I seriously lost count of the number of times I exclaimed about how insane When I Was the Most Beautiful was. While I expected family politics and all kinds of shenanigans to happen purely based off the drama's premise, especially because no love triangle ever ends without some kind of crazy element thrown into the mix, nothing could have prepared me for how toxic and absurd the plot got as I went deeper into the series.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
I expected plenty of makjang elements since this drama revolved around a love triangle. I just didn't realise how vitriolic and tiring this drama was. While I initially thought Hwan and Jin's love conflict as they vied for the same woman in Ye-ji would be the main focus of this drama, it's more appropriate to say that that's the drama's overarching premise and the root of all problems here. When Jin gets into his accident and is gone for years, Hwan tries to be there for Ye-ji but muffs up their relationship by attempting to kiss her in a moment of folly. What was that caused by? His repressed attraction to her, something that he's been hiding ever since he gave up and let his brother marry her. When Ye-ji cuts off all contact with Hwan after this incident, that's also caused by the love conflict.
When Jin is revealed to be alive, albeit paraplegic, and he returns to Korea, the tension doesn't subside in this family. Instead, Jin displays moments of extreme jealousy and insecurity, partly due to his current disability as well as with how Hwan constantly displays affection and provides emotional support for Ye-ji. Later on, when Jin's accident is revealed to have been orchestrated by his ex Carrie, and when they find out that she was the one who nursed him back to health for 7 years, betrayal is thrown into the mix, with Ye-ji becoming disillusioned in her marriage to Jin. That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the insane situations presented in this drama. I haven't even touched on Ye-ji's mother or the many instances of blatant manipulation by people in power.
More importantly, my series retrospect below will focus on the themes and characters in the drama, as well as what I liked and didn't like.
Themes: When I Was the Most Beautiful is a seriously complicated makjang romance/melodrama, mainly focusing on love and conflict. It's easy to think that the drama's title is referring to our female lead Ye-ji, especially since the last episode shows us one of her art pieces on display with that exact title. However, when we take a look at the literal translation of the drama's Korean title ("My Prettiest Moment"), we can see that it's not just about Ye-ji. In fact, it's about many characters in the drama, not just our leads.
For Ye-ji, she looks back fondly on the few months of her life as Jin's wife, when she finally found a place for herself in the cruel world she has lived in. For what's possibly the first time in a very long while, she's loved and accepted for who she is. She's welcomed by her new family, the support of her father-in-law, a friendly sisterly relationship with Hwan (even though he still harbours feelings for her) and most importantly she has experienced romantic love with her new husband. Before everything got out of control, this was the moment that she looked on the most, when she experienced the most love in her life, and when she felt the most beautiful, with the ceramic art-piece she put on sale at the end of the drama being a representation of this.
For Jin, he also looks back on those same few months, when he and Ye-ji were truly in love with each other and also because that was the last time where he was properly able-bodied. Upon returning to Korea, his relationship with everyone sours, from his marriage to Ye-ji ending in a divorce to Hwan "renouncing" their brotherhood. The 7 years after his accident was riddled with mistakes, chief of which was deciding not to return to Korea because he didn't want Ye-ji to see his disabled self. That insecurity was mixed together with a subconscious mistrust of his own wife, with Jin not realising that he himself didn't trust Ye-ji to continue loving him regardless of his disability. Instead of depending on his wife and family's support, he reached out to the nearest pillar, in his case Carrie, who would stop at nothing to make Jin hers. He leaned on another woman, an inexcusable act in the eyes of Ye-ji, and this completely destroys his relationships, practically ending the happiest moments of his life. When Ye-ji eventually leaves him, he's totally broken. At the end of the drama, while having resumed some sense of normalcy in his life, Jin buys Ye-ji's art piece and also looks back on this time of his life, when both he and his now ex-wife felt the most beautiful.
For Hwan, who I would consider the most tormented character in this drama, he looks back fondly on the times when he and Ye-ji just had a friendly relationship. Even though the whole time he harboured feelings for her and it completely killed him inside to see the woman he loved go to his brother, Hwan only wished for her happiness and seeing her being loved by someone was good enough for him. By the end of the drama, Hwan finally finds out that Ye-ji did indeed develop feelings for him after all the emotional support he provided in the wake of Jin's disappearance but by that point, too much had happened in their relationship as siblings-in-law for them to return back to normal, and so Hwan looks back on the moments when they enjoyed each other's company, even if he couldn't be her man, he could at least enjoy her happiness.
Even for Carrie, who's very clearly our main antagonist, while she's motivated by greed and jealousy, in truth I think she's actually quite pitiful. She looks back on the time when Jin and her were a couple, and even after Jin breaks up with her, she has never fallen out of love with him, stopping at nothing to get back with him. Even if it meant getting Jin into a car accident, she took care of him endlessly and when back in Korea, she even begs Ye-ji to let her husband go so she can have him once again. Carrie ultimately realises that her love for Jin was misguided and finally gives him up, looking back on her moments in love as her most beautiful moment.
At the end of the day, all our characters spent the whole drama creating their own "most beautiful" moments and while they're all more or less the same moment, we see that their motivations are completely different. In their own ways, them looking back on their most beautiful moments was what brought about the central them as well as the title of this drama.
Characters: There are no shortage of characters here but naturally I'll just focus on the four leads, who I find represent different aspects of love. All four leads are super flawed and there were so many moments where I was split on my feelings for these characters. One moment I can get behind their actions but the next moment I'm absolutely against them.
Ye-ji represents humanity's need for love, so that we can fulfill our own happiness. On the surface, she seems to be the most tormented character. Growing up without parents, with her mother in prison for murdering her father, she's brought up by her paternal aunt, who abuses her by blaming her for her mother's sin and her father's death. Even when she's an adult, her aunt still meddles in her life by spreading information about her past to everyone, hellbent on ruining her life. Ye-ji finally gets a break from this life when she's accepted into the Seo family, who generally treat her with the love and respect she never got. She has a loving relationship with Jin, who accepts her for who she is regardless of her past. Unfortunately, her happiness is short-lived once her husband goes missing and she lives in anguish for years.
Naturally turning to Hwan for emotional support, that doesn't work out to when he makes advances on her, an act which she reacts strongly to and cuts off contact with him, losing a very close member of her family. When Jin eventually returns, she has to struggle with attempting to return their relationship to normal all whilst taking care of her now disabled husband, who she harbours great resentment for for leaving her all alone for 7 years. Her whole world comes crashing down when she finds out that Carrie was the one who nursed Jin back to health and he depended on her, likening this to an affair. With irreconcilable differences, the pair eventually divorce even though Jin tries his best to make it up to her. By the end of this whole ordeal, we do find out that Ye-ji did develop feelings for Hwan but nothing comes out of it, with their relationship never able to go back to how it was.
Our male lead Jin also represents the same kind of love, in order to fulfill one's happiness, albeit on a slightly darker spectrum than Ye-ji. He comes off as a very confident and self-assured man, with a slight selfish streak. He has many super charismatic scenes but underneath that hardened exterior, he lives with the guilt of causing his father's disability. In the climbing accident that occurred many years ago, a terrified Jin cuts the rope securing Hwan to him in order to save himself and their father throws him to save Hwan, landing on the rocks below and disabling him. After all those years in hiding post-accident, Jin's personality has taken a turn for the worse, becoming insecure about his disability and jealous at how Hwan and Ye-ji share a special bond, forged while he was gone. His guilt at depending on Carrie while his own wife was left in the dark for so many years also torments him nonstop and eventually, when everything comes to a head and his wife leaves him, it completely breaks Jin, who can barely live with himself. Even though his life goes back to normal after some time, he still lives with the regret of never having done enough for Ye-ji when they were married.
Now we come to the two ends of the love spectrum. Carrie quite obviously represents the most toxic form of love, selfish, greedy and showing how many people just want the object of their affection all themselves. It's simple to write off everything she did as a product of her jealousy of losing Jin, and she even goes so far as to inadvertently cause the accident that disabled him. Of course, we know she was in fact motivated by love, love so primal that she wants Jin all to herself, and will stop at nothing to prevent others from having him. Eventually, she comes to terms with herself and lets Jin go, realising that for too long she has let her life been defined by her love for him. In many ways, while it's super easy to condemn Carrie as a villain, we have to understand that she is just as flawed as our other characters, just that she decided to act on her flaws in an antagonistic way.
On the other end of our spectrum, we have Hwan who represents love in its purest form. No matter what happened, all he wanted was the happiness of the woman he loved, Ye-ji. He didn't need to be loved back by her, no matter how much he desperately wanted her to return his affection, but he was content to give up chasing her and let Jin marry her. Even to the end, when he finally finds out that Ye-ji does indeed love him, he doesn't act on that at all, knowing that her relationship with his family is too far gone to reconcile anything. Hwan steps away from her for the final time, knowing that she's finally happy with her life. I think it's safe to say that Hwan is truly the most tormented character in this drama, for he is the only one to truly never have been loved or appreciated properly. Growing up, he lived with the guilt of thinking he caused his father's disability when in actual fact it was his brother, and he had no choice but to take care of his father singlehandedly, with no one else in the family supporting him. He then lost his first love to his brother and when he accidentally went too far, Ye-ji cuts him off and that torments him to no end, especially when he has no emotional support in his relentless search for Jin. By the end of this drama, Hwan has almost undergone a complete personality change, with the years of torment warping him into an almost manipulative character but thankfully, all this conflict gets resolved as he finally gets closure on his messed up life.
The intense nature of these characters as well as the drama in general got me super invested, especially in the plot lines of the drama. That's the thing with makjang dramas because of all these crazy elements in it, it really captures the audience's attention. The constantly shifting dynamic kept me at the edge of my seat, in fact I really immersed myself in the characters' perspectives, seeing the situation from all different sides. At times, I didn't know which character to support, should I side with Ye-ji, who's feeling betrayed at her husband's apparent affair, or should I side with Jin, who had no one else to turn to? I also felt really bad for Hwan the whole time because just like almost every other role that Ji Soo gets, he doesn't get the girl in the end. For those who really like makjang dramas with lots of family politics, this drama is definitely for you.
At the end of the day, I think that under all the crazy shenanigans that went down in When I Was the Most Beautiful, it encourages viewers to take a step back and gain a new perspective on things. Even if you don't like dramas in this concept, it's always good for us to take a step back and look back fondly on the moments in our life when we were the most beautiful.
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