Why watch this film? For the actors, I guess. Or, if you are not in a mood for something too heavy. Though this one does get a little boring. Another problem was that the film focuses on representing the webtoon dynamics, trying to present that manga feeling as good as possible, which, unfortunately, results to make the film look cheep and kind of a TV movie. The story is not that bad, as the characters are interesting, but everything that happens is comical, odd and idiotic. Even the performances couldn't save the movie, as the events are simply too ridiculous to make sense.

As of this review, I have seen 907 South Korean movies. This piece of garbage ranks safely among the bottom 20.

A highschool guy changes his fashion sense and becomes more popular, but becomes a target by bullies. This movie feels like it was made for teenage girls who like to watch guys strut around, doing nothing interesting whatsoever. The humor is incompetent and the characters are wafer thin. The bully subplot is a dumb scriptwriting decision that clashes horribly with the rest of the movie; it feels like a desperate attempt to add fake depth. The fashion elements are embarrassing and not the least bit engaging. This is so devoid of content that it quickly becomes annoying, and it's frankly almost impossible to sit through.

South Korea, along with Japan, has developed an outstanding pedigree for films concerning teenagers and/or children. Just in the past handful of years they have delivered A Brand New Life (2009),Thread of Lies (2014),Bleak Night (2010),Han Gong-ju (2014),Duresori: The Voice of East (2012),Silenced (2011),Pluto (2012),and Sunny (2011) – just to name a few. They have also made some fairly recent teenage comedies that were really good. I have greatly enjoyed some of their more light-hearted films.

With that said, Fashion King (2014) is a pile of elephant manure. There's zero charm, zero laughs, and the serious elements are offensively bad.

I am posting a review for this film, both because it was a lot of fun to watch and because I don't think it deserves to be represented solely by a one star review. I, myself, have only seen around 400 Korean movies but could easily name 20 of them that are MUCH worse than this one. I am assuming that the previous reviewer was objecting more to the style and content of the movie rather than the quality. Why namedrop heavy critically acclaimed dramas in a review for a lighthearted teen comedy about high school fashion. Because that is what this movie is. And that is all it is trying to be. It's obviously not shooting for a Grand Bell.

The movie follows sad-sack nerd Woo Ki-myung who is so badly bullied that his mother moves him to Seoul to get away from his daily torment. Entering a high school where fashion is highly important, Ki-myung (with the help of an outrageous best friend and an underground fashion designer who is selling knock-off brand names on the web) reinvents himself as one of the trendy kids and is successful enough to come under fire from the school's fashion king. Their conflict, while moving the story forward, is not the heart of the movie as this is really a film about what makes a person truly stand out from the crowd. Do the clothes make the man or the man make the clothes.

This movie has some very familiar teen tropes--nerd becomes cool becomes nerd, ugly duckling smart girl becomes beautiful swan, etc. But this film presents them in a fun, kinetic and unique way so they don't seem tired or re-tread. Won Joo is quite good as the tormented teen who still has a quiet self assurance about him, even as he is being humiliated. Seong-oh Kim is fantastic as the hungry fashion designer turned mentor. I quite enjoyed this film and found it, not only funny, but charming. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is intentionally goofy at times but that only adds to the fun of it. Plus, I hear all the dope kids like it.