K-Drama Review: Queen of the Ring

Sumona Sinha, Silchar, Assam

“BEAUTY” in our society is like a benchmark to get everything. If you are pretty, lean, thin etc., then you will fit in the society’s so-called beauty standard and if you don’t fit in that picture then you are not considered beautiful, you will be categorized under not so perfect category. Once Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, a renowned author said that “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

Queen of the Ring, a fantasy based romance genre drama; starring Kim Seul-gi, Ahn Hyo-seop, Yoon So-hee, Lee Tae-sun was aired from 9 March 2017 to 23 March 2017, consisting of 6 episodes.

Plot

The drama starts with the story of Mo Nan-hee played by (Kim Seul-gi) who does not find herself pretty and because of her appearance no one gives her a job and no one finds her attractive which makes her feel like a backstage girl and she lacks confidence. Nan hee has a best friend named Byun Tae played by (Lee Tae-sun) who always cheers up Nan hee and is always there for her.

On the other hand, the male lead of this drama is Park Se-gun played (Ahn Hyo- seop) who is a very handsome and a popular boy and he always dates pretty and beautiful girl. He is a fashion designer student. Nan hee secretly likes Se-gun, but she never confesses it to him because she knew that Se-gun always prefers pretty and beautiful girls. So, one day her mother gave her a magical ring and said to her that give the ring to the boy whom you like and ask him to put this on your finger and you will become the girl he will like. According to that, Nan -hee makes Se-gun to put that ring on her.

Next day when Nan-hee goes to her University, Se-gun was shocked to see her because he saw Nan -hee in the image of a girl whom he would meet 6 years ago in Paris. Gradually, friendship starts between them. Se-gun sees magical Nan-hee as the most beautiful girl, but the reality was different. One day Se-gun went to magical Nan-hee’s house and saw the real Nan-hee and asked him what she was doing here and the real Nan-hee told him that she is the best friend of magical Nan-hee. Se-gun then became friends with the real Nan-hee so that he can know what magical Nan-hee likes.

And when real Nan-hee and Se-gun were returning to home, Se-gun said that he wanted to give her a gift and started picking apples for her but he was only selecting the beautiful and pretty apples then Nan-hee started picking the ugly apples and said that people only choose pretty ones and left ugly ones. She further said that pretty ones are only pretty outside and it doesn’t taste good. Whereas though ugly ones didn’t look pretty outside but it taste good inside. Se-gun liked what Nan-hee said. The magical Nan-hee and Se-gun started going to dates.

However, a twist came into Nan-hee’s life when her childhood friend returned from abroad. Kang Mi-joo played by (Yoon So-hee) was the girl whom Se-gun met 6 years ago in Paris and Nan-hee doesn’t know that her friend is the one whom Se-gun actually likes. One day Nan-hee asked Se-gun to draw her picture so that she can know who is the girl whom Se-gun actually like and she was shocked that it was none other than her friend Mi-joo. Then Nan-hee decided to tell the truth to Se-gun and in the admist of this Nan-hee’s ring was lost and she started hiding from Se-gun.

So, Nan-hee tells everything to Mi-joo and asked her to pretend as Se-gun’s girl friend (magical Nan-hee). Then Mi-joo started dating Se-gun. One day after finding the ring Nan-hee decided to go on a last date with Se-gun and and accidently both Nan-hee and Mi-joo came infront of Se-gun. Mi-joo took away the ring from Nan-hee and Se-gun saw the real Nan-hee and he felt betrayed and went away.

After few days a fashion competition started in the University where both Se-gun and Nan-hee participated. Mi-joo was Se-gun’s model and Byun-tae was Nan-hee’s model. In the practice session Mi-joo felt sick and Byun-tae took her to the hospital and asked Se-gun to become Nan-hee’s model and Nan-hee to become Se-gun’s model in which both participated and won the competition. Finally, Se-gun proposed to Nan-hee and said that he liked Nan-hee for her nature and Nan-hee had made her realise that “BEAUTY IS NOT IN THE OUTSIDE BUT INSIDE” and they both lived happily after.

Overall Impression

This drama tells us that “Outer appearances will be destroyed and decay with the passage of time but beauty in the inside will remain forever with you until you die. As we live, we don’t need to fit in that picture of society’s so called beauty standard rather society should make the picture bigger. As humans if we change then our society will change because society is made of us, we will make a society not society will make us.

Last but not the least, it’s OK to be different and if people think you are an extra and not an ordinary then just tell them you are an “EXTRAORDINARY” and “ BE THE WAY YOU ARE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL” and always “LOVE YOURSELF” which is the most important thing. This K-drama is a beautiful take on the subject of inner and outer beauty, that you should definitely check out! You can watch this K-drama here:

https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2002854640

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!