200 Pounds Beauty - Plot

Plot

Han-na is an overweight phone sex employee and a ghost singer for Amy, a famous pop singer who actually lip syncs. Instead of being famous for her own amazing vocal talent, Han-na hides behind Amy's performance stage and sings during Amy's concerts, and records all of Amy's songs. One day, Amy ungratefully humiliates her in front of the music company's director Sang-jun during his birthday party, knowing full well that Han-na has a crush on him. While crying in the bathroom, Han-na overhears Sang-jun telling Amy that even though they are just using Han-na for her voice, they must be kind to her so she will not walk out on them. Heartbroken, Han-na attempts suicide but is interrupted by a phone call from one of her phone sex regulars who happens to be a top plastic surgeon. She decides to get head-to-toe plastic surgery instead. The surgeon at first refuses to operate on Han-na, but Han-na threatens to blackmail the surgeon by telling his wife about his calls. Then, Han-na makes a moving speech that she does not want to undergo surgery merely to be beautiful, but for the sake of love and as a boost in confidence so that she can live a life, and the surgeon is deeply moved. Han-na puts herself in seclusion for a year as she recovers from the changes.

When she comes back from the hospital, Han-na is incredibly beautiful and slender. Not even her best friend Jung-min recognizes her. With Jung-min's help, she creates a new identity for herself; she is now a Korean-American from California named Jenny. After auditioning to be Amy's secret vocalist again, she earns her own recording contract instead from Sang-jun, claiming that she is "all-natural". In the meantime, Amy, oblivious just like everyone else of Han-na's new identity, desperately tries to find Han-na so that she can record her own postponed album (since she cannot sing the songs herself) by spending time with Han-na's father who is in a hospital due to mental problems, possibly Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, romance begins to blossom between Jenny and Sang-jun, as he continues to promote Jenny, in effect boosting Han-na's confidence in her new self. However, Amy, through spending time with Han-na's father and Jenny, eventually realizes that this Jenny is actually Han-na in disguise.

During a date one night, Jenny refuses Sang-jun's advances, as the surgeon mentions that if he touches her breasts, he will immediately know they are fake. She instead offers a phone sex session. After Jenny has fallen asleep, he sees the African character Jenny had drawn on the glass and realizes that he had seen it before; Han-na had drawn exactly the same signs on a sheet of music. He then realizes as well that Jenny is actually Han-nam but he keeps this information to himself.

Jenny's debut single "Maria" becomes a hit and the recording company holds a party to celebrate its release. On the day of the party however, Amy brings Han-na's father in an attempt to blow her cover. Han-na's father tries to return Han-na's Barbie doll to her, which had always been Han-na's favorite childhood gift from him. Startled by the sudden appearance of her father and not knowing how to react in front of all the people, including Sang-jun, Han-na denies knowing her father and calls him a fan instead when Sang-jun asks her if the old man is her guest. As her father keeps insisting on giving her the doll, Sang-jun drags him away from Jenny knocks him down onto the floor. Desperate to keep her true identity a secret, Han-na makes no move to help her father. It is Jung-min who finally helps him up, casts Jenny a furious look and leads Han-na's father away from the party.

After the party, Sang-jun and Jenny are the only ones left in the room. Sang-jun reveals to Jenny that he knows her true identity but is now cold and distant. He seems unable to forgive her for lying to him but says that he will still work to promote Jenny and carry on with her concert scheduled the next day. Han-na breaks down at this point, heartbroken and unable to pretend to be someone else anymore. She tears down the posters and smashes her CDs that are placed on a table, cutting her fingers in the process. Han-na tells him that it is incredibly frustrating and painful not being able to just be herself but have to live a lie, especially in front of him. The surgery that took a whole year to recover from was not nearly as painful as realizing that she still could not be close to Sang-jun. As Sang-jun tries to comfort her, she brushes away his efforts saying, "You broke my heart. Tissue paper cannot fix it."

Sang-jun still insists on continuing with Jenny's first concert, despite protests from the company boss. Later, he encourages a distraught Jenny to do this concert, not for the sake of the fans or the company but for herself, thus implying that he has forgiven her and will continue to support her. At the concert, Jenny can't sing and later breaks down from the pressure of seeing her father being dragged away by security and tells everybody to stop. She then reveals to the public that Jenny is a "fake," and that she is not "all-natural", as she had claimed. She proceeds tearfully to tell the large crowd her story: how she has abandoned everything that is dear to her - her best friend and father - to get to where she is. She also tells the crowd about how on the way to fame and fortune she has also lost her own identity and that she now no longer knows who she is. Sang-jun plays a tape of the old, obese Han-na, singing. Han-na turns around and sees her old image on the screen and tells the crowd that the image is the real her. The crowd, moved by her sincere confession, responds by chanting "It's okay," and Han-na rekindles her relationships with her father and best friend. She drops the stage name Jenny and re-releases a CD with her own name, Han-na, and becomes a highly successful music artist, gaining many fans and anti-fans along the way. Sang-jun realizes the very thing about Han-na that had always drawn him to her was Han-na's innocence.

At the end of the film, Jung-min also asks to get a head-to-toe plastic surgery.