From my favorite movies..

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Like the Korean title ("Minyeo-neun goerowo") literally translates to, it is "hard to be a beauty". This film, through it's funny and cute moments, explores a society in which having the "perfect body" and weight are put in a high pedestal (today's society, to be exact, my friend), and just the criticism, mockery, and denigrating that people who don't fit in to that "perfect idea" get, in this case being towards an already NATURALLY beautiful but overweight girl, singer (and the true voice behind phony "singer" Ammy) Han-na. Constantly made fun of because of her weight and receiving negative commentary, one time overhearing from her crush Sang-jun that he was just using Han-na, Han-na decides she's had enough and walks out and toward the path of plastic surgery, not with narcissistic intentions, but as she put it, to "save a life", in this case, saving her inside from fully dying and fixing year's worth of low self-esteem and inner pain. The magic of plastic surgery happens, she is what guys whistle at and call "beautiful!" Han-na (now under the name of Jenny) returns to the music scene and to Sang-jun and Ammy, this time, to change things a little bit! From Han-na's plastic surgery, a beautiful wave of confidence and higher self-esteem emerges, but so does a tide wave of vanity and superficiality, and this film does an AMAZING job of showing just how BAD society's views on looks and belief in "following the trend" (being thin, wearing the "right" clothes, etc etc) has on people and how it affects their outlooks and self-esteem, as bright and beautiful overweight Han-na who didn't judge by weight, when made thin, became obsessed with weight and making comments about "fat" people, and acting ashamed with the people she loved. Society's constant reminder to be "thin" and that being thin supposedly equated beauty affected people like Han-na, and through the ride that this film is, that idea is explored, with Han-na, in the end, dumping Jenny and coming face-to-face with the truly beautiful Han-na that not only beats in her heart, but the one that was looking back at her through the mirror.With amazing character development, "200 Pounds Beauty" explores the self-conflict that society's bad values creates, and how one girl overcomes it and comes to term with herself, her natural flaws that made her just perfectly imperfectly beautiful Han-na. Though she changed in weight and looks, she had ALWAYS been beautiful from the very beginning (her personality and who she was as a person didn't change, she was STILL Han-na, for heaven's sake!), and through this ride she learns that, that indeed, beauty has no weight, beauty can't be defined by the number on a scale. She had been beautiful all along.

The first part of the movie was cute and funny and had a good message about inner beauty. I have no idea what the writer was trying to accomplish at the end though. During the last 30 minutes of the movie, the actors stopped acting, faced the camera and started naming the writers, directors, and producers. From then on, it was nothing but dialog from earlier in the movie repeated verbatim. The dialog was well-written and made sense the first time, but was completely irrelevant and without context the second time. The acting got worse too, as the actors were obviously struggling to deal with odd turn the script had taken. This movie had so much potential and could have been great if they hadn't fizzled the ending. If it weren't for the last 30 minutes I would have given it a 9.

The best thing I like about this movie is that it doesn't "try" to pull out your emotions, which happens a lot in romantic comedies that end up being tragic nightmares.It has a simple plot, but has sweet and cute details, and I have to say all the scenes are pretty colorful and sweet, too.I missed the movie in theaters, and was watching it on DVD, found myself grabbing a tissue at the end. Actually, I was interested in the hero of the movie, but was greatly impressed by Ah-Joong Kim's performance. She can act AND sing. I'm not sure if the film will be fully understood reading subtitles, but anyone who watches this movie will need to absorb each and every line that's being said. ==spoiler=== The reference to the Canne-winning film Old Boy gave a comical twist and makes everyone chuckle. ANYbody can sympathize with the heroine, plus the hero is good-looking!

This is a movie that follows a typical happy romantic comedy.. starts off happy, goes down.. back up.. and it hits the top and stays there. But then again, 200 pounds beauty is SO much more! On the surface it is already a great movie. The fat girl protagonist Hanna is very cute and kind, later she turns into beautiful and thin but still kind and innocent Jenny. So there's a bit of eyecandy, both cute and sexy throughout the whole movie. But then there's the funny bits, the movie has hilarious little kicks throughout the whole movie, making you laugh at all the right movies.But then there's a deeper side. This movie talks about themes such as the superficial view of the world, how beauty becomes an obsession, how the most beautiful heart can hide inside a bigger girl, how people will give everything to a girl with beautiful face-- superficiality yet again.The sad parts that touched deep to the heart of the film are very well scripted and acted.. I cried so many times watching it to see an 'ugly' girl turned beautiful, but having to give so much up and yet not quite happy with the shallow joys that this new body and face have given her.A small disappointment however was that the story's villain did not do much and disappeared for the majority of the movie and out of the viewer's mind, rendering the character pretty useless and taking away a little something more the movie could have had.Overall, a feel-good movie that is a definite must watch! It goes above all my initial expectations and is guaranteed to make you laugh, cry, love and think!