7.5/10 is my rating. This is a 2006 Korean romantic comedy movie that runs for 120 minutes. It is based on a Japanese manga entitled “Kanna’s Big Success.”

Hannah King is a ghost singer for popular K-pop idol Ammy. She is overweight but has a beautiful voice. She further uses her musical talent to make money as a phone sex operator. Hannah is in love with the music Director, Han Sang-jun, and thinks he might return her feelings despite her unattractive appearance. The Director is very handsome and seems to be very nice and pays a lot of attention to Hannah. One day, when she is about to confess her feelings, she overhears a conversation between the producer and his star. Ammy played a mean trick on Hannah and Sang-jun was telling her not to do that because they needed Hanna for her voice. To Hanna‘s dismay she hears him tell Ammy that they are just using her and he doesn’t really care if she hurts her feelings just not to do it in a way that she would leave. Hannah is devastated and decides to disappear and get a complete makeover with plastic surgery. The surgeon, Lee Kong-hak, at first does not want to because it is so drastic that it would put her life in danger. Ironically, the plastic surgeon is one of Hannah‘s phone sex customers so she is able to bribe him to do it despite his better judgment. While Hannah is gone Ammy’s career flounders because while she is pretty and able to dance she’s not at all able to sing and they cannot find anybody with the same level of voice talent to replace Hannah. After a year of healing, Hannah reemerges as Jenny an Korean American from California. She decides to audition as Amy’s ghost singer again but her beauty lands her her own contract. She no longer needs to hide behind the curtain. Her change was so drastic that no one recognize her at first not even her best friend, Park Jung-Min, . At first it seems she will get everything she wants. But beauty and fame do not wind up being all she thought they would be. Does she still want the love of a guy who couldn’t love her for who she was?

Kim Ah-joong as Kang Han-na / Jenny
Joo Jin-mo as Han Sang-jun (Director and Han-na’s one sided love interest)
Kim Hyun-sook as Park Jung-min (Han-na’s best friend)
Lee Han-wi as Plastic surgeon Lee Kong-hak
Ji Seo-yun as Ammy

spoiler ? I like the premise of this and found it interesting. What I wanted to see though was more of a revenge plot line. It really wasn’t that it wasn’t like she decided to have him fall in love with her and then dump him. She also didn’t elect to make it big using her beauty just to show people. I don’t know how true to life it is but it is a bit ironic that cultures can be so hard on ugly people and fat people yet equally hard when they take drastic measures to try to change it. Makes it a bit like dammed if you do damned if you don’t. I know in my culture plastic surgery is mostly accepted especially for certain professions the only thing I think there’s still a bit of a stigma against breast changes. Not as many people elect plastic surgery as there isn’t as much pressure in general to be perfect unless you’re in a job such as modeling or acting. I did not feel like it was much of a romance because it was pretty clear she would never get back with the guy and it would’ve been disappointI got if she would have. I would’ve liked it better if another guy had emerged and loved her for who she was and there was a big confession or something like that. I liked that she changed the axis of her success by being honest about her surgery and carrying her career on the merits of who she was in general. But I really wanted to see a romance and it just really wasn’t an element in this.