Mask Girl review: A dark tale of damaged people that is not an easy watch

3.5/5

Story: A regular office worker who is insecure about her looks lives her dreams by becoming a masked internet personality by night. But things start to go wrong after a chain of ill-fated events overtakes her life and those close to her.

Review: Twisted body images, twisted ideas of beauty, twisted family ties, and twisted relationships — Mask Girl is a dark commentary on societal beauty standards and how they can affect a person, pushing them to such lengths that it ends up destroying more than just their lives. It is also about generational trauma and how unhealthy parenting in early childhood and beyond can damage a person.

The limited series is seven episodes long, and each episode tells the tale of one character who is damaged due to their own dark pasts that they just cannot step out of. Each character is connected to the other, and while they are all quite different from each other, what is common is their damaged emotional states.

Kim Mo-mi (Go Hyun-jung/Im Jin-ah/Lee Han-byul) had but one desire: to be popular and loved by everyone. But she ends up living an ordinary life as just another office worker after her mother and the world at large make it evident to her that she is not good looking. 

In the internet and web streaming boom of the early 2000s, Mo-mi gets to live her dreams by transforming into Mask Girl after her work hours, where she gets the praise and love that she craves from strangers who watch her perform online.

When one of her followers tricks her into revealing her identity, it results in Mo-mi finding herself embroiled in one heinous crime after another, which then goes on to affect not just her but her daughter, her mother (who had long shunned her), her friends, and the mother of a man who she killed, who is oblivious to how deeply she is connected with Mo-mi.

Verdict: Mask Girl is a dark tale that can make you feel rather uncomfortable with the eerie workings of the human mind of those who are ignored and made fun of by society. It is a commentary on the shallow world that we all live in and the cascading effect that this can have on the lives of not just those who are overlooked or looked down upon, but also those who inadvertently find themselves in the way.

The series is well made and has some good twists and thrills. But be warned that it isn’t easy to watch.