200 Pounds Beauty


200 Pounds Beauty is a 2006 South Korean musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Kim Yong-hwa. It is based on the Japanese manga Kanna's Big Success! by Yumiko Suzuki about an overweight ghost singer who undergoes intensive plastic surgery to become a pop sensation.
The film was a critical and commercial success. It was the third best-selling domestic film of 2006 with 6,619,498 admissions nationwide, grossing. 200 Pounds Beauty also received several awards and nominations, including Best Actress for Kim Ah-joong at the 2007 Grand Bell Awards.

Plot

Hanna Kang is an overweight phone sex part-timer and a ghost singer for Ammy, a famous pop singer who actually lip syncs instead of being famous for her own vocal talent. Other than that, Hanna has a huge crush for Sang-jun, a director whose arrogant father owns the entertainment company. Hanna receives an outfit from Sang-jun with a note to wear it to his birthday party. However, it actually came from Ammy, who wears the same outfit just to hurt Hanna's feelings. While crying in the restroom, Hanna overhears Sang-jun telling Ammy that even though they are just using Hanna for her voice, they must be kind to her so she will not walk out on them. Heartbroken, Hanna attempts suicide but is interrupted by a phone call from one of her phone sex regulars- a top plastic surgeon. She persuades him to perform a head-to-toe plastic surgery operation on her. Hanna puts herself in seclusion for a year as she recovers from the changes from the surgery and weight loss.
When she comes back from the hospital, Hanna is so incredibly beautiful and slender that even her best friend Jung-min cannot recognize her at first. With Jung-min's help, Hanna creates a new identity for herself; she is now a Korean-American from California named Jenny. After auditioning to be Ammy's secret vocalist again, she earns her own recording contract instead from Sang-jun, claiming that she is "all-natural". In the meantime, Ammy desperately tries to find Hanna by spending time with Hanna's father who is in a hospital due to mental problems, possibly Alzheimer's. She hopes that he would help her find Hanna because she needs her voice to sing for her 2nd album. Without it, Ammy fears that her own secret in being unable to sing will be exposed to everyone. In the hospital's bathroom, Sang-jun calls Ammy and orders to give up her search for Hanna. He wants her to give Jenny a chance to help him finish her album and also reminds her of her role in a TV show he got her. Sang-jun also warns Ammy that he will have her contract terminated if she doesn't stop and memorize her lines for the TV show. She refuses out of fear for possible competition in album sales with Jenny. Ammy tells Sang-Jun that she is determined to find Hanna because she will come back to her like always. After many encounters with Jenny, they both realize that Jenny is actually Hanna.
Jenny's debut single "Maria" becomes a hit and in the party to celebrate it, Ammy brings Hanna's father in an attempt to blow her cover. Desperate to keep her true identity a secret, Hanna ignores her father. Jung-min gets furious about her indifferent behavior. After the party, Sang-jun reveals to Jenny that he knows her true identity but is now cold and distant. He seems unable to forgive her for lying to him but says that he will conduct her concert scheduled the next day. Hanna also confesses her love for him that made her to do such a thing. She tells Sang-jun off how difficult it was for her in the last year because he insulted her at the bathroom on the night of his birthday party about him using her voice to promote Ammy. Hanna also mentions she put herself into seclusion at the hospital to heal from both the weight loss and plastic surgery in order to make him love her back. After realizing how worthless she was to Sang-jun even as Jenny, Hanna tearfully refuses to have anything to do with him and leaves. When she tells the plastic surgeon about it the next day, he wisely makes Hanna realize that she's better off without Sang-jun.
Before the concert, Ammy threatens Sang-jun that she will reveal Jenny's deception if the concert is not canceled. Even his father agrees and confronts Sang-jun for the deception after being sent photos by Ammy. He orders the release of Hanna's X-Rated CD covers and the discontinuation of the concert, not wanting to lose money. Sang-jun stands up against her threat and his father's orders by refusing to cancel it. Sang-jun encourages a distraught Hanna to do this concert, not for the sake of the fans or the company but for herself. Before performing, Hanna apologizes to Jung-min for her earlier behavior. She coldly rejects her apology, telling Hanna that they can't be friends anymore after how she's treated her own father. In turn, Hanna tells her off that she wasn't a supportive friend at all and that her salesman ex-boyfriend was right about her being jealous from the beginning. She leaves Jung-min to her thoughts in the bathroom to perform at her concert. At the concert, Hanna proceeds tearfully to tell the large crowd her story: that she was a ghost singer to an ungrateful Ammy while she was overweight, how she went into a year of seclusion to heal from the changes from the surgery and that she has abandoned everything that is dear to her, including her former best friend and father, to get to where she is. Sang-jun plays a tape of the old, obese Hanna, singing. The crowd, moved by her sincere confession, responds by chanting "It's okay". Hanna rekindles her relationships with her father and best friend. She drops the stage-name Jenny and re-releases a CD with her own name, Hanna, and becomes a highly successful music artist. Despite her having moved on from her crush on him, Sang-jun realizes the very thing about her that had always drawn him to her was Hanna's innocence, and continues to promote her. It's implied that Ammy has faced controversy of her own when the fans were angered in how she was treating Hanna while overweight and was only using her for her singing voice to cover up that she is a horrible singer. In the end, she has faded into obscurity.
During the post credits, Jung-min also asks to get a head-to-toe plastic surgery from the surgeon.

Cast

;2007 Chunsa Film Art Awards
;2007 Grand Bell Awards
;2007 Korea Movie Star Awards
;2007 Blue Dragon Film Awards
;2007 Korean Film Awards
The soundtrack album was released by KM Culture and SBS Contents Hub on December 13, 2006.
The title track is a cover of the Blondie song "Maria," sung in Korean by the film's star, Kim Ah-joong.
Director Kim Yong-hwa has been friends with music director Lee Jae-hak since their college days. Lee is a member of the modern rock band Loveholic, which is also featured in the soundtrack.