Those who know me know that I refuse to watch two dramas concurrently because I fear it'll mess with my limited brain capacity but I have waited forever for True Beauty to finally grace the small screen. Having followed the massively popular webtoon by Yaongyi for almost a year now, I anticipated its release as a drama, especially since it had been in the works for so long. I was very happy when Moon Ga-young (Tempted, Find Me in Your Memory) and ASTRO's Cha Eun-woo (Gangnam Beauty, Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung) were confirmed as female lead IM JU-KYUNG and male lead LEE SU-HO respectively because it meant another step closer to seeing the webtoon I enjoyed reading every week come to life. That said, does the first episode live up to the hype that many fans of the webtoon (including myself) have generated? Let's find out.
INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)
Many people probably noticed this when the first teasers/trailers came out but the colour grading and cinematography of this drama is very reminiscent of Extraordinary You, which in fact has the same director. Since both dramas are based off webtoons, they have the same whimsical vibe to it. This is especially prevalent in True Beauty, with bright colours dialed up to eleven. In general, the drama is shot very similar to a comic book, so it maintains that same "unrealistic" factor that you would expect from the webtoon. It's interesting to see this because a lot of times dramas based off webtoons have a very clearly demarcated line that represents the change in medium (from print to screen) but with this drama, that line becomes blurred so we don't lose that unrealism.
If you've read the webtoon, the foremost thought on your mind is probably how similar the drama is to the source material. While it's a bit too early to tell, the teasers have shown us that they're going in a different direction from the webtoon and that's alright because considering that we're over a 100 issues and counting, it would be impossible to adapt 100% of the story into 16 episodes, even if the airing time is over an hour. Already from episode 1, we can figure out that some parts of the story have been altered to better fit the drama's narrative. The foundation (no pun intended) is unchanged, with Ju-kyung being perceived as ugly by practically everyone around her before she finds out about makeup. After much trial and error, she becomes an expert at using makeup to cover her facial imperfections and is treated like a beautiful goddess, hence the literal translation of the drama/webtoon title, "Goddess Advent". What is different however is that in the webtoon, Ju-kyung was bullied in middle school before changing completely in high school whereas in the drama, she gets bullied in her old high school before transferring to another one.
Truth be told, many elements and scenes in episode 1 are straight out of the webtoon, like Ju-kyung's love for heavy metal music and horror comics, how she has a fat crush on a handsome school cafeteria (played by Lee Tae-ri in a cameo role) with similar music tastes to her, how she's bullied into being a dumpling "shuttle" for some of her prettier classmates or even how her younger brother Ju-young blackmails her with pictures of her bare face. Even the scene where she first experiments with makeup and ends up going to school looking like a whole clown is ripped straight out of the webtoon. While the base elements stay the same, we get minute changes to the story so that our drama has a starting point, such as the introduction of Ju-kyung's father (who doesn't have a strong presence in the webtoon) as a happy-go-lucky person who lands his family in debt and ends up with them having to sell their current apartment and move back to their own home, much to her mother's chagrin.
As of the first episode, what I consider the biggest change is how our leads meet. In the webtoon, Su-ho is a transfer student to Ju-kyung's high school while in the drama, Ju-kyung is the transfer student instead. Not only that, the drama shows the two of them meeting on a rooftop as our heroine contemplates suicide after all the bullying she's been through, with our hero pulling her to safety, a scene that isn't in the webtoon. On top of that, while Su-ho meets a bare-faced Ju-kyung in the horror comic store before meeting her in school in the webtoon, the drama flips those events around, with the comic store scene ending the episode. While it is a fairly big change, it's not one that completely inverts the drama narrative and I think it'll help to push the story forward.
Speaking of Su-ho, I've always considered Cha Eun-woo to be excellent at playing the handsome guy hiding his warm heart behind a cold exterior. I really enjoyed his performance in Gangnam Beauty and considering how similar the characters of Do Kyung-seok and Su-ho are, I think we'll get another great performance here. I know some people consider Eun-woo to be a pretty bad actor because of his monotonous performance but I actually think that it helps a lot when he pretends to be cold. While we don't get too much on Su-ho's backstory yet, we do see that they've stayed pretty true to the webtoon because he starts out as huge jerk to Ju-kyung and also finds out about her bare face before anyone else. They've also made reference to his backstory of being best friends with idol trainee Jung Se-yeon (played by SF9's Chani), who eventually commits suicide after receiving hate comments. In the webtoon, Se-yeon calls Su-ho before committing suicide but he doesn't pick up, leaving our male lead wallowing in guilt after his friend's death. With this plot element, it's actually quite smart of the screenwriters to include the original scene of Su-ho "preventing" Ju-kyung from committing suicide and it adds a personal touch to his character.
Upon entering her new high school, Ju-kyung becomes close friends with second female lead KANG SU-JIN [Park Yoo-na (Sky Castle, Hotel del Luna)] and Choi Soo-ah (played by one of my favourite actresses Kang Min-ah). Both are characters that appear in the webtoon, with Soo-ah's surname being changed from Kang to Choi, probably to reduce casual watchers' confusion between her and Su-jin. Just like in the webtoon, Ju-kyung's awed by Su-jin's natural beauty and wants to be friends with her, with this trio so far being thick as thieves. In the webtoon however, we know that Su-jin's quite toxic and deliberately tries to sabotage Ju-kyung's social and romantic lives, being jealous of her friendship with Su-ho. Soo-ah also doesn't like Su-jin in the webtoon, describing her as an attention seeker. Underneath that toxic surface though, we find out that Su-jin comes from a broken and not well off family, with her alcoholic mother constantly abusing her. I'm uncertain if this element will come into play here because the drama seems to be depicting her as coming from a rich family so maybe we'll get a different take on her backstory.
Now, if you have a nagging feeling that someone's missing from this drama so far, you'd be absoutely right because we have yet to see second male lead HAN SEO-JUN [Hwang In-youp (WHY, 18 Again)]. A typical bad boy and ex-idol trainee who was formerly close friends with Su-ho and Se-yeon, he now vies for Ju-kyung's attention and the drama will most certainly explore this aspect. Considering how short the drama will be compared to the webtoon, it seems that we're getting a truncated version of the story, with their love triangle ending up in the high school era instead of in adulthood like in the webtoon. We haven't seen Seo-jun yet so I'm looking forward to seeing how the love triangle will be introduced in the drama.
I sincerely can't stress how excited I am to finally see my favourite webtoon come to life on the small screen. All these characters that I've seen drawn out are now living, breathing people, like Ju-kyung's mother and sister [Jang Hye-jin (Crash Landing on You) and Im Se-mi (When the Weather Is Fine) respectively] or teacher Han Joon-woo [Oh Eui-sik (Hi Bye, Mama!)]. Based off episode 1 alone however, there's one thing that some people might have a gripe with and that is the slight overacting by the cast. It is a little cringeworthy but I think that's a result of the webtoon-like nature of the series so it's bound to be somewhat cheesy, with the actors probably having to portray that with some overdramatisation. As the series progresses, we'll probably get more used to it.
Truthfully, I don't really follow dramas as they air because I'm quite impatient and it kills me to have to wait a whole week for the next two episodes. I've only done it twice before now and I contemplated waiting for this drama to finish airing before starting but I caved in the end because I just can't wait to see the live action version of how Su-ho helps Ju-kyung find her True Beauty.
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