Miss Korea

Well, it took about four months, but I finally finished Miss Korea - I'm a little sad about it, because there was something warm and comforting about this strange little universe and all the strange little people in it. I don't want to let it go.

NOTE: Vague ending spoilers.

Set in 1997, during the IMF Crisis that hit Korea, Hyung-joon and his friends run a little cosmetics company - they have a great new product they're sure will take the world by storm, but are barely keeping the company afloat. Hence, Hyung-joon seeks out Ji-young, his first love from high school, with the intention of making her into Miss Korea so he can feed off the publicity. But Ji-young is just a struggling elevator girl now, not the confident beauty she used to be.

I unconditionally adored this show - it was by no means perfect, but I loved it. Despite the fact it adopted a premise that so many of us likely cannot imagine living through, the conflicts felt so close to home. Miss Korea struck a chord with me, because it was about desperation and the lengths one will go to if the pressure is high enough. For people like Hyung-joon and Ji-young, pride isn't important as long as they can get by, as long as they can put themselves first for once, and that deeply resonates with me. I found the show comforting and uplifting for that reason.
  They took what could have turned into a very superficial show about beauty standards and instead made it both a criticism of the toxic competition in pageants, and  a depiction of the doors that hugely publicised events like Miss Korea can open for regular people. The poster above perfectly reflects one of the shows biggest themes - conventional beauty by society's standards isn't born, it's made. Something can always be improved or tweaked, and that's pretty disgusting.

  I'm glad that Miss Korea was my first exposure to Lee Yeon-hee as an actress, because it's obvious that she identified with the role and put absolutely everything into Ji-young. She was hardly this stunning in Reunited Worlds. Lee Seon-kyun is great in everything, so it's unsurprising that his vulnerable Hyung-joon managed to be frustrating and charming at once. The real surprise was how love I enjoyed the sub-story between scene-stealers Song Seon-mi and Lee Sung-min. He, in particular, was fantastic. The actors were all appropriate and brought their characters to life.

  But perhaps they were too realistic? Miss Korea seemed fickle, in the sense that the narrative went back and forth about whether or not certain characters would prove to be obstacles for our heroes. It was a little inconsistent. This is my only problem with the drama - sometimes it's just so hard to keep up with and follow one characters's train of thought, because they go all over the place.

  The direction was quirky and refreshing. I loved how it played into the time period, like the endings of the episodes designed to look like film reel. Miss Korea looked like it was washed with sepia.

  I feel like I've lived this universe for so long, I just want to stay. The semi-open ending is okay, because I can easily infer where the characters may go from where we left them - Team Vivi will keep fighting to keep their place in the cosmetics world, with Oppa supporting Ji-young no matter what she chooses to do with herself, and life will go on for them all. I have to praise the writer for the way the show wrapped up, because it didn't wrap up at all - we just hit pause. I think it's a good thing that she fleshed out her characters to such a degree that she couldn't possibly just shut the book on their lives.