Kim Nam-woo struggles through life as people around him constantly leave him; his best friend, Jun-ho, is going to study in Seoul and in some ways his widowed mother is "leaving" him too by paying more attention to her new boyfriend. To escape, he goes to a dream world, where he meets a girl named Mari. The story follows Nam-woo in discovering himself and maturing.
While familial subplots, schoolyard showdowns and a climactic sea storm feel somewhat detached from the narrative, the deep sense of longing that underlies this sweet-natured tale rings true.
– Jeff Shannon,
Seattle Times,
30 Sep 2005
rotten:
Softly sensuous from afar, but rather flighty on closer acquaintance, My Beautiful Girl, Mari is an extremely oblique animated feature that may, in fact, be about very little at all.