The intransigence of the AMPTP means our screens may well be starved of American content for the foreseeable future, but hey—there’s always K-drama! We’re big fans of the screen arts of South Korea around these parts, and this latest offering looks intriguing as hell. Mask Girl has landed in the UK and is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
Spanning decades and seven episodes, Mask Girl is a blackly hilarious satire of internet celebrity and the cult of fame from director and writer Kim Young-hoon. Our heroine, the eponymous Mask Girl, is Kim Mo-mi (Lee Han-byeol), an unremarkable office worker who has always dreamed of stardom but was held back by her homely looks (no judgement here—it’s in the press materials).
Kim slakes her thirst for fame by working as a cam girl, always wearing a mask to hide her face. However, when she has a fraught encounter with a “fan”, she soon spirals down a path that leads to murder, prison, and revenge. Because it’s that kind of K-drama.
Mask Girl is the kind of twisty mystery that careless spoilers can scupper completely, so that’s all the plot details you’re getting out of us today. The series jumps between not only time periods but points of view. One episode is told entirely from the perspective of a stalker, Ju Oh-nam (Ahn Jae-hong), while another puts us in the shoes of his doting mother Kim Kyung-ja (Yeom Hye-ran). The cast is rounded out by Ko Hyun-jung and Choi Daniel, with a special appearance by K-pop sensation Nana of super group After School.
Will Mask Girl set the world on fire like the wildly popular Squid Game did recently? Hard to say. But if you’re feeling the need for some K-flavoured suspense and mystery, this looks like just the thing.
