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The Beauty Inside
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Well Go USA Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (31st January 2016). |
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The Film
 From his eighteenth birthday onwards, Woo-jin (voiced in narration by Yeon-Seok Yoo) has woken up every morning in a different body, be it male, female, young, old, Korean, or foreign. Although his mother (Suk Mun) came to accept the extraordinary development, Woo-jin drops out of school and cuts off contact with his school friends who move on with their lives without him. Woo-jin secludes himself in his bedroom but eventually reveals himself (actually herself) to hapless school friend Sang-baek (Cold Eyes's Dong-Hwi Lee) turns up on his mother's doorstep and makes a nuisance of himself. Woo-jin starts learning how to adapt to his existence and he takes up work as a designer and builder of bespoke furniture custom-fitted to the customer using the best materials, with Sang-baek handling the sales (and occasionally passing himself off as the designer to pretty staff members). Working alone in his loft where he has built up an inventory of clothes and accessories needed for his ever-shifting identities (which includes changes in bodyweight, height, eyesight, and state of health), Woo-jin is convinced by his opportunistic friend to take advantage of his more attractive transformations on the club scene; but, however many times he may be able to see the same or many different women as a different man, he can never truly get to know them or allow them to know the real him. It is love at first sight for Woo-jin when he meets salesgirl E-soo (Always's Hyo-ju Han) while scouting a competing furniture studio. Over the course of several weeks, he becomes a daily customer in different forms, buying a piece of furniture each time (and flattered that E-soo recognizes that his own work is of a higher quality that their own inventory) until he wakes up with the right young and handsome visage. Despite his strange and desperate behavior, E-soo agrees to a date with Woo-jin in which he takes her to his workshop. Elated in the aftermath, Woo-jin resolves to stay awake for as long as possible in order to make the relationship last; but this of course is unrealistic and he must disappear from E-soo's life when he changes again. Unable to forget her, Woo-jin tries to explain his condition to her while in the form of a female trainee at her store but she instead believes the other woman to be a stalker. Woo-jin's agreement to deal with E-soo's shop puts her in favor with her boss, but she too has grown attached to him in the space of a couple days and she starts to consider the possibility that Woo-jin is indeed telling the truth. After seeing proof of his condition, E-soo surprises Woo-jin by wanting to continue their relationship no matter who he becomes. The guessing game of trying to find him each day before he finds her is at first all part of the fun; but the realities of this very unreal situation soon begin to set in as her co-workers, her father, and her sister Eun-soo (Mother's Mi-do Lee) all want to know about the special man in her life and soon begin believe she is promiscuous since no one of them can offer the same description of her boyfriend. E-soo also realizes that if something ever happened to Woo-jin, she would have no way of knowing, and the stress of their secrecy starts to take a toll on her health. When E-soo collapses from an overdose of an antipsychotic medication prescribed by her therapist, Woo-jin comes to understand the nature of her suffering through his own mother who has already lived through the same anxieties and doubts. Although Woo-jin feels that he cannot live without E-soo, he may have to give up the love of his life for her own sake.  Considerably more moving than Hollywood's recent go at magic realism Age of Adaline in which the titular character has more time to regret forming attachments but must eventually move on due to her unchanging appearance, The Beauty Inside features a protagonist played by more than twenty actors (and possibly more faces); and yet, the viewer never loses the sense of him as characterized by the "detached" narrator no matter how much dialogue is afforded to his current onscreen incarnation. It is, Hyo-ju's E-soo, however, that really engages as she more palpably conveys a sense of the suffering described by Woo-jin in his narration (the same can be said for the actress who plays his mother). Although characterized as a romantic comedy, the comic relief takes a back seat to the intensely-felt love story that threatens to end tragically, or at least on a downbeat note ("They say love is the answer to every problem, but it also ruins everything"). At the end of the two hour running time, the two lovers may have to disregard the concerns that kept them apart and risk their well-being for love going in order to have something like a happy ending; but the film remains quite thoughtful for something labeled as a "romantic comedy."
Video
Well Go USA's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 widescreen transfer is typically strong of their offerings when one takes into account the film's deliberate softness, from streaming backlight and side-lighting to out of focus objects occluding the foreground and defocused POV shots and invasive close-ups. 
Audio
The Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is restrained for much of the running time, front-oriented with some subtle backgrounds. During the club and party scenes, the general volume and surrounds become more active; especially so during the party where the volume of the music may startle if you have turned it up to hear some of the lower dialogue. A Dolby Digital 2.0 downmix is also included. The optional English subtitles have no obvious errors. 
Extras
There are no extras besides the film's theatrical trailer (1:52) and previews for other romantic comedy titles from Well Go USA. 
Overall
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