Time – A Korean Movie on Cosmetic Surgery

Time – A Korean Movie on Cosmetic Surgery

By Chandana Banerjee

'Time' is a Korean movie that deals with the subject of cosmetic surgery. Starring Ha Jung-woo, Park Ji-yun and Seong Hyeon-ah and Directed and written by Kim Ki-duk, this 97 minute movie is in Korean with English subtitles.

It's been estimated that as many as 50 percent of South Korean women in their 20s — and an increasing number of men — have undergone cosmetic surgery in their quest for ul-jjang ("the perfect face"). If this suggests that South Koreans are suffering from an irrational plague of body-image insecurity, you might consider Kim Ki-duk's "Time" to be a pathological case study disguised as a romantic melodrama.

Young, attractive and two years into her relationship with Ji-woo (Ha Jung-woo), Seh-hee (Park Ji-yun) is so insecure that she flies into a rage when Ji-woo so much as glances at another woman. She later apologizes for having "the same boring face every day," then vanishes for six months — the time it will take her extensive facial surgery to heal. She returns as a new woman, her name slightly changed to See-hee (now played by Seong Hyeon-ah), determined to make Ji-woo (still devastated by Seh-hee's disappearance) fall in love with her again.

'Time' will make you ponder about what we see when we look in the mirror.

Credit from http://www.surgerywatch.com