Han Hyo-joo and the many faces of the man who loves her

96 June 2, 2015June 2, 2015

Han Hyo-joo and the many faces of the man who loves her

by girlfriday

I’ve been really impatient for the first teaser for Beauty Inside, and it’s finally here. The supernatural romance movie is the first feature film outing from commercial director Baek Jong-yeol, about a man who wakes up in a different body every time he goes to sleep, and the woman who comes to love him anyway. Han Hyo-joo (C’est Si Bon, Cold Eyes) stars as Yi-soo, the woman that our hero Woo-jin loves, while Woo-jin is played by a whopping 21 actors:

Yoo Yeon-seok (Warm and Cozy), Lee Jin-wook (Three Musketeers), Park Seo-joon (Kill Me, Heal Me), Park Shin-hye (Pinocchio), Lee Dong-wook (Hotel King), Lee Hyun-woo (The Technicians), Lee Beom-soo (Triangle), Kim Dae-myung (Misaeng), Kim Sang-ho (Doctor Stranger), Chun Woo-hee (Han Gong-ju), Go Ah-sung (Heard It Through the Grapevine), Kim Joo-hyuk (Gu-am Heo Jun), Ueno Juri (Alice’s Thorn), and Seo Kang-joon (What’s With This Family), just to name a few.

It’s an interesting concept that had me curious from the start, because you either get a really great ensemble with a boatload of stars, or it becomes a disjointed cameo parade. But I have to say, each of these actors playing one character does make me want to watch the movie to satisfy my curiosity alone. I can’t even tell you which of them is the real Woo-jin, since we aren’t told, but in keeping with the “beauty is on the inside” theme, it hopefully won’t matter if the film does its job. Though it’d be a nice cosmic reward if she loved the bald ajusshi and got Yoo Yeon-seok at the end, wouldn’t it?

The teaser starts with a friend introducing Woo-jin (played by Lee Jin-wook): “This oppa is really good-looking isn’t he? It doesn’t matter. When he sleeps and wakes up, his face always changes. He wakes up Chinese, then he wakes up a woman. One time, he woke up this REALLY pretty woman.” Cut to: Park Shin-hye, slapping away the same friend for drunk-flirting with him in that body. Ha.

Then we switch to Woo-jin’s narration as we see more versions of him (voiceover by Yoo Yeon-seok): “Yesterday, my hand was bigger than my face, but today my face is twice as big. I don’t know why I became this way, or how I can get back to normal. When I sleep and wake up, I look different.” The captions introduce Han Hyo-joo as the one person he’s found that he wants to share his secret with. We see him approaching her every day as a different person, always having to start all over with her.

The movie’s taglines are: “I love you, no matter what I look like today.” “I love you, no matter what you look like today.” I really like the romantic notion that she might come to recognize him somehow inside all of these different people, or fall in love with him anew every day, like 50 First Dates. And that it might not matter if he were tall or short, old or young, or even man or woman on the outside. I love the potential of that story, and I’m happy that it looks like a sweet romance with a touch of humor and whimsy.

Beauty Inside hits theaters in July.

Via Osen, TV Report

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51 Dissenter

November 1, 2015 at 4:42 PM

I just finished watching this movie. It was my first time seeing Chun Woo-hee on screen and I was so impressed. I didn't even know her name and I had to look her up. The way she walked was like a guy in a woman's body. Her facial expressions - she was amazing.

As for the movie, I thought it was going to be a funny, quirky rom-com. Instead, it tried to be a indy romantic melo. The problem is the that director got too caught up in showing how many faces Woo Jin went through and each doing the same thing that it stagnated the movie. In my opinion, that time could have been better spent showing how the different Woo Jins were the same on the inside. I wanted to be emotionally invested in Woo Jin and recognize him no matter what face he wore. But because I was distracted by all the faces, I barely got to know him and fall in love with him. I mean if you're not going to excite me with laugh-out-loud moments then you should capture my heart. Don't bore me snapshots of different faces. I felt that the movie was shot to make it look deeper than it felt (which completely goes against the premise of the movie). I hear the same director is involved in the Chinese remake and I'm a bit disappointed. It's such an interesting premise that I really would have liked to see someone else's spin on it. The movie did have it's moments and it definitely wasn't bad, but, to me, it fell short.

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52 vanilla_latte

March 19, 2016 at 1:58 PM

Finally saw this movie on my flight to Japan. Overall I enjoyed it. It was my first time seeing this actress (HHJ) and I really like her acting.

The positive side: Her chemistry with a lot of the actors in the film made it work. I really liked her scenes with PSJ and the Japanese actress (sorry I don't know her name but she was really good).
The negative side: The ending was a bit too idealistic for me and I think the same problem will recur again. It was hard for me to know who Jin Woo really was since his face changes all the time. By the time you get comfortable, he's gone. I could see why she would have a hard time in a relationship like that. It seems very difficult.