The Beauty Inside – A Review

Would you have fallen in love with your significant other if s/he had had another face? Would you be able to love someone with a physical disability? How about someone who, though not visually impaired, was still not able to differentiate faces? Is one’s identity tied to one’s face and appearance?

If you had another face, would you be a totally different person inside as well?

These are all questions the audience cannot help but ask itself, while watching ‘The Beauty Inside’. This very good Korean drama in fact, tells the story of two people whose very difficult situations color their lives in multiple ways.

Han Se-gye is a well-known actress, yet for some mysterious reason, when she is 20 years old something happens to her and she starts to transform into someone else for a week every month. Each time, she transforms into someone different. It could be an old man, a child, an older woman on a wheelchair. Age, race, gender, physical abilities – all change without warning, causing her to break down both mentally and physically.

On the other hand, there is Seo Do-jae, a man who suffers from Prosopagnosia due to having broken his cranium in an accident. Prosopagnosia, also called ‘face blindness’ really does exist, and is a cognitive disorder caused by acute brain damage, whereby a person looses the ability to recognize people’s faces, including one’s own in the mirror. After his accident, Seo Do-jae spends years learning how to recognize people using other individual clues instead. The way they walk, the way they dress, their voice, their scent… no wonder he is the only one who can actually recognize Han Se-gye, even when she wears a different face…

This K-drama is very different from any others I’ve watched, not only because of its very interesting take on mental and physical health and disability, but also because although it is a love story, the focus is not on the dating game itself, but rather highlights the fact that before one can really love and accept others, one must first of all learn to love and accept one’s self.

The supporting cast of characters is pretty impressive too. There are many funny and endearing moments, and also many sad ones. Prepare your tissues!

This T.V series is made up of 16 episodes, all of which are approximately an hour long. If you don’t mind watching them with subs (since obviously, the language is Korean), you can find all of the episodes online for free on various websites.

My personal rating is 5 on 5 stars.

There is also a movie with the same name, with basically the same story-line but different actors.

Enjoy!

La Disparue

The girl without a face sat in a chair.
The walls, sporting streaks the color of dried blood, leered at her, but she could not see them.
The floor pushed itself up against the soles of her rough-shod feet, but she did not care.
The noise outside was deafening in its lusciously torrid invasion, but she could not hear it.

Colorless, she waited for the Imprinting.
She knew it would happen, because she felt it. She had always known. Inside, where it was dark, and moist, and silent.

The Imprinting would come suddenly and without warning. It would arise from all sides at once. Strangely cruel in its violent obscenity. Change everything forever. Make her forget. The Imprinting would give her a voice – one she could not choose. It would make her see things which were not really there. It would let her hear undiluted sounds of plundered senses and raped thoughts. It would come on its own, no one would force it. It was inevitable.

Blank, she shifted on the hard seat, waiting… and waiting again.

The Imprinting was free; it only cost her wings.

She couldn’t use them inside anyways. She had never gone out of the room.

If it was even a room.