I often multitask at home by doing chores while listening to crime documentaries or podcasts. Yeah, I like watching crime documentaries but when it comes to heavy crime movies, not really my pick as I am a bit sensitive to too graphic scenes and the suspenseful sound and the overall setting in a movie, in a way affects me mentally.
I especially like listening to Rotten Mango podcasts on You Tube and in one of her episodes,she talked about the series "Mask Girl". She talked about it amusingly that made me curious and think this must be a good one.
Jumping on to the first episode without reading much about this series and had not even watched the preview, I was caught in a trap. Lol! A seemingly lightheartening story at the beginning is actually a very dark one.
Mask Girl is a story about Kim Mo-mi, a talented girl who dreams to be a popular idol. The problem is that her face doesn't fit to the standards of beauty in the society. But besides her face, one great asset she has aside from her talent in singing and dancing is her sexy body.
She lives a double life. She's the not pretty office girl in the morning and in the evening, she's that shining, sexy, hot, and alluring masked girl on a social platform who talks and performs to her fans and subscribers in her live streams. She would sing and dance and sometimes do what her fans request for her to do like pouring milk into her body and the likes. Many of her audience got curious who is the girl behind the mask.
At first, I genuinely thought this series is about mask girl who will redeem herself and become someone who will change the course of how society see beauty and in a way change the standards of beauty. Maybe I am just too naive and so used to cliche plots for thinking that way of how the story will unfold.
The turning point of the story happened when Kim Mo-mi decided to meet one of her fans. At first the guy seems to be a good person but he turns out to be someone who just want to take advantage of her. While in a hotel room, the guy wanted to take advantage of her and they were caught in a physical fight that lead to accidentally killing him, just so she thought. She called Jo Oh Nam who happened to be her officemate and a secret admirer/fan and help her deal with the man's body. The subsequent turn of unfortunate events lead her to also murder Jo Oh Nam and from there, she tried to start a new life with a new face.
What compels me to watch the series until the end despite the plot being dark and not my genre of choice are the twists and the not so common storyline. In the next episodes, specifically beginning episode 3, I thought I'd be seeing scenes that will focus on how her life has changed, what she did after the murders. Did she turned out to be a psycho or cold blooded murderer? Was she caught or will she end up dead too? I was curious. But instead the next episodes focussed on the story of the other characters that got entangled into this mess. Like episode 2 gives you the background life story of Jo Oh Nam and how he became obsessed with Kim Mo-mi. Episode 3, will tell you the story of Jo Oh Nam's mother who happened to be persistent in the pursuit of justice for her son Jo Oh Nam and to catch Kim Mo-mi. Though the episodes are about the story of these new characters, all character connects to the life of Kim Mo-mi after the murders.
I said earlier that what I don't like about crime movies are the graphic scenes and yes, this series is packed with graphic scenes from sex, violence and murder. The scenes are graphic but quite enduring for me. I could watch it without getting sick to my stomach. I don't know if it is just me, but this is what I noticed about korean crime movies. Though there are graphic scenes but they made it so artistically done that it doesn't kill the mood. Or maybe I haven't seen so much or am I just matured enough to watch it?
There was also a certain point of the story that didn't satisfy me just because I wanted a different kind of twist. Like I expected a certain plot reveal but it did not happen. I won't go on details of it so I won't be too much of a spoiler. Hahah! The ending for me was not quite satisfying too and if I could change the scenes leading to the ending, I would do it. Lol!