200 Pounds Beauty

200 Pounds Beauty (; “Beauty is painful”) is a 2006 South Korean musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Kim Yong-hwa. It is based on the Japanese manga by Yumiko Suzuki about an overweight ghost singer who undergoes intensive plastic surgery to become a pop sensation.
The film was a critical and commercial success. It was the third best-selling domestic film of 2006 with 6,619,498 admissions nationwide, grossing . "200 Pounds Beauty" also received several awards and nominations, including Best Actress for Kim Ah-joong at the 2007 Grand Bell Awards.
Plot.
Hanna Kang is an overweight phone sex part-timer and a ghost singer for Ammy, a famous pop singer who actually lip syncs her songs instead of singing live. Hanna has a crush on Sang-jun, a director whose arrogant father owns the record company Ammy is signed to. One day, Hanna receives an outfit from Sang-jun with a note to wear it to his birthday party. However, it actually came from Ammy, who wears the same outfit just to humiliate Hanna. While crying in the restroom, Hanna overhears Sang-jun telling Ammy that even though they are just using Hanna for her voice, they must be kind to her so she will not abandon them. Heartbroken, Hanna attempts suicide but is interrupted by a phone call from one of her phone sex regulars, a top plastic surgeon, and persuades him to perform head-to-toe plastic surgery on her.
After a year of seclusion while recovering from the surgery and weight loss, Hanna is so incredibly beautiful and slender that even her best friend Jung-min cannot recognize her at first. With Jung-min's help, Hanna creates a new identity for herself as a Korean-American from California named Jenny. After re-auditioning to be Ammy's secret vocalist, she earns her own recording contract instead. Meanwhile, Ammy fears her own secret in being unable to sing will be exposed if the release of her second album is delayed. She desperately tries to find Hanna by spending time with Hanna's father who is in hospital due to Alzheimer's, but Sang-jun orders her to give up her search, threatening to terminate her contract if she does not stop. After many encounters with Jenny, they both realize that Jenny is actually Hanna.
Jenny's debut single "Maria" becomes a hit and in the party to celebrate it, Ammy brings Hanna's father in an attempt to blow her cover. Desperate to keep her true identity a secret, Hanna ignores her father. Jung-min becomes furious at her indifferent behavior. After the party, Sang-jun tells Hanna he knows her true identity. He cannot forgive her for lying to him but says he will conduct her concert scheduled the next day. Hanna confesses her love for him and reveals she got plastic surgery in order to make him love her back. After realizing how worthless she was to him even as Jenny, Hanna tearfully refuses to have anything to do with him.
Before the concert, Ammy threatens to reveal Hanna's deception unless Sang-jun cancels the concert. Though his father agrees, Sang-jun stands up to them and refuses, and encourages a distraught Hanna to do this concert, not for her fans or the record company but for herself. Before performing, Hanna apologizes to Jung-min for her earlier behavior. She coldly rejects her apology, rebuking Hanna for the way she treated her own father. At the concert, Hanna tearfully confesses to the large crowd her story of being a ghost singer to an ungrateful Ammy while she was overweight, going into a year of seclusion to heal from the changes from the surgery and abandoning everything that is dear to her, including her best friend and father, for her career. Sang-jun plays a tape of the old, obese Hanna, singing. Hanna remarks that the person on the video is the real her. The crowd are moved by her sincere confession and praise her for showing her true identity. Hanna reconciles with her father and Jung-min. She drops the stage-name Jenny and re-releases a CD with her own name, Hanna, and becomes a highly successful music artist. Sang-jun realizes the very thing about her that had always drawn him to her was Hanna's innocence, and continues to promote her in hopes of pursuing a relationship with her.
During the post-credits, Jung-min also asks to get head-to-toe plastic surgery from the surgeon.
Soundtrack.
The soundtrack album was released by KM Culture and SBS Contents Hub on December 13, 2006.
The title track is a cover of the Blondie song "Maria," sung in Korean by the film's star, Kim Ah-joong.
Director Kim Yong-hwa has been friends with music director Lee Jae-hak since their college days. Lee is a member of the modern rock band Loveholic, which is also featured in the soundtrack.