because what starts off as a consensual sexual relationship can suddenly transform into accusations of criminal misconduct ranging from home invasion to sexual assault or worst. The movie shies away from exploring the idea of whether or not this is even consent since these women have no idea what they are consenting to. It is rape to sleep with someone believing that they are someone else, but since he is still the same on the inside….I don’t think there are simple answers, and I don’t think that Woo-jin intends rape, but the whole thing is played for laughs—you look hot tonight so it will be easier for you to go out and get a chick. Also when Woo-jin is the hot chick, there is a deal breaking moment for mw when his friend begs to sleep with him because it is the best opportunity that the friend will ever get to have sex with a hot girl—not funny. It isn’t the 1970 or 1980s anymore-that Benny Hill or Three’s Company horny dude act isn’t cute. You just asked your friend to be a living, breathing fleshlight. Also just because he is an adult inside does not mean the child that he is right now can’t die from alcohol poisoning. This movie is reckless in all the wrong ways.
The flip side of that scenario is how do people view the woman who has completely accepted Woo-jin for who he is. The Beauty Inside does not go into detail, but implies that there seems to be a biological side effect of pairing with an involuntary shape shifter: mental deterioration. It is implied that it is very difficult to suppress a natural instinct to protect herself against sexual assault from strangers and instead welcome sexual advances from a physical stranger every day. The movie never depicts others’ reactions to her dating a different man or woman every day, but basically the stress of being seen and acting like a promiscuous woman makes her lose her mind. On one hand, I buy it because people suck, and on the other, it seems to come out of left field at the eleventh hour as if the filmmakers were really concerned about the moral implications of the scenario that they created and did not want to undermine gender norms and mores for South Korean single women. I can’t take something seriously if it isn’t teased out earlier in the movie by the character throughout the relationship. Would the movie take the same route if the love interest were a heterosexual man? Would he be thrilled to get to sleep with a different woman every night? I’m not watching the series so you’ll have to tell me. I know that there has to be some threat to love so we can enjoy the denouement, but this one felt clunky like the psychological equivalent of a dainty cough being a sign of tuberculosis, but the character still gets to look fabulous.
If you do decide to see The Beauty Inside, definitely don’t stop watching at the end credits. Unfortunately the post credit scenes aren’t entirely translated, but the first one is key to understanding more about Woo-jin. If you like romantic dramas, check it out, but such a problematic film in terms of pacing and unintended disturbing implications that I can’t recommend it without caveats. If you don’t like subtitles, definitely skip it.
