After finally being pushed to her limit, and after more than one failed suicide attempt, she does the last thing she feels she can do to live a happy life. The story following the surgery is about her journey to accepting her new self while not completely forgetting her old self.
Acting/Cast: I loved the acting and the cast.
Kim Ah Joong did an amazing job of portraying an overweight person, and an amazing job of portraying the skinny person she becomes. In most shows/movies like that, the girl is instantly 500% more confident, while Kim Ah Joong still had to get used to people not gawking at her for being the "ugly, fat chick." Even little things, like learning to walk in heels, were a joy to watch.
I'm still unsure about Joo Jin Mo's character. He seemed to have two different opinions depending on who he was with, so I wasn't really sure what think about him. I suppose, if I ignore the fact that his character confused me, I can easily say his acting was amazing.
Music: Loved the music throughout the movie.
Rewatch Value: I could definitely see myself rewatching this movie often. Definitely. The last 10 minutes or so of the movie (mostly the speech in particular) had me bawling. Just full-on bawling.
Overall: Overall, even though I loved the movie, I had to give it an 8.
While the character herself makes it known that the surgery is for herself, and not for anybody else, it doesn't erase the fact that, ultimately, this was a movie about a person who's life becomes better only after becoming pretty in society's eye. It's just not the type of message I enjoy seeing in the media.
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The story is good , the cast was nice and the music was beautiful. I thought it would've been much better if they replaced plastic surgery with a normal weight loss but either ways I enjoyed it till the very last end.
It was short, cute and most of all entertaining without any blank moments.
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It's a cute and fun love story about a girl who is very fat but has a beautiful voice. The first thing I didn't like about it was that she was not ugly, she was just fat (which a diet could 'cure') but no; to make the 'renovation' to her new self she (like most of koreans) decided to make a thousand plastics, changing completely who she was (to the point of taking a new identity).
After altering her physical looks she had to change her mentality and way of thinking that she was no longer the ugly (only in her head) and fat girl but the hot woman.
I must say I actually I like her way more before the transformation because (in my point of view) she became like everyone else (even the girls she hated before the transformation) and was not her unique self anymore.
For this movie I suggest you watch it and make your own opinion.
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This review may contain spoilers
I had a problem with the very end of this movie. This movie spent most of it's time suggesting that what is inside a person is more attractive than the outside, and can't be erased. It then tacked on an ending- i mean the very last part- that undid all that. This isn't a spoiler. I'm not talking about the main character at all. Basically, I liked this movie but was mildly uncomfortable with it. Was this review helpful to you?
Other than that it was really bad and i don't recommend it at all.
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Story-It's great because it's about a real problem in Korea, where in order to get married or become an actress a woman has to go under "the knife". Most korean Hallyu stars have some kind of plastic surgery, altohugh not as extreme as Hanna's. The thing that I liked but at the same time didn't like about this movie was the love story. It really isn't developed, and the male lead is shown as a very shallow person.
Acting-I thought it was really good, specially Kim Ah Joong's because she protrays prefectly what a person goes through after an important change.
Music-Although it's supposed to be a movie about music, it didn't really stand out.
Rewatch Value-I've watched at least 10 times; it just gets better ;)
Overall-Solid nine. It isn't the best movie but it's really funny and gets you to think for a while, it isn't your typical romcom.
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I'm always a bit weary of movies that play with the whole fat-to-skinny dynamic since they tend to lazily default to tasteless jokes around how disgusting and lazy overweight people are. To this movie's credit, apart from one awkward joke in the beginning, it navigated around that tension well, finding humor in both Hanna's post and pre-surgery appearance and focusing more on the absurd reactions of those around her as opposed to making her the butt of the jokes. Well done, film.
Where this movie lost me was in the writing and the characterization. The plot barely has such a haphazard framework that the scenes seemed to be just random occurrences with barely any connection between them. Worse, the characters were extremely 2-D. The main antagonist barely has any screen time, and her machinations occur off screen so tension never really develops between her and our heroine. In fact, she's not even the catalyst for the movie's climax: why have an antagonist at all? As for the main love interest... Well, don't watch this if you're looking for a love story. His flat performance and inability to garner any sympathy would have ruined it for you anyway.
The exception to the above is main actress Kim Ah Jung, who perfectly captured the artificiality and fragility of "plastic" women that I found myself wincing and worrying that her nose would just pop off mid-line. Her singing voice is also beautiful and saved the terrible Korean covers of various English songs from being too torturous to my ears. I expected better from a movie set in the music world. Unfortunately, Kim Jung Ah could not escape the terrible script, and her character also suffers from 2-dimensionality. I had no idea that she was suffering an identity crisis until the climax, and because of that, the ending seemed forced, insincere, and just plain cheesy. Once again, honest words and tears smooths over all problems, believability be darned.
I do think 200 Pounds Beauty had the potential to be a good film if it had more weight to it. There were laugh out loud moments, but there could have been more, especially given the unexpected dark turn the movie took toward the end. A drama adaptation, in which characters and back stories are explored in more depth, would be more than welcomed on my part in the perhaps misguided hope that this story can be done justice.
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Although Koreans are very explicit on the importance of having good looks, which seems superficial but is actually true in our subconscious mind, this film seems to support plastic surgury and hence downgrading women's social status.
Korean society's view on beauty is a double edged sword. On the one hand, Koreans illuminated the air headed me which used to believe in baloney such as "don't need to value appearance too much, inner beauty is important". HAHA. Bull -_- Appearance is very important.
On the other hand, this pressure to get each part of their bodies beautiful is an obsessive compulsive disorder. Reading articles that compliment female celebrities on their skinniness which elevated their beauty to qualities that viewers should ADMIRE, forcing girls to either feel like they are an unappreciated and ugly piece of $h!t or need to get surgery right away. Korean beauty standards are set in stone: pale and clear skin, big eyes with double eyelids, high noses, square shoulders in men's case...
To look at this positively, I'm thankful that Koreans made me understand that I should do whatever I can to be beautiful(I won't do plastic surgery though). Also, I'm glad that I am not a girl from Korea, and I won't be under so much pressure.
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Story: What doesn’t sound interesting about this movie? Not only is it funny and cute, it also contains a very important message. The way I saw the message is, beauty equals corruption. Extensive plastic surgery, eating disorders and such. I’m not saying being beautiful is wrong or corrupt. Only the way some people go about achieving it.
I found this movie very funny, the way people treated her, pre and post-surgery. I loved Ha-na’s character and disliked others, but that’s part of the fun of watching this movie. Seeing how people react and change the way they are and think. There was a ton of growth in several of the characters through out this movie. It isn’t just a shallow movie with funny parts. Kim Ah-Joong has you laughing within the first ten minutes.
Music: Some of the best music I’ve ever heard. Kim Ah-Joong, who played Ha-na and Jenny sang all of the songs, including Maria. I’d watch this movie again just to hear her sing.
Cast/Acting: In addition to a beautiful voice, she can really act. Kim Ah-Joong is a triple threat, displayed well in this production. She was very sincere and put a lot of work into her performance. Ji Seo-Yun, who played antagonist Amy, did an excellent job as well.
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