Mask Girl
マスクガール
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
An office worker with a plain face and a dancer's body streams masked at night; three actresses play the same woman across a life of surgery, crime and reinvention.
Kim Mo-mi has wanted to be a star since she danced at a talent show as a child, but everyone agrees her face rules it out. In 2009 she is an office worker who puts on a mask at night and dances for a live-stream audience as Mask Girl, adored by strangers who never see her. At work she has a crush on her married boss, and when she catches him with a prettier colleague she spreads rumours that end the affair and get the woman transferred. Her colleague Ju Oh-nam, a lonely man bound to his mother, recognises Mask Girl by the moles on Mo-mi's hands and becomes obsessed. When a wealthy viewer she meets tries to rape her and she knocks him out, Oh-nam comes to help and kills him. Mo-mi quits and has her face remade by surgery. Oh-nam finds her at home and rapes her, and she kills him. Exposed as Mask Girl and wanted for murder, she vanishes under a new face and a new name, A-reum, dancing in a club.
Oh-nam's mother, Kim Kyung-ja, who raised him alone in poverty, gives her life to revenge. Her hunt leads to Kim Chun-ae, a dancer who is secretly Mo-mi's closest friend; Mo-mi helps Chun-ae kill her abusive boyfriend and tells her she is pregnant with Oh-nam's child. When Kyung-ja catches up with them, Chun-ae is killed, and Mo-mi sinks the car carrying both women in a lake. She leaves her baby daughter, Mi-mo, with her own mother and goes to prison.
Mi-mo grows up angry and friendless, driven from school to school because someone always spreads the news of who her mother is. That someone is Kyung-ja, who survived, altered her face and befriended the girl from a food truck outside her school, never knowing she is her own granddaughter. In prison, the older Mo-mi learns what is happening, fails to escape, then offers a kidney to the daughter of the inmate who runs the prison and slips away from the hospital. Mi-mo has run to Kyung-ja, the one adult who seems to love her, and Kyung-ja, after wavering, tries to kill her. Mo-mi, her mother and Mi-mo's friend Ye-chun all reach the house. Kyung-ja kills Mo-mi's mother, then turns on Mi-mo as the police arrive. Mo-mi shields her daughter and dies in her arms, and the police kill Kyung-ja. Ye-chun's parents take Mi-mo in. She watches an old video of her mother as a child, dancing, wanting to be loved by everyone.
Starring
Lee Han-byeolas Kim Mo-mi (before surgery)
An office worker told all her life that her face is wrong, who dances masked online at night as Mask Girl.
Kim Mo-mi (before surgery)’s story
Mo-mi has wanted to be loved by everyone since she danced on a stage as a child. Masked, she is adored online; at work she spreads rumours that end her married boss's affair with a prettier colleague. A viewer she meets tries to rape her, and her colleague Oh-nam kills him. She has her face remade; Oh-nam finds her and rapes her, and she kills him. Wanted for murder, she dances in a club as A-reum and loses her friend Chun-ae to Oh-nam's mother, Kyung-ja. She leaves her baby, Mi-mo, with her own mother and goes to prison. Years later, learning that Kyung-ja is after Mi-mo, she offers a kidney to a fellow inmate's daughter, slips away from the hospital and dies in her daughter's arms, shielding her.
Nanaas Kim Mo-mi / A-reum (after surgery)
Mo-mi with a new face and name, dancing in a club while hiding from the police and a vengeful mother.
Go Hyun-jungas Kim Mo-mi (in prison)
The older Mo-mi, years into a prison sentence, who learns that her daughter is in danger.
Ahn Jae-hongas Ju Oh-nam
Mo-mi's lonely colleague, who discovers she is Mask Girl and turns his fixation on her into violence.
Ju Oh-nam’s story
Oh-nam, a lonely man still bound to his mother, watches every one of Mask Girl's streams and knows by the moles on her hands that she is his colleague Mo-mi. He cannot tell her how he feels. Online, as a regular viewer, he becomes the one she confides in; offline, he follows her and emails her that he knows her secret. When a viewer she has met tries to rape her, Oh-nam comes to help, kills the man and disposes of the body for her. She quits and vanishes. He tracks down her new flat, finds her with a new face, and rapes her, and she kills him. The daughter Mo-mi bears months later, Mi-mo, is his, and his mother gives the rest of her life to avenging him.
Yeom Hye-ranas Kim Kyung-ja
Oh-nam's devout, fiercely protective mother, who spends years hunting the woman who killed her son.
Kim Kyung-ja’s story
Kyung-ja, abandoned by her husband, raised her only son, Oh-nam, alone and in poverty. When he stops answering, she has the police open his flat, and before long his remains are found. Sure that Mo-mi, exposed as Mask Girl, killed him, she learns to use a computer and gives her life to revenge. She tracks down Mo-mi's friend Chun-ae and kills her, and survives being sunk in a lake. With an altered face she runs a food truck outside the school of Mo-mi's daughter, Mi-mo, befriends the girl and spreads word of who her mother is at every new school, then tells Mo-mi in prison what she has done. When Mi-mo runs to her, Kyung-ja wavers, then tries to kill her. She kills Mo-mi's mother and is killed by the police, never knowing that Mi-mo is her granddaughter.
Shin Ye-seoas Kim Mi-mo
Mo-mi's daughter, raised by her grandmother and hounded from school to school as Mask Girl's child.
Why it matters
Mask Girl starts from lookism, the belief that a woman's face decides what her life can be, set in a culture of cosmetic surgery the series takes as a given. Mo-mi is loved only when masked, and seven episodes, each told from a different point of view, follow that premise to its violent end. The series is unflinching about male entitlement: the viewer who treats a meeting as a promise of sex, the colleague who thinks devotion gives him rights over her. It is just as clear about damage passed down between women, from Mo-mi's mother to Mo-mi to Mi-mo, and about a mother's grief hardened into a mission. Ahn Jae-hong and Yeom Hye-ran both won supporting-acting prizes at the 2024 Baeksang Arts Awards. What stays open is the question Mo-mi carried from childhood: whether being seen is ever the same as being loved.