She Was Pretty

She Was Pretty

6/10

She Was Pretty 

Genre:                                   Episodes: 16                                   Year: 2015

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Kim Hye Jin and Ji Sung Joon were first loves when they were children, but after Sung Joon’s family moves away the two lose contact. Hye Jin was a popular, pretty young girl while Sung Joon was chubby and bullied. Many years later the two meet again as adults. Hye Jin is jobless and has lost her childhood beauty, so is embarrassed to face Sung Joon who has become handsome and successful. She asks her beautiful friend Min Ha Ri to pretend to be her for one day and end all ties with Sung Joon. 

Cast:

Hwang Jung Eum (Kim Hye Jin)

Park Seo Joon (Ji Sung Joon)

Choi Siwon (Kim Shin Hyuk)

Go Joon Hee (Min Ha Ri)

General Thoughts:

‘She Was Pretty’ is to ‘Kill Me, Heal Me’ what ‘Heartstrings’ was to ‘You’re Beautiful’. It takes the lead actress from a very successful drama and pairs her with the second male lead of said drama, with less plot and less chemistry. Personally it took me a long time to begin to root for any of our characters, and even then the characters flip-flopped around so much that I was pretty emotionally uninvested with all of them.

Oh, can't you just feel the love?

The pure saving grace of this drama is Choi Siwon. Sure, Park Seo Joon was handsome and delivered his cute scenes well, but his character, Ji Sung Joon, was rather bland and a tad lacking. We were a significant way through the drama before poor Sung Joon even had scenes that weren’t just him yelling or looking disdainfully at our heroine.

Because verbal abuse is sooooo sexy

Whereas Kim Shin Hyuk (Choi Siwon) was vibrant and hilarious from the get-go. He was always sweet towards our leading lady (which does more to endear a character than when he tells her she’s retarded) and gave the impression that he was deeply fond of her for who she was- not what she did or what she looked like. Now our leading lady…was…loud. Generally speaking, I like Hwang Jung Eum as an actress- she can be very, very good. But she can also come across as a little overacted and shrieky. Which is unfortunately how she appeared for a good portion of this drama. What only increased this irritation at her loudness was the fact that she turned so soft and refused to defend herself in front of Sung Joon’s harsh, and often uncalled for, criticism. This did tone down as the drama progressed on, and by the time our leads started falling for each other, Hye Jin was acting like a normal human being. Sadly, the volume did pick up a little again in the last few episodes. The supporting cast were acceptable enough, but did fade into the background quite a lot. Except for our four main characters no one else got much screen time or development. But we did have that office couple development which was adorable.

Cutely random interlude

In regards to the plot, there’s basically none to speak of. In regards to the soundtrack, I remember nothing except for ‘Close To You’ by the Carpenters- and you can hardly credit the drama for that.

What Was Great:

American Prince Choi Siwon:

What a show carrier. Initially, I cared nothing for our leading man- I was all for Siwon. Sometimes I forget what all the fuss is about (I know- blasphemy!), but then I watch him in something, anything, and I completely remember why the world is filled with so much Siwon love.

Prince Choi Siwon- the pinnacle of sophistication

Choi Siwon has previously displayed that he is a capable actor, but in this drama he fits so comfortably into his character that it was pure magic. I can’t even imagine any other actor as goofy, childish Kim Shin Hyuk. Much of the beauty of the character was Siwon’s natural charm and adorable dorkiness. You can’t deny it- the man just oozes charisma (no matter how goofy he's being).

I really like you as a human, Choi Siwon

However, Siwon was able to alter these personal traits and present them in a way that was distinctly ‘Un-Siwon-ish’. You never thought you were watching Siwon in a drama-world (as you do with some other idol-actors) because he was completely able to throw himself into character and become an entirely different person. He nailed all the smaller parts of acting his character too- it was easy to tell when Shin Hyuk was childishly happy and when he was pretending to be childishly happy, all by minute movements in Choi Siwon’s expressions. To go along with the Prince of Idol-Actors, we had Kim Shin Hyuk- who was just an amazing character. He was delightfully goofy and funny, but had a whole lot of depth going on beneath the surface. Sure, we weren’t exactly made privy to what that depth was, but you could tell it was there. He always appreciated and looked out for our heroine, and found her perfect the way she was- unlike the rest of the world that wanted to change her. He also appeared to love her for who she was presently, as he didn’t have a romanticised view of her due to past love the way Sung Joon did. Shin Hyuk always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else- knowing exactly what was going on and urging other characters, in a gentle yet convincing way, to face their issues and tell the truth. Thank God. Because all that hiding and lying just gets old after a while.

It's Choi Siwon- of course he gets shirtless at least once

Combining this gorgeous character with gorgeous Siwon was just a recipe for Mass Second Lead Syndrome (sorry Park Seo Joon). If the fans needed ‘She Was Pretty’ to satisfy their couple-craving after ‘Kill Me, Heal Me’, I think we’re going to need another drama now starring Hwang Jang Eum and Choi Siwon. We promise we can wait the five million years (21 months) it takes for Siwon to get out of military service.

Girlfriends:

It’s painfully rare for K-Dramas to showcase two close female friends. There’s an abundance of bromances in the dramas, however girl friends don’t seem to happen often. Instead, we usually only get b*tchy, competitive love rivals as our second female leads, with the heroine’s friends being relegated to much smaller support roles.

Yay for quality female friendships

However, here we have a delightful example of how sweet and touching friendship can be between women in K-Drama land. It’s not just the boy love rivals who can be buddies- girls can to it too! All in all, I really enjoyed the character of Ha Ri. Right from the start we see that she is not nearly as superficial as her stunning appearance would lead you to believe, as she promptly kicks out a male friend for commenting negatively about Hye Jin’s looks.

Seriously, I can't stress enough how rare these friendships are in K-Drama

 From the brginning Ha Ri had some pretty big character development, and we were all made aware just how lonely and isolated she was in her family, and that beyond Hye Jin she didn’t have any quality friends. The two girls did a great job at supporting each other throughout whatever was going on in their lives, and while there was a brief patch in the middle of non-communication, they also showed what an impact communication has on a functioning relationship. There were a couple of times the writers seemed to be grasping at straws conflict-wise, and unfortunately Ha Ri copped a couple of blows where she became irritating and distant purely for creating tension in the story. Sadly, this did lessen my love towards her character and as a result, Hye Jin also came off a tad selfish for only wanting to talk about Sung Joon when she wanted too, leaving Ha Ri in a bit of a pickle. Thankfully they managed to wrap up the drama with the repairing of the girls’ relationship and we got to close on cute, happy chick friends.

Makeover Execution:

We all knew that at some point our heroine would get a makeover. There was no way in hell the drama was going to continue Kim Hye Jin’s ‘ugly’ (yeah, whatever) appearance for the whole stretch.

Because she was soooo hideous before

The execution of the makeover, however, really had the potential to ruin the whole series. Had Hye Jin become ‘pretty’ to appease her co-workers or to woo her man-interest the whole drama would have been wrecked, as the general point seemed to be to criticise how society bases a person’s worth on their outward appearance. However, I actually quite enjoyed Hye Jin’s transformation as she did it for herself. She had reached a stage in her life where she wanted a fresh start- she wanted to focus more fully on her career and do the best she could at her job. And when you work for a fashion magazine, well…your looks do kind of matter.

She got the guy so she doesn't have to put effort in her appearance now, right?

It marked a turning point in the series where Hye Jin chose to take care of herself a little better, and stand up for herself a little more. While she appeared confident and comfortable in herself from the start, her makeover was a clear turning point when our heroine started to demand respect and acceptance from not only herself, but those around her. However, I was a little disappointed to see that after our time skip Hye Jin had become ‘de-makeovered’. While it can be viewed as her returning to herself and losing the need to demand respect from peers- because they already respected her for her writing ability, I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed. It sort of undid all the good that the makeover had done in the first place, and felt a little as though she prettied herself up to get the guy, and once she had him she could let herself go again. In my mind, Hye Jin’s makeover was her deciding to put a bit more effort into herself- because she was pretty, she just didn’t treat herself like she was, so undoing that fell flat for me. I know a lot of people appreciated her appearance going back to the way it was at the start, but personally I would have preferred her to either remain her ‘pretty’ self, or not get makeovered in the first place.

What Wasn’t:

Chemistry is MIA:

Firstly, I will apologise for the vast amount of comparisions I will make to ‘Kill Me, Heal Me’. Now to begin. After seeing the sparks fly between Hwang Jung Eum and Park Seo Joon in ‘Kill Me, Heal Me’ I was expecting to be absolutely blown away by the chemistry, and subsequent explosion, of these two actors reuniting as the main love-line.

I know which pairing I prefer

But then…they didn’t…sizzle. Why? Why?! I know you can so WHY DIDN’T YOU?! There was believable chemistry between the two child actors, but the sparks fell flat in the adult world. Sure there were cute moments, but they felt a little forced. In ‘KMHM’ we had a vast amount of scenes where these two actors played like children, yet you felt their connection and feeling for each other as adults.

There was cute, but no real 'wow'

It seems the writers of ‘She Was Pretty’ tried to channel this same energy in many of the scenes, but were unable to grab onto the same dynamic. Rather than appearing comfortable and at ease, whenever Hye Jin acted a bit childlike, it felt more like she was trying to cover up her embarrassment or awkwardness. Whenever Sung Joon acted in this way, it came across more as him trying to connect with the Hye Jin in his memories rather than the Hye Jin in front of him. While there was some believable romance between the two, it lacked that addictive quality the two were able to exude in ‘KMHM’, which was a little (a lot) disappointing.

Two Dimensional Characters:

No one was developed. Not one person. Ha Ri and Shin Hyuk came close, but didn’t quite make it there. Once the drama finished, I sat there for a while as it gradually dawned on me that I knew almost nothing about any of our characters.

Hye Jin getting jealous of all Ha Ri's development- wait, is that not what this screenshot is?

Sure, I had a basic understanding of who our characters were right then in that moment, but I had no real idea why they would react in the way they did- I just knew it was consistent with the character profile I’d created in my head. Out of all the characters, Min Ha Ri was probably given the most backstory and was the most developed of the lot. We saw glimpses of her isolation and extreme loneliness and were even given a few snippets of how she got there- crazy step-mum and less-than-helpful father. It explained her love for Hye Jin- who was always looking out for her, and her desire to hold on to Sung Joon- who treated her as a person and not an object (y’know, before he found out she’s not actually his first love and he completely dropped her). Coming in close second was Kim Shin Hyuk. Right from the get-go we knew he had more going on than just the loveable goofball, but sadly most of his development was crammed in right near the end. In a video recording. That played after he vanished. Yup.

Here, have some more Siwon

Our two leads are just…nothing. This wouldn’t have mattered so much if they had been virtually the same as their childhood selves, but they were SO DIFFERENT. Hye Jin went from pretty, popular, well-spoken, well-mannered delight into shrieky, unkempt almost-an-ajumma. Sung Joon went from shy, introverted fat kid to harsh, demanding, short-tempered workaholic. Which is all well and good. After all, the whole drama was about how two first loves change and are unable to recognise each other as adults. But then we should have been given some insight into how and why these changes occurred. But we weren’t. We got nothing, we just had to accept that these people were what our main characters had become and roll with it. Boo to that.

We all saw everything coming

Painfully Predictable:

We all know what’s going to happen. We all know the magazine won’t be discontinued. We all know that the cute, friendly work-mate won’t get the girl. We all know that the guy won’t fall for the beautiful friend. We all know that Hye Jin will get her dream job, and we all know that Sung Joon will get his first love. Seeing as there’s basically no plot, there are basically no surprises. And I’m not arguing that a drama needs surprises to be interesting. I’m just saying that this drama was neither surprising nor interesting. But on the plus side, it also wasn’t downright irritating.

Re-watch?

Not a chance. I came for the romance, I stayed for Siwon, and I nearly left with the hasty departure of Siwon’s character. Park Seo Joon did have his cute moments (boy is he a cutie), but he’s also cute in other shows.

There was just no magic for me