MBC
K-Drama
K-Drama Review: “When I Was The Most Beautiful” Weaves An Evocative Tale About Braving The Path To Forgiveness
Served romantically with intricate details, we have consumed and digested the story of forgiveness, healing and true essence of love in When I Was The Most Beautiful.
When I Was The Most Beautiful brought down its curtains on October 15 and it was quite a journey for our heroine and the significant men in her life. The drama has all the elements that turned our emotions from ripples into wave of passions.
Title: When I Was The Most Beautiful
Network: MBC
Themes: Romance | Melodrama
Length: 16 Episodes
Broadcast Date: 19 August 2020 – 15 October 2020
Main Leads: Im Soo Hyang | Ha Seok Jin | Ji Soo
Highlights: Life Lessons About Forgiveness, Humility, Unselfishness And Healing
Overall Rating: 
Re-watch Value: 
Taking the road less traveled in the farewell part, the unconventional route broke down all expectations but was rightly fitting as the story reached the end of the line. With all the scars from every perilous battles they fought, our characters deserved to walk through their own paths to healing. And in walking such path they must, even if it means braving the road by alone.
Series Highlights
Forgiveness and Healing
If life was fair, then people would have been spared from pain and suffering. Sadly, travails are all part of life’s cycle and once in a while, we would be hurt. To some extent, it would leave us irreparably damaged tormenting us for the rest of our lives.
One of the salient lessons When I Was The Most Beautiful has taught us is to come to terms with our sufferings. And in order to be healed, the process of forgiveness is imperative.
Ye Ji’s road to a happy and peaceful life has been an uphill climb since the very beginning. She had been subjected to emotionally excruciating experiences. All of these have severely damaged her self esteem and hindered her from finding genuine happiness she deserved.
To forgive and be healed, she started off with courage. Being brave enough to trace the roots of her wounds has helped her find the much-needed enlightenment to process her pain. After all, a closure to a painful part of one’s life is a necessary step to be at peace with one’s self.
The death of her father, her mother’s indifference towards her and her husband’s kept secret about the time he was missing – she deserved proper closure for these issues that emotionally wounded her. And after properly understanding everything, she was able to forgive not only those who have tormented her, but herself as well for her shortcomings and limitations as a human.
Humility
Excessive pride is destructive not only to relationships but to one’s self as well. The drama sends a clear message about this fundamental wisdom as was depicted through Jin’s fate at the end of the story.
Humility does not lessen one’s dignity. As humanizing as it could be, it is as well liberating from the weight that comes with having an excessive ego.
Letting Go Graciously
Persevering to claim what you want so badly is laudable. But graciously letting go of the things that are not meant for you is even more noble. And it takes courage and maturity to do so.
Hwan exemplifies a gracious grown up man. It manifested first when he gave way for his brother’s happiness and when he finally let go of his first love for good. But rather than being resentful about the tragic fate of his unfulfilled love, he took it as a learning experience instead.
Series Afterthoughts
When I Was The Most Beautiful is essentially a pure melodrama in that it glorifies human emotions through a complicated plot. For melodramatic genres, to some extent, the unimaginable twists serve as a double-edged sword. It could either nullify the validity of the story or it could engross viewers by capitalizing on emotions rather than reason.
For this drama, the over-the-top and emotionally-driven plot worked to its advantage as evident in the rise of its viewership rating towards the closing part.
In form, the series has all the makings of a classic soap opera – a wronged heroine, the existence of too many tormentors and far-fetched plot twists among other things. The inconsistent narrative movement, however, took away some of its brightness. The viewers have been dragged a number of times to jump forward in time which has left no chance to further delve on character developments.
And though the story, which is primarily framed into the love triangle arc, is too clichéd with an exaggerated ‘accident’ twist, the performances of the lead actors more than made up for it.
I couldn’t ask for better actors than Im Soo Hyang, Ha Seok Jin and Ji Soo to portray their respective roles. Ha Seok Jin, in my opinion, shined the most in such way that his character could tell a stand-alone story in itself. He triumphantly depicted a character who was a victim of circumstances that he evolved into an antagonistic character.
Im Soo Hyang as the relentless heroine and Ji Soo as the uncomplaining and giving person are beyond praises too.
Overall, the heavy drama it offered was good while it lasted. It is neither something that will linger in you for a long time nor one that will just slip your mind right away.
If you are looking for a drama that would take you to a tearful journey throughout the series, this is a good watch.
Image/Video: MBC Drama
Streaming plaform: Viu
