Directed by: Cho Kyung-hun (조경훈) Starring: Moon Nam-sook (문남숙), Jang Min-hyuk (장민혁), Cho Hyun-jeong (조현정), Kim Bo-young (김보영) Release Date: September 9th, 2020
Beauty Water is a new animated horror-thriller film from Korea that made waves through the international animated festival scene and is now simultaneously opening in a number of international markets including Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore. Adapted from the highly popular Naver Webtoon “Tales of the Unusual” by Oh Sung-dae, Beauty Water is a dark and creepy social critique on the modern state of near unattainable beauty standards and the destructive role it takes on those who get caught up in the endless pursuit of perfecting their outward appearances. Beauty Water manages a way to explore this dark aspect of society in a way that is not only very entertaining through its great use of classic horror elements, but its unique animation style helps create a disturbing yet visually stimulating descent into hell that pushes boundaries in unexpected ways.
An obese make-up artist named Yae-ji is mercilessly teased online after guest appearing on a home-shopping channel segment selling weight-loss pills and decides to respond to an advertisement she received on her phone offering a new life. She learns of a product beyond belief called beauty water, that once applied will allow the body to be cut and molded easily to shape a completely new face or even body. After putting up the enormous sum of money, she shapes her body to conform with the ideal beauty standard: a small and cute face, big round eyes, a slender body, and big breasts.
Taking on the new name of Seol-hae, her jaw-dropping beauty instantly opens new doors of opportunity to her in the form of the men she’s able to meet and the career advancement possibilities that were previously unattainable. But her fast-track to beauty comes at great costs that begin to put the safety of her and her family at unimaginable risks, and the new world she’s entered threatens to be much worse than the one she left.
Beauty Water is very good at conveying its broad social critique of Korea’s image-obsessed culture by acutely focusing the lens on its tragic lead character. With only an 85 minute runtime, the story never feels boring and moves at a great pace. Like a great webtoon that keeps you scrolling through the frames, Beauty Water is a slow-burner laced with moments of high intensity and horrific nightmarish visuals that perfectly supplement its after-dark campfire-esque horror story.
Beauty Water portrays the world that opens up to Seol-hae after she becomes a bombshell as an attractive playground of realistic encounters built on a bed of superficiality. Having been previously all but discarded by society as the obese stylist she was, Seol-hae is now the object of every man’s desires. But the relationships Sol-hae pursues never match up to her expectations, and the film does a great job at showing just how simply relying on changing appearances as a cure-all is folly because it seldom addresses the deeper rooted problems within the individual. It also effectively presents the addictive nature of plastic surgery in this way as a kind of drug that provides a quick yet short-term level of satisfaction. And in its final swoop, Beauty Water shows us that the world as experienced by “the beautiful” is not necessarily an easier world. Rather, it’s filled with its own set of grotesque monsters and super freaks.
The attractive animation style in Beauty Water features a unique blend of 2D and 3D animation for objects and environments to house its more 3D appearing animated characters. While there are the occasional brightly lit exterior settings, the film takes place in mostly ominous and darkly-lit interiors with richly saturated colors that make blood reds glisten and pop while orange hues from the sun’s rays glow to illuminate the subjects. This animation style also made for some very interesting lighting opportunities like nothing I’ve seen before, and I especially loved the night time vistas of Seoul. It’s worth noting that even though Beauty Water is animated, it very much remains an unabashed adult film ripe with graphic violence, mature themes, horrific scenes of body modification, and nudity.
Beauty Water features the superb voice acting from its talented crew of experienced professionals. Sometimes the characters move stiffly and dialogue is not completely in sync with lip and mouth movement in many cases and seems which seems be a technical limitation rather than a stylistic choice, but it’s something that could be bothersome to those sensitive to the issue. Beauty Water being animated leaves it open to many opportunities for local dubbing too so this issue is to be expected and was most likely anticipated. The music though is very strong and the score provides for great moments of both suspense and surprise.
Korea is a country with a roaring entertainment industry fueled by the successes of K-Pop, film, and celebrity culture both on a domestic and international level. This in tandem with the emergence of online social media has allowed for a certain level of intense venting and expression that is not typically tolerated in daily face-to-face interaction. The result has only exacerbated a preexisting condition of a society that places enormous emphasis towards outward appearances and the effects have been staggering. New forms of bullying through ridicule or shame, idolizing, and comparing oneself to others are all strong factors that lead many into a deep depression.
Globally, South Korea ranks lowest in terms of self-esteem and has one of the highest rates of both plastic surgery and suicide. Correlation is not causation of course, but the link between the statistics looks pretty clear. So while a film like Beauty Water retains high entertainment value when it comes to the horror and the thrills it provides, it also remains a poignant reminder of the giant social and mental health problems fueled by the country’s addiction to beauty.
As webtoons continue to rise in popularity in both Korea and abroad, we’ll most likely see more and more film and television productions being adapted from them in a way that could approach that of Japanese productions being adapted from manga (comic novels). I for one hope this is the case as there seems to be a treasure trove of unique voices and stories waiting to be being developed that smell ripe for launching Korean film into a new era of unique cinematic experiences for all of us to enjoy.
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