Welcome back to Movies Hunter.
Today, I am going to explain a romance drama film released in 2008 called “Portrait of
a Beauty”.
At the beginning of the film, we see Shin Han-Pyeong, who has called some guests to
show off some paintings drawn by his son, Shin Yun-Bok.
The guests are impressed by the paintings and request the son to paint in front of them.
But the son is scared and hesitates to paint.
His father is embarrassed and looks for him afterwards to scold him.
But to his shock, Yun-bok hanged himself and committed suicide.
Han-Pyeong learns that the paintings were actually made by his daughter, Shin Yun-Jeong,
and blames her for the death of Yun-bok.
Han-Pyeong is desperate to get an heir to continue his name.
But since girls are not allowed to become royal painters, he forces Yun-Jeong to assume
the identity of her brother, and live the rest of her life as Yun-bok. 10 years later,
Yun-Jeong has become a student of Kim Hong-Do and is being trained to become a royal painter.
While walking in the town with her teacher, a local man named Kang-Mu accidentally bumps
into them and breaks an expensive royal mirror.
Kang-Mu is arrested, and Hong-Do and Yun-Jeong are also held responsible for the damage.
They are asked to make an excellent painting which should be worth the price of the expensive
mirror.
Hong-Do asks Yun-Jeong to make the painting, as his hand is injured.
The painting made by Yun-Jeong is accepted, and Kang-Mu is set free.
Kang-Mu thanks Hong-Do and Yun-Jeong for helping him, and gives them a puppy as thank you.
Hong-Do is not satisfied and tells Kang-Mu to show them some beautiful locations for
painting.
The next day, Kang-Mu takes Yun-Jeong around the village and shows her many people and
places that she can paint.
After drawing various paintings, Kang-Mu takes Yun-Jeong to a lake, where some women are
bathing.
Yun-Jeong is thrilled to watch them and draws a painting of them.
The women catch them peeking.
Yun-Jeong and Kang-Mu run away as fast as possible and arrive at a bridge, where Yun-Jeong
falls into the river.
Kang-Mu also jumps into the river and helps Yun-Jeong get to the shore.
Now that her clothes are soaked in water, her chest is clearly visible.
Out of curiosity, Kang-Mu grabs them and gets slapped by Yun-Jeong.
Kang-Mu realises that Yun-Jeong is a woman pretending to be a man.
A few days later, Yun-Jeong goes to a house of ill repute where all her painter colleagues
are watching some women perform adult things.
While leaving, Yun-Jeong gets attacked by some men, who are jealous of Yun-Jeong’s
achievements.
Since Yun-Jeong is physically weak, she has no choice but to obey them.
But Kang-Mu comes to her rescue and saves her.
Kang-Mu is attracted to Yun-Jeong and is falling in love with her.
The next day, Kang-Mu takes part in a wrestling competition and wins a cow, which he gifts
to Yun-Jeong.
Yun-Jeong sees the cow along with an apology for touching her and rushes to Kang-Mu’s
house.
Both of them have feelings for each other, and cannot resist it anymore.
Meanwhile, Hong-do sees the paintings of Yun-Jeong and notices her growing interest in lust.
The next morning, a rich businessman entrusts Kang-Mu to take care of the warehouse.
The bullies from earlier steal the paintings of Yun-Jeong, and show them to their master,
because of which Yun-Jeong gets scolded.
The king arrives there and sees the paintings.
Hong-Do defends Yun-Jeong and says that vulgarity is in the eyes of the beholder, not in the
paintings.
The king seems to agree with him and commands Yun-Jeong to practise more self-discipline.
But some time later, Hong-do scolds Yun-Jeong for making such paintings, which are vulgar
and lewd.
Later, Hong-do follows Yun-Jeong and Kang-Mu to the warehouse.
Yun-Jeong begins visiting the warehouse daily and has a lot of fun with Kang-Mu.
Their love for each other is getting stronger, and one day, they make love in the warehouse.
Yun-Jeong is finally able to embrace her womanhood and be herself instead of pretending to be
someone else.
But unbeknownst to them, Hong-Do is watching them from behind a window.
After watching them make love all day, he is turned on.
Despite vowing never to return to a house of ill repute a long time ago, Hong-do goes
to make love to Seol-Hwa, an adult performer.
The next day, the bully attacks Yun-Jeong because he is having doubts about her gender.
But Hong-Do saves her and tells the bully to leave the court.
A few days later, the bully apologises to Yun-Jeong for bullying her and invites some
adult performers for fun.
His main intention is to find the truth about Yun-Jeong’s gender.
Seol-Hwa takes Yun-Jeong to a room and begins kissing her.
She knows about Yun-Jeong’s true identity but chooses not to expose her.
Meanwhile, Kang-Mu goes to a shop to buy some clothes for Yun-Jeong.
Seol-Hwa sees Kang-Mu buying a dress, and invites him to her place.
She gives him a beautiful dress as a gift.
The dress was given to her by Hong-Do, who promised to marry her a long time ago, but
he never came back for her.
Later that night, Hong-do tells Yun-Jeong not to get diverted by the outside influence,
and to shift all her focus to her upcoming test.
He knows about Yun-Jeong’s affair and gender but doesn’t say anything.
The next day, Yun-Jeong goes to the warehouse, where Kang-Mu gifts her the dress.
Yun-Jeong wears the dress and goes out with Kang-Mu.
Meanwhile, a woman goes to a temple to pray and faints all of a sudden.
So the monk takes her to his room.
It turns out that the woman was just pretending, and asks the monk to make love to her so that
she can produce an heir.
Yun-Jeong and Kang-Mu also arrive at the temple to pray.
But just then, the royal guards arrive at the temple to arrest everyone, including the
monks and women.
Yun-Jeong and Kang-Mu try to escape but are caught by the royal guards.
Kang-Mu tries to fight them off but is outnumbered by them.
So he sacrifices himself so that Yun-Jeong can escape.
Yun-Jeong gets home and sees that Hong-Do is waiting for her.
He is surprised to see her wearing the dress that he gave to Seol-Hwa.
Hong-Do expresses his love for Yun-Jeong and attempts to make love to her forcefully.
But he stops when he realizes his mistake.
Everyone belonging to royal families is allowed to leave, except for Kang-Mu, who is informed
by the guards that he is going to be executed the next day for committing adultery at the
temple.
The next day, the test for the royal court painters begins, but Yun-Jeong is absent.
Later, Yun-Jeong begs Hong-Do to save Kang-Mu from execution.
Seeing her in pain, Hong-do decides to meet the king and asks him to spare Kang-Mu.
The king accepts his request and decides to banish Kang-Mu from the Isle of Geoje.
Yun-Jeong returns to her father, who tells Yun-Jeong to become a great painter, greater
than Hong-Do.
So Yun-Jeong burns all the memories of her and Kang-Mu and decides to move on.
She also offers her body to Hong-Do to thank him for saving Kang-mu.
Hong-Do loses control and makes love to her.
Yun-Jeong chooses to continue her life as Yun-Bok.
After walking for some distance, Kang-Mu faints.
Seol-Hwa followed him and brought him back to her house.
Yun-Jeong rushes to see him and is happy to see Kang-Mu alive.
Later, Seol-Hwa reveals to the bully that Yun-Jeong is a woman.
She also tells Hong-Do that Yun-Jeong and Kang-Mu are planning to run away the next
morning.
Seol-Hwa wants Hong-Do to be alone forever because he never fulfilled his promise of
marrying her.
Hong-Do returns home and finds Yun-Jeong waiting for him.
She wants to give Hong-Do a painting to thank him for everything.
While painting, Hong-do gets flashbacks of all the happy memories he has with Yun-Jeong.
For the first time in his life, he feels love for someone and begs Yun-Jeong not to leave
him.
But Yun-Jeong has made up her mind.
Hong-Do doesn’t want to lose Yun-Jeong.
So he confronts Kang-Mu and shoots him with a poisonous arrow.
Hong-Do tells Kang-Mu that he has the antidote for the poison, but will give it to him only
if Kang-Mu is willing to forget Yun-Jeong.
But Kang-Mu isn’t willing to give up on his love and fights with Hong-Do.
Both men are unwilling to give up on their love and will do anything for Yun-Jeong.
Because of their struggle, the antidote falls into the river.
Hong-Do jumps into the water to find the antidote.
Yun-Jeong arrives there and is saddened to see Kang-Mu taking his final breath.
By the time Hong-Do returned with the antidote, Kang-Mu has died on Yun-Jeong’s lap.
Yun-Jeong, her father, and Hong-do are arrested by the royal guards for deceiving the king
and having a woman become a royal painter.
Han-Pyeong accepts his mistake of forcing his daughter to hide her nature and begs the
king to spare Yun-Jeong.
The king commands his soldiers to torture Hong-Do and Yun-Jeong until they reveal the
truth.
When the king interrogates Yun-Jeong, she tells him that Hong-Do learnt about her identity
last night and that he is innocent.
Despite the death of Kang-Mu, Yun-Jeong protects her master till the end.
Hong-Do on the other hand draws a painting of the day he learnt about Yun-Jeong’s identity,
which changed everything for him.
He cries saying that he couldn’t protect Yun-Jeong’s innocence and lost to his lust.
After listening to both of them, the king decides to spare Hong-Do and banishes him
from the kingdom.
Yun-Jeong is also banished from the kingdom separately and draws a painting of herself
when she wore the dress gifted by Kang-Mu.
Because of jealousy and lust, a beautiful relationship between a teacher and a student
got tainted.
So this was the story of “Portrait Of A Beauty.
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