Mask Girl (마스크걸) Season 1 Review

Kim Mo Mi is very tired. Like thousands of other office workers in Seoul, she is young, but already so worn down by life that no one even looks at her without humiliating comments. She has always been bullied for her plain appearance, so the girl давно gave up her dream of performing on stage. But she still kept something from her childhood passion: on long evenings she entertains herself with online streams, where she dances for strangers on camera, hiding her face.

Over time, the Mask Girl becomes a local celebrity, but behind the fame of an anonymous persona there may be a danger that is far from imaginary. Especially after Mo Mi receives a message from an unknown number: "I know who you really are."

"Mask Girl" is a pretentious dramatic Netflix miniseries with a very interesting structure: each episode has its own protagonist, its own point of view, and even its own genre (!). At first this sparks noticeable interest (no wonder, because it looks like Darren Aronofsky’s "Black Swan" meeting Coralie Fargeat’s "The Substance"!), but then it starts to confuse. A psychological drama about self-identity and unrequited love suddenly turns into a bloody thriller, then a бытовой detective story, then a story of straightforward revenge, then a parable about redemption… and by the end, about as much remains of the original premise as of the main character’s face, who spends her whole life resisting the temptation to get plastic surgery and ultimately gives in: absolutely nothing.

The series essentially deceives the viewer: "Oh, this is a dark and disturbing story about self-identity and the difficult acceptance of oneself! Oh, no, it’s actually a story about an accidental killer." The viewer might think: "Oh, so now there will probably be a grim thriller or detective story?", but the series responds: "Not at all, we changed our minds. Get ready for a drama within four walls… oh, no, we won’t finish that either, get ready for another genre shift " — and so on. When a carefully constructed plot itself doesn’t know what it wants to be, it makes it hard to take it seriously. (For me, this happened closer to the end: the heroine, who fought until the very last, simply broke — and a random twist shook her at the most unexpected moment. Emotional, but it killed the last bit of interest in the series.)

And yet the story is unconventional and interesting. A girl hiding her face wants to be seen and loved. There is neither warmth nor light in her difficult life, so she tries to create them herself in the flicker of the monitor, the glare of the camera, and the artificial light of LED lamps during online streams. She searches for unity in disunity. Reality in the unreal. She dances because that’s the only way she can feel alive.

The Mask Girl does not want to harm anyone. But she inadvertently sets off a chain of events she will no longer be able to control. The person whose life she ruined will search for her for many years — and will keep convincing himself he is right until the very end, losing his humanity. Yes, Mo Mi herself will take off the mask rather quickly and her alter ego will remain in the past, but the motif of the mask as a false facade, behind which something entirely different may be hidden, will persist in the series until the very end — and that’s quite a smart decision.

But, like everything in life, even this small freedom is not eternal. The plot catches up with the concept — and breaks it for the sake of spectacle.

The main problem of "Mask Girl" is that form and variety heavily prevail over substance. The miniseries tries to be everything, everywhere, all at once, changes genres like outfits, but in the end boils down to a very simple family drama and a tiresome confrontation with an antagonist in makeup that isn’t really justified by the story’s logic. When acting talent goes to waste, it’s even a bit disappointing!

It could have been an excellent, deep, and unconventional series exploring a whole range of complex themes if it had more screen time. Some plotlines get enough quick development, but others do not. What we get is a rushed arthouse-like seven-episode piece with four key characters and five different genres, which not only veers off in a completely different direction but also fails to fully раскрыть all its themes as it could have.

However, my opinion may not be the most common one. Many people, on the contrary, like the series: it has a 7.3 rating on IMDB — and I don’t quite understand why.

Still, the series has undeniable strengths: interesting direction (especially the “theatrical” confession scenes against a black background), cinematography, characters with some of their storylines — and of course, the actors. And what actors! (The main heroine alone is played by as many as four actresses — and all of them instantly fit the role.)

Otherwise… "Mask Girl" is, in its own way, a noteworthy miniseries for a couple of evenings, with an intriguing premise and not the most obvious development of ideas. Unpredictable, lifelike, aspiring to depth. It’s not as bad as this review might make it seem. But for me, it didn’t quite land.

Rating: 6.5/10. A Twitch streamer moved to OnlyFans — and suddenly it turns into a Tarantino film. Stylish, pretentious, but not for everyone. Interesting casting, vivid and complex characters, a tangled story logic (“but that’s realistic,” you might say — and you’d be right). Should you watch "Mask Girl" or not? Decide for yourself — her midnight stream has already begun…