[KD] Baby-Faced Beauty: Episodes 1-4

Jang Nara plays LEE SO-YOUNG, a 34-year-old who has
worked for 14 years at the same fabric company. Her dream is to become a
fashion designer, and upon graduation of high school she’d been
accepted into the design department of a university — if only her family
hadn’t fallen into debt.
Unable to send herself to school and support them at the same time,
So-young joined the workforce, her mother working late hours at a
pojangmacha (street food tent) while her bratty younger sister SO-JIN (Oh Yeon-seo)
had continued her spoiled, selfish ways of buying expensive clothing
(ruining So-young’s credit) and flitting around being an insufferable
social butterfly. Yes, we hate her. No, we don’t have to feel conflicted
about it.

Now So-young’s longtime boss tells her apologetically that financial
times are rough, and he has no choice but to let her go. Yet when she
returns to beg for her job back, she finds that he’d lied — he’d
actually just replaced her with a young thing fresh out of school, the
kind of new employee all the older men love for her novelty and
cuteness, no matter that she has no experience or competence with the
job.
So-young grits her teeth and continues on her job-hunt, only to be
turned away for reasons beyond her control — one boss is 33 and doesn’t
want to hire a subordinate older than him, while another professes to
care nothing for age but won’t hire people with bad credit. She manages
to land a lowly position doing alterations for a neighborhood seamstress
— but her sister takes advantage of this and swipes a customer’s Chanel
jacket (to borrow, not that that makes the theft any better), and that
gets her fired.

Then there’s CHOI JIN-WOOK (Daniel Choi), a marketing director at The Style, a fashion design company run by the sharp, stoic JI SEUNG-IL (Ryu Jin
— So. Hot.). Jin-wook is roommates with one of the senior designers at
the company, and loves his new car with a passion normally reserved for
sentient beings.
There are hints that he’s from a wealthy background, but he regularly
turns down his parents’ offers of money — he’s determined to make it on
his own. Ah, I know the feeling, having once been that kind of stubborn
brat convinced that accepting money from Mom meant I was failing to be
independent. Maybe Jin-wook will grow out of it too.
Anyway, Jin-wook’s hyung takes him to a club, and think they’ve
scored the jackpot when the hot, model-eque So-jin starts chatting them
up. In actuality, she’s using them to hide from So-young, who’s followed
her here and is chasing her down to retrieve the jacket. Long story
short, So-young ends up in a tug-of-war with Jin-wook over the jacket,
and tumbles into an oversize, decorative martini trying to fetch it
back.

That, alas, is not nearly as fun as it sounds, and she winds up both
tipsy (from glugging accidentally), and stained red. Jin-wook helps her
climb out, and the force sends the glass tumbling to the ground —
landing them squarely on the hook for club damages, to the tune of 20
million won (approximately $16,000). So-young and Jin-wook nearly manage
to escape together from the police station, but when it looks like
they’re going to get caught, So-young ditches Jin-wook and runs away
alone. Jin-wook is left with the fine and repair bill, and with great
gnashing of teeth (and muttered curses about So-young), he sells his
beloved car to pay for it.
So-jin promises to pay her sister back, but true to her irresponsible
ways, she learns that the fitting model job she scored is harder than
anticipated, and dumps it on her unni. So-young, reluctant to give up
the pay, goes along and takes her sister’s place, figuring it’s only for
a day.

So-young belatedly finds out that the job — which pays peanuts and
involves being the errand girl — is actually for a week, and although
she’s on edge from the fear of being outed as a fraud, she bears with
it. Even though the designer’s studio is populated by snooty, hateful
people like Nara, who orders her around like a slave.
To So-young’s surprise, people aren’t at all suspicious of her
supposed age — 25 — and treat her with a stunning lack of respect in
accordance with what they believe to be the natural, age-determined
pecking order. She bears it all stoically, even though the “advice” the
designers sling her way stings of condescension — not to mention irony,
since she’s actually one of the oldest of the bunch.

At first, when Jin-wook discovers that she’s the new temporary
employee, he tries to demand her half of his settlement fees, which is
only fair since they were both involved. However, she has no money to
give him, and advises him to think of this as “a very expensive life
lesson.” So Jin-wook takes to following her around, making her buy him
drinks and lunch, determined to get his money back even if it has to be
in dribs and drabs.
One ill-advised money-making method he picks up is to return a
knockoff of a luxury bag to a store and demand a refund. He sends
So-young to do it, not telling her it’s a fake, and she has to bear the
ignominy of being assumed to be a grifter. Worse yet, a posh young
woman (whom we’ll come to know as KANG YOON-SEO, played by Kim Min-seo) can’t find her wallet in the store, and the shopkeepers accuse So-young of stealing it.
The indignity is too much to bear, and So-young storms into the
cafeteria to have it out with Jin-wook for setting her up. He’s dressed
in a particularly nice suit today, because his sloppy fashion sense has
been noticed by boss Seung-il multiple times, and he fears that he’ll be
given the boot if he draws that kind of attention yet again. So he’s
just spent a small fortune on a suit he can’t afford, which means it’s
particularly infuriating when an enraged So-young dumps a bowl of kimchi
all over him.

He retaliates by throwing a bowl of soup at her, but she ducks out of the way, and it sails into the boss’s face instead. Oops.
Jin-wook sinks into a pity party, sure he’s going to be fired after
the soup incident AND the lack of a decent suit for his important
presentation today. Feeling sympathy for him, So-young offers to help
him fix the situation, in exchange for settling their mutual debts once
and for all. With that, she gets to work — she borrows a sewing machine
and scraps from the patternmaking studio, and quickly fashions a new
jacket for him.

The result…is not something Jin-wook can wear with confidence — it’s a
capelet, way too fussy and offbeat for him to pull off. But to his
surprise, both Seung-il and the senior managing director eye it
approvingly and ask to borrow it, to use as inspiration (for a woman’s
cape, lol).
But just as soon as one crisis is solved, another pops up: The
designers’ sample gown has disappeared. It’s senior designer Ki-hong
who’s responsible — So-young had given it to him while he was
half-sleeping on the job — but he blames her to save his own skin. In
everyone’s haste to cover their own asses, Nara ends up being the
scapegoat, and she in turn blames So-young, slapping her angrily.

Seung-il enters the designer’s studio at the tail end of this
confrontation, and asks everybody who’s responsible. And while he
absolves So-young of any blame in the matter, his explanation is even
more crushing: He tells her she’s so insignificant that she has no right
to be held responsible.
He gives the designers three hours to find the dress, and they
scatter to try to salvage the situation. So-young is dismissed from the
mess and the job, but she decides to make one last attempt to help, and
requests to use the sewing machines. Curiosity piqued, the head of the
patternmaking division, Director Baek, gives her permission and watches
as So-young gets to work re-creating the dress entirely from memory.

When Seung-il brings Director Baek the cape So-young had also made,
the director is impressed. And that’s how So-young, dismissed as errand
girl, is offered the job as The Style’s newest, “youngest” designer.
Problem is, all week long people have assumed she’s her sister,
25-year-old So-jin. She’d have to tell the truth of her identity to be
put on the official payroll…but telling the truth would probably get her
fired. And this is her dream job, finally! What to do?

She waffles back and forth in a flurry of indecision, afraid of being
caught for lying but also sorely tempted to let herself achieve her
dream, even if for a short time. She’s paranoid that she’ll get caught
every step of the way, but as it turns out, nobody cares that much about
the photo on the ID card (her sister’s), and that’s that.
One added complication, however, comes in the form of new team
manager Yoon-seo — the lady who’d sorta-kinda-accused her of stealing
her wallet.

Yoon-seo’s on good terms with Seung-il, and also happens to be the
daughter of Director Hyun, who has a senior management position. To be
fair, Yoon-seo has the talent and the credentials for the job, but all
her connections surely don’t hurt, either. She’s also got her sights set
on Seung-il, doing her best to ingratiate herself with his young
daughter.
She seems like a generally smart, fair person — but where So-young’s
concerned, they just get off on the wrong foot. Plus, there’s the
sneaking suspicion Yoon-seo has that So-young’s piqued Seung-il’s
interest, despite how ridiculous that seems on the surface; there’s just
something odd about the way Seung-il reacts when So-young’s involved.

Because this is a K-drama, Jin-wook also happens to know Yoon-seo,
having had an adolescent crush on her before she moved to study in the
U.S. When he spots her in the street, he even drives off after her,
leaving So-young stranded in the street. (He has to wheedle his way back
into her good graces, once he recovers his senses.)
The Style holds a design competition for amateur designers, which
briefly captures So-young’s attention. But she can’t enter as herself,
so she puts the idea aside — but So-jin doesn’t. In particular, the
large cash prize grabs her attention, so So-jin submits one of
So-young’s designs…which wins, naturally.

Since So-young can’t claim the award when everything thinks she’s
So-jin, her sister takes it upon herself to pass herself off as the
winning designer, using Big Sis’s ID to claim the prize. Yeah, this
isn’t gonna get complicated, is it?
A complication arises with one of the company’s distributors,
Rosemary Department Store, and The Style is in danger of losing their
account with them, which would be costly. Jin-wook’s contact there
suggests that there’s one way to keep The Style in the loop…if they
could find a way to satisfy Manager Ahn, who’s on the hunt for a
twentysomething girlfriend.

Led by Jin-wook, the designers push So-young into being their
sacrificial lamb, dressing her up in one of their own sample gowns and
sending her on the blind date. Manager Ahn is thrilled to be dating a
pretty young thing, and So-young grits her teeth through the encounter.
The date has to get cut short when the designers receive word that
Seung-il wants to see the sample dress tonight, so So-young and Jin-wook
race to his apartment that evening to make the hand-off. Of course,
So-young can’t go in wearing the sample, so she borrows a uniform from a
cleaning lady, and heads home.

Alas, she’s forgotten her cell phone in the dress pocket, so she has
to return to Seung-il’s apartment to ask for its return. Only, she’s
dressed like a janitor and dripping wet from the rain, and also manages
to drop the contents of her coin purse all over his immaculate floor.
Loath to upset him, she cautiously asks him to pick up the coins for her
(he’s barred her from entry because she’s dripping), because she needs
bus fare. She’s anxiously looking for the 500 won coin (about 50 cents),
while he does a cursory sweep that returns mere pennies.
Somewhere in the course of this exchange, Seung-il has found a little
humor in the absurdity, and when he later spots the 500 won coin, he
pockets it with a smile, and makes sure to return it to her at the
office the next day. Yoon-seo witnesses both scenes, senses something in
the air, and turns even colder than usual toward So-young as a result.

So-young’s date with Manager Ahn has been a hit, but the problem is, it was too
successful and now the ajusshi wants to date her. Jin-wook pleads with
her to drag it out just a little longer, just till they can secure their
account with the store again, but So-young angrily puts her foot down
and tells him to “clean up your own crap.”
Jin-wook starts to have second thoughts and wonders if he isn’t
perhaps being too pushy with her. But no matter, because Manager Ahn
overhears their conversation, and their comments, combined with his
overactive imagination, makes him assume they were out to con him. He
accuses them of setting him up to be her sugar daddy, and says such
horribly offensive things about So-young that Jin-wook can’t help but
speak up in her defense.

That leads Manager Ahn to take a swing at Jin-wook, which erupts into
a full-scale fight that lands the men at the police station. Jin-wook
sends So-young home before the police are involved, but she can’t help
feeling guilty and comes to the station anyway.
The problem is, that requires everyone to present their
identification, and So-young gulps, fearing that this will blow up into
an even bigger problem once it comes out that she was impersonating
somebody else. She can’t bring herself to hand over her ID, but luckily,
Jin-wook lands on another fact that negates its necessity: Manager Ahn
had given her a pin as a gift, but used his business account to do it,
and the threat of pressing that point makes him back off.

Jin-wook still has to deal with the police for the fight, though, and
dutifully mans up to spend the night in jail. So-young feels guilty,
but for the first time Jin-wook accepts his fate without whining like a
child, and tells her that he’s taking her advice and “cleaning up my own
crap.”
With Jin-wook’s fate hanging in the balance, So-young goes to the
department store to plead with Manager Ahn for mercy on his behalf.


COMMENTS
Although Baby-Faced Beauty isn’t that far out of the box in
terms of romantic comedies, there’s a little something different about
it that I really like. It’s largely the directorial style (and the
gorgeous camera, swoon), which adds a touch of visual interest where
many trendies just rely on the standard one-shot, one-shot, two-shot
approach.
Where other rom-coms rely on a static camera — which isn’t bad, just un-noteworthy — Baby-Faced Beauty
uses its camera to create interesting angles and points of view. True,
sometimes I think they get a little carried away with the super-close-up
distortions and the tilted camera angles, but most of the time it adds a
fun touch, so I don’t mind. In its visual style, Baby-Faced Beauty is like Dr. Champ, or even Coffee Prince,
where the stories are fairly conventional but a little atmospheric
flair gives it a refreshing appeal. The screen quality sometimes looks
more like film than drama as well.

Tonally, Baby-Faced Beauty hits the right spot for me — the
pace is swift and the plot moves from one conflict to the next without
dragging too much in one place. Combined with some interesting music
selections and the lovely palette, it’s easy to get caught up in the
funny situations and compelling conflicts.
It sort of recalls Dal Ja’s Spring for me (although I don’t think it’s quite
as good), in that it’s about more than just a romance at the center. I
like that it’s a workplace drama, that there are themes at play beyond a
love story. Age is the obvious motif at play here, given that
So-young’s reason for being at The Style is predicated on her lie, but
thankfully we quickly move past the initial lie to touch on the
ramifications of age, seniority, respect, and interpersonal
relationships that serve as corollaries to the main conflict.
Caveats: I will say that the first two or so episodes have their
rough moments, in that it’s difficult to get behind these characters
when so many of them are acting in irritating ways. For instance, both
So-young and Jin-wook act pretty childish in the initial encounters, to
the extent that you don’t quite know which side you’re on because
they’re both being stupid. She ditched him at the police and left him
with a huge settlement bill, but he jumps to conclusions, acts before
she can explains things, and digs himself into holes based on his own
impetuousness.

It takes a full four or so episodes for the romantic chemistry to
kick in — I’d wondered earlier on if we were ever going to feel it,
because So-young and Jin-wook were more like bickering siblings for a
long stretch there. But thankfully, it does kick in eventually,
particularly at the end of the fourth episode when he finally grows up
and takes responsibility for his own crap, as he says, and acts like an
adult. That continues in the following episodes, and while he still has
his flashes of childishness, they’re much more endearing when displayed
alongside some maturity. Immature adults acting like spoiled brats =
insufferable. Grown-ups acting occasionally childish = adorable.
Another factor that had me on the fence during the first four
episodes is, well, everybody outside of the main trio. The designers at
The Style are aggravating with their selfish, backstabby ways, and there
were more than a few scenes where I found myself dearly wishing I could
reach inside the screen to slap some sense into a few of them. The way
they treat So-young is appalling, although to be honest I don’t think
it’s too terribly off the mark for real life, and that’s partly why I
was willing to hang in there until the story takes an upswing and
So-young starts to have a few successes mixed in with her hardships.
There’s also So-jin, who inspires me to violent thoughts. I
understand that she’s mostly a plot device needed to keep So-young’s
lie/conflict in motion, and for that reason alone I force myself to
ignore her as much as possible and just focus on the story, minimizing
her presence in it. Thank goodness for the gorgeous camera, because that
alone gave me enough reason to keep going until the characters started
to grate on my nerves less.

One thing built into the premise that I love is the dissonance
created by the age lie. When she’s at the office as So-jin, So-young has
to act the respectful maknae and do the coffee runs and defer to
everybody. If her real age were known, as the newest employee she’d
still be the most junior, but people would take more care in how they
treated her on a personal level. This also carries over into the
romantic storylines, because it’s assumed she’s several years younger
than Jin-wook, and a full decade younger than the boss. In reality,
she’s way older than Jin-wook and only one year younger than Seung-il.
And because of her real age, she can treat Jin-wook like a noona, using
banmal and not putting up with his crap. All the while, because he
doesn’t know her real age, he just assumes she’s a youngster with
frighteningly opinionated stances on everything. Heh.
As for So-young: I find her to be a likable character I root for,
even if there are some scenes where I dearly wished she’d stand up for
herself. But given her circumstances, it’s understandable why she
doesn’t, and the script does a good job of establishing that conflict
within herself — her desire to speak her mind and demand respect,
countering her earnest desire to be recognized for her talent for once
in her underappreciated life. This is her dream come true, and she’s
lived too long to give it up in a fit of pride.
Even so, she’s not a total doormat, and I appreciate the scenes when
she tells people to cut the crap and grow up. Like Jin-wook, for
instance. When he screws up and fears he’s about to be fired, she finds
him crying in a pity party, and tells him with a mix of exasperation and
sympathy that crying about a problem won’t fix anything — he’s better
off trying to figure out how to fix it.
And then, when she finds herself in a crushing situation, she takes a
minute to cry in the bathroom stall at the unjustness of it all — and
then pulls herself together, grits her teeth, and finds her way out.

When she re-creates the lost sample dress, she isn’t doing it to save
her job or clear her name — in essence, she’s asking for respect from
people who deem her unworthy of it. And even if she doesn’t earn theirs, well, it’s okay because she’s really claiming self-respect.
All in all, I find Baby-Faced Beauty to be charming and
quick-paced, and recent episodes have improved upon the earlier episodes
— really, I think it takes three or four episodes to hit its stride, if
you can get past the aggravating supporting characters for that long.
I’m sorry I don’t have the time to recap this drama properly, just due
to the schedule being what it is. (If I can find a spare moment, I’ll
consider popping back in with periodic updates, but I make no promises.)
I mean this as no insult to Lie To Me (I wouldn’t have stuck with it if it weren’t appealing in its own way), but I do sorta think Baby-Faced Beauty woulda been a better pick. Oh well. No use dwelling on the past, so onward we go.