A Gay Guy Gets Blackmailed In ‘Ugly People’

BL Recaps Korea

2023-10-04
10:00

Hurt people hurt people.

‘Ugly People’ starts with an antsy student, Yonghyeon (played by Kim Hyun Mok), scrolling through his phone and reading messages. Footsteps introduces another student, Seongho (played by Kim Tae Sung), who saunters skittishly to Yonghyeon. Yonghyeon is visibly annoyed and asks Seongho why he is so late.

Seongho apprehensively takes out his wallet from his pocket and Yonghyeon quickly snatches it from him. He counts the money inside and discards the wallet to the ground. Yonghyeon angrily asks if that was everything Seongho brought him. Seongho tries to answer but Yonghyeon cuts him off and curses at him, saying the deadline is today. Seongho reasons that Yonghyeon is unreasonable to expect him to be able to shell out the amount of money Yonghyeon asks from him every single time.

Yonghyeon is pissed off and socks Seongho in the shoulder, clearly trying to pick a fight due to not being given what he was asking for. Seongho curses which only agitates Yonghyeon further. Yonghyeon asks if Seongho thinks he’s a joke and rips his bag off of him and slams it to the ground. Yonghyeon kicks the bag and throws Seongho’s stuff around. He asks again if he thinks Yonghyeon is a joke. He picks up Seongho’s phone and asks if he also thinks Yonghyeon is joking when he threatens to tell Seongho’s mom everything, whatever that is. Ah, so Yonghyeon has dirt on Seongho.

Yonghyeon opens Seongho’s phone and scrolls through the contacts list, finding Seongho’s mom. Seongho is furious and claims that it’s too much. Yonghyeon turns his back on him and calls Seongho’s mother. Meanwhile, a panicked Seongho looks around his surroundings and finds a chunk of brick. Yonghyeon starts talking to Seongho’s mom. Out of fear and anger, Seongho slams the brick against Yonghyeon’s head.

A distraught Seongho is covered in splatters of blood as he looks at Yonghyeon’s body on the floor. He hurriedly picks up his phone and ends the call with shaking hands. Seongho scrambles to drag Yonghyeon to an empty warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, a distressed Seongho tries to scrub the blood off his clothes while convincing himself that it wasn’t his fault. The sound of the door opening and closing reverberates throughout the floor. A man enters with a flashlight and checks the warehouse while Seongho hides himself and an unconscious Yonghyeon, front to back, in a corner. Seongho hears the man leave and lock the door, effectively trapping them in the building. Seongho starts to cry as he sees Yonghyeon’s blood stain the front of his uniform.

Moments later, Yonghyeon wakes up with a makeshift bandage wrapped around his head. He is clearly disoriented as he surveils his surroundings. He saunters past a sleeping Seongho and beelines for the door and finds that it’s been locked from the outside. Yonghyeon cries as he struggles to force the door open to no avail. He clutches at his wound in pain, evidently weakened by the trauma at the back of his head. Yonghyeon curses at Seongho who has been quietly watching him. Seongho retorts that if he had not called his mom, he wouldn’t have hit Yonghyeon. Angered, Yonghyeon threatens to ruin Seongho’s life as soon as they get out and Seongho screams that he would have done the same thing anyway. Yonghyeon is still in pain as he grabs at his head. A memory surfaces.

It is revealed that Yonghyeon was suffering as Seongho was, with him being bullied and extorted for money. Yonghyeon said that he would ask his friend for more when threatened with violence and his bully told him he doesn’t have anybody so who exactly would he ask for help? Yonghyeon promised to bring the money today by all means. The bully told him this was his final call before leaving Yonghyeon.

Yonghyeon, out of desperation, rummaged through his classmates’ things when the classroom was empty. He managed to grab some money from unattended bags and when he pulled out a card from someone’s wallet, something fell out. Yonghyeon picked it up and saw a photo of Seongho getting a kiss from another boy framed with a heart and a cute background. The door opened and Seongho saw the picture in Yonghyeon’s hands.

Back to the present, Yonghyeon takes out his phone only to see that his battery is empty. He sighs in defeat as he looks back at the locked door. Yonghyeon calls Seongho’s attention and gently asks him to do something. Seongho replies that what should he do, should he tell everyone that he is gay? Seongho sighs exasperatedly and expresses his frustration on Yonghyeon putting everything on him just because he was getting bullied too. Seongho says that he did everything that Yonghyeon asked of him— the money, etc. Just then, Yonghyeon collapses to the ground. Seongho crawls to him and shakes his body in panic that something bad might have happened to Yonghyeon but he doesn’t wake up. He takes out his phone, dials something, and puts it back in his pocket. He starts searching Yonghyeon’s body and finds what he’s looking for– his photo with his boyfriend.

Sometime later, Seongho exits an emergency medical center, indicating that Yonghyeon has been rushed to the hospital.

Writer’s thoughts:

Hurt people hurt others because they themselves have been hurt and the pain that it brings them causes them to become defensive to the point of lashing out at others which then becomes a vicious cycle. That is precisely what happens in ‘Ugly People’ with Yonghyeon getting bullied and finding himself someone to hurt in order to survive. That said, this writer’s gripe with the film is that there is no resolution to the pain that was inflicted on Yonghyeon, nor the suffering and mental torture he put Seongho through.

All in all, a pretty decent watch albeit the ending doesn’t feel complete enough, at least for this writer.

Watch ‘Ugly People’ on GagaOOLala. Enjoy watching either version on a bigger screen because GagaOOLala is now available to watch on your smart TVs by downloading the app on Google Play, Amazon Appstore, and Roku.