I am genuinely surprised by the amount of high the ratings for this drama. This drama is all concept and zero plot. It's finally over and I'm still waiting for a coherent storyline. There were enough moments that I found interesting or even entertaining, to keep me from dropping this drama early on, but I'm convinced that not much planning went into the making of "The Beauty Inside", and they were just relying on the actors to make this weird idea work. For me, that simply wasn't enough. Clearly, this is a movie plot idea stretched beyond its means to fit a drama format (Something I realized too late).

I won't go into the details, but this is basically a story about two people who seem uniquely matched, and in some ways ill-fated. There is also a general theme about empathy and opposites attracting, which is also echoed by a secondary couple. These are very common themes in Kdramaland, but usually, the story becomes more involved and engaging with each new episode. The opposite happened to me while watching this. Everything interesting happens early on and then too much of the time is filled with repetitive tropes and boring scenes full of annoying banter that goes nowhere and adds nothing to the overall story. Her uniqueness remains unexplained for the entirety of the show, and his issue is resolved so simply that it almost felt like cheating. Well, at least there's a great pairing to carry the show, right? Well, yes... and no.

The cast is lead by Seo Hyun Jin as Han Se Gye, who I am a big fan of, and she hasn't disappointed me yet. Instead of playing the quirky odd lead, here she plays a celebrated actress... but don't worry, her quirky charm still shines. She is matched by Lee Min Ki as Seo Do Jae, who usually takes some time to grow on me. He is always super low key and straight-faced in the roles I've seen him in, and this is no different. His robotic charm and her unpredictable energy do work well together for the most part, and they have good chemistry, especially in the earlier episodes. The main problem I had with them is that, once they didn't have a strong conflict to play off of, their scenes started to feel more forced and cringe-worthy. I feel like sometimes they tried too hard to be cute together, and it just turned out to be more annoying than adorable.

The supporting cast was a mixed bag of people I really liked and people I could barely stand. Lee Tae Ri and Moon Ji In both played their loyal assistant/bff roles well, and had good chemistry with their bosses, but one character who I was never really sold on was Ahn Jae Hyun as Ryu Eun Ho. I honestly don't get his appeal at all. Much like Lee Min Ki, I've always seen him play low key characters, but having two low energy males in one drama felt like a downer at times. My problem with Ahn Jae Hyun is that his character is meant to be super attractive and innocently charming, but to me, he just felt subtly arrogant and often boring. The dog's acting had more range than him. Most of his scenes, especially the drinking scenes with Han Se Gye & Woo Mi, made me want to skip all of his dialogue completely. The one thing that made me almost like his character was his chemistry with one of my favorite characters in the whole show, Lee Da Hee as Sa Ra. I loved Sa Ra's mean but reluctantly nice attitude, and matching her with a guy wanting to be a priest made their relationship fun to watch. There were times I looked forward to their scenes together as much as I did the main couple, but like the main couple, their story became very repetitive and dull towards the end.

Also, keep an eye out for lots of glaring cameos! It's almost like actor product placement lol!

Would I watch this again? Definitely not. There's just way too much filler to justify 16 long episodes worth of show, and every episode felt like an eternity to me! I even fell asleep while watching more than once. I would have to skip through most of the scenes just to rewatch the parts I like. Also, the last 2 episodes were so incredibly boring that just watching all the combined flashbacks would basically give you the entire drama in a nutshell. The ending didn't do much as far as closure or answers either, so even completing this drama until the end the first time felt like a waste of time.

Overall, I wish this drama was better since there was the potential for it to be good, but I think the lack of a strong storyline, the repetitive moments and flashback abuse, the way too easily resolved conflicts, and cheesy dialogue make it impossible for me to recommend this drama, even to die-hard romcom fans. There was a missed opportunity to create a really interesting love story, but instead, they decided to go with standard clichés and a super light-hearted and safe plot that won't make audiences too sad or upset. They even tried to imply a meaning for the main character's "identity crisis", but it came across to me as an afterthought and a stretch that failed to give this drama the substance it was going for.

But I guess, like beauty, this drama is in the eye of the beholder. Count me among those who are unimpressed with "The Beauty Inside".