Birth of a Beauty

The very first episode starts you off on the wrong foot. Our leading lady is fat. Point and laugh at her everyone, she's fat!

Laughing yet? Well the show is. Every single person she meets is repulsed by her, her in-laws treat her like garbage and they keep having her fall, break the chair she's sitting on or sweat so much her armpits are literally see-through.

Because how dare she be fat.... laughing yet?

As repulsive as the first episode is the show finds it's footing after that. I thought it would be a simple Rom-com with her getting everything back after becoming beautiful... which was the intention of the first 5 episodes.

Then the plot become overly convoluted and twisted. It was trying to be Cinderella + pretty woman, then decided to be Count of Monte Cristo but ended up with something closer to a Jekyll / Hyde story with way too many character reveals and filler. What happened to the light hearted fluff I was watching?

I started off hating this show for all the fat shaming and cruelty that board lined on childish. More so because "fat" Sa Geum Ran was really cute as is. The plastic surgery thin = beautiful wasn't needed.

The show kept me interested once that part was over and we move pass it. I ended up loving AND hating everyone which just shows how good the actors are. The plot however is the weak causing the actors to work even harder to sell it.

I'm glad I watched it. However this is not something I'd watch again or easily recommend to others. It's an oddity, take it or leave it.

Wow, that was a tremendously long and cumbersome drama to sit through. It tormented me to watch it from beginning to end, and I can't believe I stuck with it, but I invested so much already, that I felt I needed to finish it. The plot is quite different, actually. It had so much potential to be something bigger with all the scheming and twists they were introducing. The biggest flaw for me was the pacing and sequencing of events. For instance, the female lead's life was already in danger, yet they still had time to be romantic in between these tense scenes. Too many lovey-dovey scenes that are misplaced or wrongly timed. I appreciated the lead actor-very handsome and funny. I had no major problems with the lead actress, either. I just couldn't find myself to root for their love story. I wasn't feeling their chemistry. If the series were shorter I think my rating would have been higher, but there were too many flashbacks and unnecessary scenes. It would have benefitted from some heavy editing.

I see negative reviews, but I seriously believe those people who gave negative feedback didn't even understand the story or watched it till the end.

Yes plastic surgery is bad, yes its not good to look down on people who are fat. But don't assume this drama is basically promoting the idea that its good. It isn't, and you have to watch till the end to see the full picture, full story.

By judging the drama from the beginning without watching the story is no difference from people who judge someone by their looks. This drama has a story and its very interesting, everything about it tell's a story.

Title sounds and looks frivolous but I'm in the mood for a bit of frivolity but some good actors in it so Im going to watch it.

Starts off with with so much fat shaming that its painful. You can tell which actors do Martial Art for real by the size and shape of their knuckles. They look hard and tough even the they have been smoothed by the computer. Their hands are not that perfect.

This drama is so funny and sad at the same time. I think, it's called dark humour.

Korean dramas have a bad history of abuse and ill-treatment of women and especially older women. Their civil rights in the dramas are constantly violated. Us women in New Zealand feel offended by these kind of strategies. It is time for Korean men to clean up their act and stop hurting women like this.

It just slipped into my thoughts" I hate those forehead kisses. That is what out culture does with babies and children for adults we kiss on the lips for close relationships, wife, husband, mother, father, own children, close aunties and close uncles, other people on the cheek, big hugs and kiss on cheek. People we don't know or church friends we shake hands. This kissing on the forehead is so foreign. The spouses if the main actors. Han Ye Seul/Sa Ra / Sa Geum Ran and Joo Sang Wook/Han Tae Hee will be so happy because these two only shared one real kiss and that was pretty chaste. The two main leads had great chemistry and worked together to solve their problems. Surely they could have kissed more than once. Wish! The two antagonists though, they quickly went from loving each other to basically hating each other. Not long after the honeymoon they were at each others throats.

I do like the way Koreans get in bed with their loved ones in hospital.

I've got a love hate relationship with this villain, on one hand his a cad, a bounder, a lout Jung Gyu Woon/Lee Kang Jun but then he's so handsome and smart and can act, you have to give him kudos for that.

I like the story a lot. I must have because I stayed up all nigh watching it. Nice filming picture were clear and well focussed. Setting and scenery were pretty. Room and office decorations were detailed and well organised.

Honestly, this is as generic a plot as they come for soap.. or at least, the kind of parts you expect to see in several dramas.

Another reviewer said that "there is a twist after every couple of episodes", which is quite apt a description for a 21-episode series where the pacing is fast and there are too many ideas and developments! From fat shaming, to women abuse, corporate battles, fights over marriage, corruption, happiness and "getting what is coming to you".. and more. I feel that a shorter more efficient script would have helped a lot, specially considering how nothing really meshes together well. Still, it is well acted, and the leads seem to work well together! But it's hard to get invested in them due to the amount of absurdity and coincidences that happen all the time.

I personally would not recommend it, as it felt like a chore to me.

But I can see stans for these actors enjoying it, and the plots aren't so bad to be dislikeable.