So true.
Go eun chan is gold. Can we have another character like that dramagod???

I remember another actress who did the same: Lee Si Young in Wild Romance.

Go Eun-chan will still be my number one. I just pretend the ending never happened.

I have to disagree. PSJ's character already warmed up to her before she got that makeover — which was not really a makeover...she just put on some makeup and got her hair straight...she even looked the same when she was at home..

And although I appreciate looking very normal and real for your roles, I don't like when drama makers equate it to being a girl who has no sense of cleanliness and decency at all

My Name is Kim Samsoon and Coffee Prince...I have not recovered from how well those actresses did their roles.

It's like you guys read my mind and wrote about it. just this morning i was thinking about shin min ah vs kim sun ah and how impressive it was that she actually put on weight for her role.
After seeing shin min ah in the fat suit it was kind of off putting, im not so much into the drama not because she isn't pretty, she's still gorgeous, its just I'm not sure but it doesn't feel right somehow and it reminds me of that horrible Korean movie where the girl had to undergo loads of surgery and what not so the guy loves her.
This is totally unrelated but how unfair is it that shin min ah and kim woo bin are dating? They must have saved countries in their previous lives.im happy for them but at tha same time i shed one tear ? like the villan in MASK ?

Oh i forgot, Joon yoon hee should be added to the list she was in MY HUSBAND GOT A FAMILY and i didn't know it was her the whole time, its only after i looked up the cast the second time i was watching it that i realised it's her.she pretty much sold me on the whole tom boy act that i couldn't believe it was the same person in LIE TO ME and the CON ARTISTS.

Since MNIKSS was my first kdrama, I had no idea that she gained weight for the drama.. I was so into the drama, the appearances didn't bother me much. I appreciate it more now.

Hwang Jung Eum has bad luck with drama stylists, she had awful hairstyles even in dramas that aren't appearance based like Can You Hear My Heart?

An another actress that ruined her pretty looks this year was Choi Kang Hee in "Heart to Heart".
All flushed and messy hair!!

But it was so necessary to feel with her agarophobia. She even disguised herself in that old grandma. Great performance. The way she was walking, talking, scolding was spot on.

coffee prince is the one and only commitment and dedication I have ever seen , No one comes close , I still have no idea how YEH manage to pull that off soo incredibly that I really believed she was a boy , and they didnt change her at the end , slight girlier look doesnt hurt since she stayed the same the whole relationship and they were damn satisfied with each other

KSA was incredible and so real and relatable in MNKSS
HJE is great too , I really love actresses when they are natural and simple not all glamorous

There's this actress, she-who-shall-not-be-named, *coughdoctorstrangercough* that even though she was supposed to be *suffering*, her skin, nails, and hair were still so clean and shiny and that contributed to my shipping the other girl because I just couldn't get into her character which was crappy to begin with.

Hwang Jung Eum is a champion when comes to this..
Bowl cut in Can You Hear My Heart and Incarnation of Money. Messy curly cut in Full House 2 and She Was Pretty
I think only in Secret and Kill Me Heal Me she has the most normal hair.. :D

MNIKSS and Coffee Prince set the bar high for other dramas. I love how Kim Sun Ah left her "pretty" image and manage Kim Sam Soon much more unforgettable as the unattractive 30yo woman. Props to Yoon Eun Hye too, she really looks like a boy in Coffee Prince, a handsome boy.

"...dramaland loves its image ruinations. Or maybe it’s just that audiences love pretty people making themselves look uglier for the sake of drama."

-Well, there's no big mystery here I think. Kdramas, especially the romantic comedies and love stories, are primarily made for a female audience. For this reason, the heroine needs to be somewhat relatable, otherwise it becomes difficult to emphasize with her. In contrast, the hero must be an object of desire, someone the audience can phantasize about.

For this reason, almost all drama heroines are poor, struggling everyday-women with little fashion sense. Their hair is always cut short and usually curled. Their clothes unfashionable, and often veering on the tomboyish. Just like the viewer. The dreaded second female lead, who threaten to steal the hero, in contrast is almost always very pretty, girly, fashionable. Exactly what the viewer most hate.

The hero meanwhile is never a normal, average joe, with uncombed hair and questionable fashion sense. Can anyone imagine someone like Ahn Se-ha, the average looking actor who plays one of the editors in She Was Pretty, being a hero in a drama? Of course not. Kdrama heroes are handsome, sharply dressed, rich guys the viewer can dream of getting together with.

I am saying that there is anything wrong with this. Love stories on TV is made to appeal to our dreams and fantasies. They are wish fulfillment. But sometimes when I see the idea floated that an actress is better, more serious, more accomplished if she is ugly, or at least willing to "ruin" her looks, I have to say I find this stance more than a little disrespectful.

I also think it would be great if, from time to time, the heroine was rich princess, and the hero an unattractive salary man just to switch things up a little. Of course, he can get a make-up later - somewhere around episode 10!

Lee si young in wild romance as well. She is sooo natural in being a tomboysh bodygurad..she never cared about how she looked and never wore a skirt, plus there was no make over scene either.. The girl just didnt care, she was like a guy, so much that even lee dong wooks character had a fist fight with her, they literally beat the crap out of each other..i couldnt believe it!!

What about Lee Hana in Savvy? Her character is so weird (her granny outfit and glasses, the way she walk and talk) that I find it embarassing sometimes. Yet she can be so adorable AND she doesnt undergo any transformation. Seo In Guk`s character just like her for her heart from the start.

I agree with you girls. I think jdrama nobuta wo produce was the kindda make over drama I like. Less physical and more being comfortable in your skin kindda thing.

I actually didn't mind Hye jins trasformation in she was pretty. Thought she changed to match the work place setting. Plus she wanted th change herself. She decided she was worth it to spend some money on herself which I love. She decided to was worth it. And she changed back to her original look in the end, which I thought was because she didn't work at Most anymore and didn't have to look so upkept. Plus she already gained so much confidence she didn't need the extra confidence boost. And yah, agree with people who say psj already liked her prior to the transformation!!

And mniksm is the best transformation ever. No one can ever beat ksa in their dedication!!

Im watching coffee prince for like the 40th time now episode 8- the beach scene , i don't think i have ever seen such an intense scene, I forget to breathe everytime i watch that scene.

Totally agree with everything!
My Name is Kim Sam Soon had a concept/message and stuck to it.
Whilst some other shows try to justify the sudden changes as being initiated by the character's own will and blah blah blah. It still makes it hard to believe that someone that couldn't be bothered doing anything about their image for a long period of time suddenly gets the urge to do it for themselves...after they have been essentially pushed into by the judgement of society/antagonist anyway. Like with Hye Jin I just couldn't believe - among other things - the financial side of things. She went from not being willing to spend money to buy even cheap shoes to replace her holey ones, to being willing to pay $400 or whatever just to get her hair straightened...might just be me, but having hole-free shoes would be nicer hahaha
Also, not believing Gyuri as a guy (not even taking her acting into account, cause that's a whole other kettle of fish haha) was probably the least of the problems with Nail Shop Paris. That drama fried my brain.

I don't know about Seong Joon starting to like Hye Jin after the make over. I think it was obvious that he was very much struggling with his feelings already before Hye Jin got her makeover (taking the pictures in the beach etc.)
Seong Joon was mean(avoiding the word that starts with a here) to pretty much everyone at the beginning.
Hye Jin's constant nervousness around Seong Joon resulting in serious mess up wasn't helping the cause at all.
But I do agree, Seong Joon's transition from not liking her to liking her should have been delivered with a bit more clarity, though to me it clearly happened before the makeover.

As for Go Eun Chan, I didn't think her coming back a bit girlier ruined anything and went well with the show.
People do change, specially when they are in a relationship. Go Eun Chan's tomboy look didn't result from a rebellious conviction/philosophy.
I thought it was the result of her situation in life more than anything. So to me it was only natural that there would be some sort of transformation once she was no more single.

Huh?

Park Seo-joon's character clearly fell for Hwang Jung-eum's character waaaay before the make-over. I'm literally scartching my head here, are we watching the same drama JB, GF? Also he became nicer way before she got prettier. I believe it was around episode 4 and 5(?) after he acknowledge (only to himself, sadly) his mistake on that which-airport-thing. He started paying attention to her after that which led to him started awkwardly, sometimes embarrassingly trying to be nicer.

I have to agree, the drama could do without the make-over. They could do with attitude-over though. For every single character in the drama, yes even seemingly everyone favorite character, Kim Shin-hyuk. Oh, Hye-jin parents got a pass.

my daughter has mentioned it several times that she's too fat for Korea ... and yet, she's a competitive figure skater with all her doubles, including her double axel ... so me thinks something is screwed up with the Korean standard of beauty. Especially when it would seem that for a majority of actresses, the only way to get "there" is through plastic surgery.

love this write up. agree that they should let the "ugly" heroine stay the way she is - whether plump, freckly, frizzy haired etc. By making over the girl with the heart of gold, it seems to be promoting the misconception that having a good heart is not enough - girls need to also look flawless and feminine/sexy/cute (urgh). with more youngster watching K dramas by the truckloads, I really appreciate MNIKSS and SWP where the heroine looked exactly the same at the end as at the first ep!

Why the Reply main girls became the same over the top comical type after Eun Ji?

There was another lesser known actress who gained weight for a movie. I just don't remember what the movie was.

I agree with this because I felt a bit distant to SWP after the make-over. It's not just that but there are other factors to that lead me to stop watching.

Go Ara was a revelation! I've always lumped her with pretty actresses who can't act category but she was so awesome in 94!

I'm more upset that Shin Mina's character is supposed to be approx. 170 lbs... for a woman who is roughly 5'8", the prosthetics they gave her would put her at a much heavier weight. It encourages the idea that you have to be a size 00 to be beautiful and anything over 100 lbs makes you a whale.

I really really want to see a drama one day where they cast a fat girl to play a fat girl, and she stays fat, and she is loved and sought after JUST AS SHE IS. And 'as she is' is awesome for so many reasons, nothing to do with how she looks.

Thank you, ladies, and now I want to re-watch MNIKSS for the 8th time.

watching kdramas and reading poeple's ideas has made me realise people like ugly people in dramaland only when the characters' are played with beautiful actresses faking ugliness. When a not so beautiful actress plays the same role, people are all disgusted and this shows that people have either become or always been a bunch of shallow creatures.