This review may contain spoilers
mild plot, everything else 10/10
I was curious about this drama for a long time, and it did not disappoint!I will begin with the strong points (no spoilers):
The actors
This was my first Byeon Woo-seok drama, and by god, do I get the hype around him now! He is very dreamy, very charming, his acting is concise yet meaningful, and can also be powerful when the script demands it.
IU is IU, nothing new to say here, she’s always amazing.
The actress portraying the queen, I was not expecting such strong acting there. Her eyes add a special touch to the character, making the queen cold and regal, but also an unsettling presence.
The wardrobe
This was by far my most loved part of the show. Prince I-AN’s choice of clothes was always, ALWAYS, on point, whether in color, silhouette or fabric. He looked like royalty without any effort, and apart from his posture, I think this is due to the excellent costume design. Well done, team! If not for anything else, I would say this show is worth watching for this alone, every character always looks magnificent on screen (except for one or two outfits when they made IU wear yellow, hm, I much prefer her in cooler tones).
The soundtrack
I cannot stress this enough, it was heaven when I realized the dramatic theme song didn’t have vocals in it. I could focus solely on the acting and the vibe of the scene. I think some dramas can get overly dramatic depending on the theme song’s vocals, and this often is a hit or miss for me. I have gotten used to it, but it was a pleasant surprise to not have it here. That is not to say that we don’t have songs with vocals in Perfect Crown, but they are very well chosen and placed in the right moments, not every 30s of each episode.
Now the bad parts:
The Plot (mild spoilers)
Unfortunately, the plot stays superficial throughout the whole show. The villains have shallow and undeveloped motivations, and most of the obstacles the protagonists have to endure are the cliched car accident, someone trying to assassinate someone and “passing out” moments. Both of the antagonists have a 180º personality change midway through the show, and, sadly, I do not think IU and Woo-Seok have chemistry (they are fun and cute together, and I was so charmed by his charisma that I did not mind this at all. I kind of think he had better chemistry with the antagonist queen, though).
In the last episodes IU’s character was totally relegated to the background to make way for the overly-predictable showdown, but politics was never a super-developed part of the series, so it just gets boring. I will say that when the main conflict is resolved, we get some adorable scenes of the characters together post-climax, and these are cute and wholesome, so we end the final episode on a high note.
Overall, I would say that Perfect Crown lacks a more complex plot, but more than makes up for it with charismatic characters, good performances and beautiful costumes.
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This review may contain spoilers
Killed me with kindness
It started with a harmless 90s aesthetic and Byeon Woo-Seok’s sweet smile, and it ended in the cold, minimalistic, soulless 21st-century days with me bawling my eyes out. This film perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being born in a hopeful era, only to have your innocence taken away by life’s unbearable weight of reality.If you’re an anxious person like me, you might want to look up the ending beforehand. I usually dislike spoilers, but somehow midway through this film I was like, “ok, I need to know if I’m gonna like the ending or else I won’t be able to keep going.” Then you can imagine my shock when I found out what happened. Thank goodness I learned of it before; otherwise, I would have been completely destroyed.
Spoilers ahead:
Yeah, he dies at the end. Was it really necessary? I don’t think so. I think the film had already made its point clear enough with his moving away. Their love had all the lightness and the overdramatics of adolescence. And like all good things, it eventually had to end. In my view, it would have been enough to see them slowly drifting apart as life got in the way, but remembering their time together with fondness, as happens in real life. This doesn’t ruin the film, though. The last scene is beautiful, and I cried even though I knew what the ending was before I got there.
This is a coming-of-age story, a love story, a nostalgic story. And I enjoyed every minute of it.
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This review may contain spoilers
Nice start, terrible ending
Worth watching until episode 8, but it only goes downhill from there.Lower your expectations drastically if you plan to watch this series, it is bizarrely overrated.
You have been warned.
(SPOILERS!)
Why why why must there always be an assassin in a ROMANCE DRAMA??? Please k-drama writers, stop relying on this overused plot device to justify dragging on the show for too many episodes! This storyline isn’t even the main story of the show! The main premise was “fan with disabilities travels back in time to save her utt from depression, then discovers he was her neighbour all along and must deal with heartbreak while doing her best to save him from his bleak destiny”. This had so much potential! So many important, deep themes that could have contributed to these characters’ development and depth, but they’re all discarded to put a generic serial killer as the main excuse for all their problems! Aaaah that made me so angry!!
Seon Jae had 2 personality traits: he liked to swim and he liked Im Sol, and around episode 4 he gives up swimming. So we are left with this one-dimensional personality of his, where his sole purpose in life is to be with Sol. Not even the music bit had a significant impact on the story! I wanted to see him fall in love with music so bad after having his dreams of being a professional swimmer shattered, but it seems music is just like any other job to him. He might as well have chosen to be a janitor in Im Sol’s office building. The only purpose of him still being in music is so we can have the plot device of him being famous, but that’s it.
The show should have ended around episode 8 when they get together again in the future after she successfully avoided her accident in the past. It was completely wholesome the way they spent the entire night together just talking, enjoying funny moments and finally opening up about their true feelings for each other! It was almost like Before Sunset, but actually enjoyable. And what’s more, she didn’t have to return to the past that last time—he wasn’t dead, he was hospitalized! There was a real chance that he would wake up, and she didn’t even wait to see if it was possible! If he had woken up in that timeline, all would end up just fine seeing as the assassin was already imprisoned again. They could be together without any fear, but the writers just had to keep stalling us through another 8ish more episodes.
Between episodes 9 and 13 I was just bored, but after episode 14 is when we really start to have key lore and writing mistakes. If she went back all the way to before he first met her and stopped him from ever getting to know her at that time, in the future she SHOULD still be a wheelchair-user OR dead, because Seon Jae would have never been there to save her from her first abduction! The writers just gave up at this point, there is no more logic. No more attempts at making this story the least bit sensical. And, AND, how is she still friends with Tae Seong?? Did she make the effort to befriend him in the new timeline? Wasn’t she only able to stay in the past for one or two months? At that point teenager Sol would’ve come back and found out she was friends with Tae Seong and tried to date him again, and he would have been bored with her AGAIN, then they would end up NOT being friends after all, so IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! The third time she went back in time we see a scene where in the future Seon Jae disappears from an Eclipse promotion billboard, but in the future after Sol went back again and never met him, he is still famous, but he doesn’t seem to be a part of Eclipse, why is that? He should be a part of the band if Sol was never there to stop him from going to auditions with them! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!!
And oh my god, the protagonists have nothing to do with THE MAIN VILLAIN’S defeat?!?! What even is this show?? How the hell have I watched 16 mf episodes of Sol trying to save Seon Jae from this guy only for him to be killed by A RANDOM WHITE TRUCK??
Obs: I don’t think I have seen a FL cry as much as Sol. For real, she’s crying every 10 mins in each episode.
Conclusion: Can we just be honest? The only reason this k-drama is so highly overrated is Byeon Woo-seok, and that’s fine, I too will be watching every show he does. Hell, I came here after watching Perfect Crown just to see him a little more, he really is very charming! But let’s not act like this series is a work of art, please. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 other k-dramas that deserved the ratings Lovely Runner got with way better plot and character development.
The soundtrack is great though.
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My patience has limits
I gave this K-drama the benefit of the doubt because I am a fantasy genre lover, but at some point, the religious motif became too much while remaining poorly developed, which was very underwhelming for me.I watched until the end of episode 5, and the ML was still acting mindlessly. It was ok for the first two episodes, but it gets very boring to follow the story of a lead who, at all times, is just being childish and has the mental development of a boiled potato.
Life is too short to waste watching bad stories. This one was a no-no for me.
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