Sad that looks trumps acting skills
Dropped. Couldn't get off into it. I tried and watched up to 3 episodes. Just not for me. The problem with this MDL site, people vote higher if it's their favorites and based on looks. Even if my favorite actor is in a badly written drama, I will not rate it high, and I will drop it. So many dramas, especially thrillers, get the lowest ratings, but silly romcoms get the highest. I just find this site hypocritical and voting and reviewing fairly is something that doesn't exist here. I don't know if some people are lonely and they latch on to romcoms so they can live in a fantasy or what. It's weird. I like some romcoms, but this one isn't good. My opinion, not anyone else'sWas this review helpful to you?
Strong Cast Wasted by Poor Writing
From the very first episode, the drama felt confused and poorly planned. The biggest problem of the show was the writing — it never felt like the story had a clear direction.The whole villain arc was weak, pointless, and very badly written. Nothing about it felt interesting or properly developed.
I honestly don’t fully understand what made IU choose this drama. Compared to her usual projects, where she really shines, this role didn’t feel as strong or impactful for her. A lot of the attention the show received also seems to come from IU’s massive popularity and loyal fanbase, rather than the writing itself.
As for Byeon Woo-seok (Lead), I feel like the character writing did not give him much to work with. Most of the time, the same emotions and scenes kept repeating again and again.
Half of the conversations were left unfinished and then shown later in another episode. Doing this once or twice is fine for suspense, but repeating the same writing style in almost every episode became frustrating.
A lot of scenes were just people staring at each other or the lead walking through palace halls every episode, which made the drama feel slow and repetitive.
The only character I actually liked was Gong Seung-yeon (Queen), but because of the weak story, even her character felt wasted in the end.
Overall, the show felt below average and very overhyped for me. I honestly feel like I wasted 12 episodes on this drama.
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Honest Opinion
There's actually no doubt when it comes to K-Dramas. Most of them end up really good no matter what. Imagine IU and BWS in one frame?? Who would want to miss that? And that pairing is just arghhh... Nyx is melting.There’s no question either when it comes to acting and production. Korean directors rarely settle for less when it comes to cinematography, emotions, and execution.
Story-wise, it actually feels refreshing. The issues and conflicts are valid and interesting, but I think they weren’t explored deeply enough. The drama introduces a lot of emotional and personal conflicts, yet sometimes it feels like they move past them too quickly because they also wanted to maintain the romcom vibe. Which honestly, I’m not complaining about because the balance still made the series enjoyable and easy to watch.
Maybe that’s the best way to explain it, the show feels emotionally rich, but not emotionally heavy. It touches serious topics without fully drowning the audience in them, and instead chooses to keep the warmth, comfort, and chemistry at the center of everything.
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proof that fans are ...
Every movie or series with a top tier good looking to be even called human cast that gets hyped from the start usually suffers from terrible storytelling. In this case, what makes it even more painful to watch is the acting if you can even call these 'fanservice' slow-motion poses acting. The story is absolute garbage; we have a rich CEO from an even richer family clan (how nice that chaebols still exist in an 'alternative' timeline) who wants to marry the second in line for the throne.The plot is the same tired formula from 30 years ago. Someone is against the marriage, and the second prince probably caused all the drama himself just by giving everyone that 'Zoolander' look. What’s even the point of an alternative monarchy if it’s just for the cosplay suits and sneaky ads for modern day franchises?
The excuses I’ve read on social media make me wonder, are people really that mentally numb for looks? Does only aesthetic count? To be honest, you might as well watch it with the sound off and the subtitles set to Martian. The story is trash just you’re only here to drool over the main leads and stop pretending this writing is worth praising."
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A Half Baked Hallmark Story
Perfect Crown is the type of KDrama that has come to define modern kDramas. big budget, big casts, but a script with zero impact, written by chatgpt.Both of our leads, HJ and Prince Yi An, are two privileged adults who are mentally stuck in high school. The world only exists to hurt them. Our two second leads, PM and QM, are caricatures made to prop both the leads up. We are told Prince Yian is the best prince ever and not once is this supported by any on screen evidence. The drama is advertised as a marriage contract about a 21st century wife, and we do not see any of this play out.
The drama is like if someone took 50 top moments from the cringy romance webtoon you read as a teen and made it a drama, but forgot to add any details and proper plot. Every character has piss poor writing and arcs are nonexistent.
Now, to the general audience who are fine with consuming brain rot, they could enjoy this. But to anyone who wishes for 1% substance in their romance, two characters who actually are likable, this is not it for you .
Performances: Gong Seung Yeon stole the show. Utterly beautiful acting and the only believable character. Devious but stone cold in her resilience.
- IU: probably some of her worst acting but she was good on emotional scenes. I don't think she ever fully merged with HJ and I get it because HJ is very unlikable in general. That romcomy ditzy acting is hard and IU did not show this well
- BWS: not familiar with his past works but his performance was nothing good. The character of Prince Yian is just a Y/N level male lead ........the stone faced expressions and the constant shots to make him appear cool were beyond cringe.
-Noh Sang Hyun: a wonderful actor but a ridiculous character turn for him. His performance was great however.
Overall, this drama was just bad. You could watch a montage of their romantic scenes instead but the chemistry wasn't even that great for me to rewatch any of it. You're better off going and rewatching Goong.
3/10
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MORE LIKE PERFECT DISSAPOINTMEMMT OF THE YEAR
woooo writing this pains me because it’s literallyy my favourite actor and actress in this shit show. But k gotta say the truth. They should never ever let the person who wrote this pick up the pen again I’m damn serious . Chat GPT would have even given me a better plot than whatever this wasI defended this drama up to episode 4 that’s when I noticed it has no substance just IU and Wooseok carrying but it was so shit that it made them look like horrible actors that if this was my first drama of them I would definitely never watch anything they are in again.
Really tried to overlook a lot but then every second of this shit show had some thing to over look.
I wanted to rate it a 1 but coz my favourites are in it I give it a 4 but honestly they should have kept it in the archives and never released such atrocious performance. uuuurgggh im so mad
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Such a waste of idols drama
Wow a real disappointment. Ive been waiting for this since the announcement was made and mainly because of IU!! A total mess. I think there's an internal clash in creative output between the director and writer. I don't blame the actors because it's obvious they all tried. Completing it only because of IU& I like the antagonists' acting.Don't make it sound like I'm too critical when the plotholes are many and too obvious. Can't blame the director solely because he has other good dramas in his portfolio but this one is plainly bad. Something is off but it doesn't reach the public's knowledge. Hence we get this mediocre production
As if they couldn't decide what they actually want to focus on. Too many storylines and then chaos. I was really enjoying it in the beginning but then as I said it became too messy - more drama than substance. Such a shame cause it could have been really good with this cast and the premise.
They couldn't bring back the Goong's glory,it had 2000's nostalgia protection lol. I bet if PC was in 2000's then probably it would've blown up lol
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Enjoyable Yet Unsatisfying
My experience while watching Perfect Crown has been one of total, utter, and complete satisfaction. The premise was nothing even remotely original, and both the plot and characters had minor and major inconsistencies, but these shortcomings did little to derail my enjoyment of the show. However, now that I'm done watching the show and have had time to fully process everything, I see clearly and realize that several aspects of the drama left much to be desired. See, I’ve never been one to fall purely for aesthetics. Thus, it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to put my finger on what exactly was making me enjoy this show so much. And then it hit me; it’s the female lead.Seong Huiju is an extremely likeable character. She’s not a particularly compelling FL, but she’s certainly easy to fall in love with. She’s bold, charismatic, tenacious, and so funny. IU nailed her comedic scenes so well. I simply must give a shoutout to the scene of Huiju exiting the hospital after her wedding debacle. Comedy gold! Huiju, for me, is the beating heart of this show, and it simply would not be half as enjoyable if she weren’t written exactly as she is.
I found Prince Ian a far more compelling character with more understandable motivations, a more fleshed-out backstory, and just better writing in general. However, I do feel like his character is tied too much to his relationship with Huiju, and much of his character work is sidelined in favor of developing his relationship with Huiju. Now, normally this would be fine in a show where the leads were clearly meant to feel like two indivisible halves of a whole. But it doesn’t quite work in PC because the writers are clearly trying to write two individualistic characters with separate (yet parallel) motivations, so making Huiju Ian's entire world is counterproductive.
This problem is directly related to the show’s biggest failure–pacing. Boy, have I ever seen a 12 episode drama that I needed 16 episodes more. So many subplots are brushed over because of time. Things like Ian's childhood, his relationship with his brother, his relationship with his father, the psychological effects his mother's death had on him, and his relationship with his position in the royal family could have been properly developed but instead they were only lightly touched upon. And as for Huiju, her relationship with her family (specifically her father) and her relationship with her social status could have been better depicted with more time. The worst victim of this is the Prime Minister whose character got barely any development before deciding to do a complete 180° turn overnight. More high school scenes and more insight into his relationship with Ian and Huiju would have been helpful in understanding his motivations. The horrendous pacing also helped create several plot holes that were never addressed until the end. Most were never even addressed at all.
Anyways, the acting was fantastic. Bombshell performances all across the board. Byeon Woo Seok and IU devoured their comedic and emotional scenes with equally striking accuracy. BWS’s ability to convey the emotion of a thousand words through a single look in his eyes made him the perfect choice to play the lonely, distant Prince eagerly yearning for warmth, connection, and understanding. Absolutely brilliant!
The visuals were spectacular, music divine. Supporting and side characters all felt truly relevant to the story. Overall, a good and enjoyable show. I would certainly recommend it.
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This review may contain spoilers
It Should Have Been 16 Episodes | How Story-telling Can Cheapen Acting Performances
Hear me out— Perfect Crown ’suffers’ from two completely contradicting ‘issues’: The premise of the story is actually extremely deep yet the storytelling is strikingly shallow.Disclaimer: At the point of writing this review, I haven’t yet watched the last two episodes.
At the beginning of the episodes I felt like something was missing from the two main lead’s acting. It felt like there was a backstory that was never told. Seong Hui-ju has a kind of “chip on her shoulder” personality that is a little off-putting and uhh…well, a bit exasperating. It’s actually obvious over the course of the series that, in the earlier episodes, she is putting on a front, yet we are supposed to pretend like we understand the character and sympathise with the character from episode 1 even though we know nothing about her.
The few snapshots of her past just weren’t enough to have me hooked to her character, and I probably only continued watching because I felt like IU would have picked a more nuanced character than the earlier episodes depicted. In reality, Song Hui Ju is a scared little girl who just wanted to be loved by and a part of her father’s family, and sought to get there by being the best at everything—essentially buying her family’s love through perfectionism.
The reality of Song Hui-ju is that she isn’t as much of a sociopath as the earlier episodes lead us to believe, and I know that this is the point, but by adding 4 more episodes (16 eps total) there would have been time to understand her backstory or even show the first moments she first began trying on that sociopath-type mask. They could have shown us the loneliness she felt after feeling abandoned by her mother, and her obsessive need for love from her father from such a young age by really digging into the backstory. And then shown us Song Hui-Ju’s first devolvement into her sociopathic front and how it WORKED FOR HER as the reason why she kept putting up that front. But all we get is jumping right into a female lead who we have little reason to like. The only clue that Hui Ju may not be crazy is how loyal her secretary is to her—meaning she must be a pretty good boss. There is basically no context for IU’s performance in the earlier episodes, which kinds of makes watching the character of Hui-Ju a little uncomfortable. IMO, I think IU nails the portrayal and the “mask” Hui Ju wears. I saw some characters saying IU’s acting felt fake because it felt like she was pretending to be Hui Ju--but i think that’s the point! “Mean” Hui Ju is an exaggerated persona of the real Hui Ju. When the mask starts to slip in the later episodes we get a glimpses of her true nuances. Think about:
........Sp0iler: the car scene and how the immediately pushed the car to the side to protect the young king, therefore putting herself in more harm. A sacrificial nature in Hui Ju is not depicted in the earlier episodes at all, but it IS in her. I feel like they could have told a better story by letting the mask slip at least a little bit to foreshadow that more nuances to the character is coming
It’s the same thing with I-AN’s characterisation. I-AN is characterised by restraint but there’s no full backstory to really understand what he is restraining from. We get bits and pieces of backstory that he’s a “spare,” but how are us real-world commoners supposed to understand the weight of existing as a back-up who—conceptually—will likely never be needed. That kind of backstory is incredibly deep, but its storytelling portrayal is surprisingly so much lighter than the premise behind the character.
.........SP0ILER alert: the layered performance of BWS in the earlier episodes makes so much more sense after finding out that he knew all along that his sister-in-law denied his late brother’s request to abdicate the throne, meaning every interaction they had she was lying to his face and HE KNEW IT.
BWS’ performance in earlier episodes gives restraint, disgust, and most importantly a numbness that is difficult to understand without story. The earlier episodes force us to dive right into a backstory that we could never relate to, which I actually feel like cheapens the performance.
I am a fan of both BWS and IU, so seeing their acting be criticised made me do some real thought digging, because, when watching the earlier episodes, I actually AGREED—I was off-put by both performances and couldn’t figure out why. In the earlier episodes it’s not that the acting was bad, it was that their acting was much too layered for characters we know nothing about and can’t sympathise with because we just don’t know them like that. It’s funny because I have a tendency to think longer historical dramas can be quite boring, but there was so much room to show everyone’s backstory in more than just a few high school snapshots. Like for the evil queen instead of them saying “she comes from 3 generations of queens,” they could have shown us the generational pressure on both Inpyong (aka Jin Mu) and the Queen Mother to upkeep their own family honor and the greed it birthed within them. That would have been so cool to see, and then it would have made the Queen Mother’s devolvement into wickedness so much more conflicting for the audience. That kind of storytelling would have been incredible.
I do think the little snapshots are cute, but they had so much potential to actually be potent, not just cute.
I know the drama is trying to follow fluff trends and that in regular dramas we complain because we don’t usually get enough time spent on fluff between the leads. I do think that the drama delivers on the fluff the audience enjoys; however, again, it took me 10 episodes before I was able to intellectually peel back the acting-tone layers of the first 5-8 episodes. There is so much material for the story to work with but instead it hops right over excavating the real depth that is fundamental to the series’ premises, in favour of just delivering fluff. I think this actually ends up confusing the audience on the main lead’s acting performances.
The queen mother has been delivering at a high level; however, if you think about it it is easier to understand the angst behind her rage and evil because we are so used to evil mother characters and especially evil queen mother characters from other dramas (let’s be real, almost all queen mother/mother in law characters are evil in historical dramas). So we RELATE to her performance because she is the mother of a young king and her power depends on a child. Who wouldn’t be a little crazy under that circumstance?
Even the Prime Minister…the actor is a great actor, but all we really get in the earlier episodes from his acting is a numbness that is supposed to be validated by “his religion” but we have no idea what that religion means to him. If we had been given more backstory as to why he fell in love with Hui-Ju and what his religion means to him and why he interpreted his faith as meaning he needed to have restrained himself for literally decades from confessing to his love? Like how are we as the audience supposed to relate to that? That’s why:
.........SP0ILER: the later episodes where the gloves come off with the PM, the actor is doing such a phenomenal job because we now understand his anger and the darkness it entails…but it took 10 episodes to get there
On the Main Lead’s Chemistry:
I think “chemistry” is a subjective consideration; however, typically in dramas there is buildup between the main leads through the story and their meet-cute story that delivers a sense of angst between them, only to be relieved when they finally get together. Instead, the chemistry of Perfect Crown’s main leads is characterised by restraint and ***consent. Prince IAN wouldn’t make and moves on Hui-Joo without her consent, and Hui-Joo has a tendency to build up a personality armour to protect herself and “isn’t supposed to” allow herself to fall for a guy she has a business contract with that’s supposed to lead her to the perfectionism that is supposed to gain her the love and approval of her father— this leads to a relationship characterised by restraint. So even though the series delivers on their marriage fairly early, we don’t get the satisfaction of angst and buildup BECAUSE they already knew each other AND have to cordially respect each other. That’s why I feel like episode 10 really delivered…because.
.........SP0ILER: After all her attempts to have done everything to gain the love of her father, she kneels before her father to protect the guy she loves…meaning she has abandoned her desire to be loved by her father to instead serve her partner by giving him love instead.
Anyways I haven’t watched the last 2 episodes yet but I don’t think my take will change. I think it’s a neat little show but the earlier episodes are surprisingly shallow (story) and deep (acting). I personally think both IU & BWS did a great job overall and encapsulated the true nature of both characters. I also think that ironically, if they had actually had less layered performances (meaning technically worse acting), that might have actually gone over better with the audiences, but only because we have no ida what the story is trying to do until we get to the latter episodes.
But who knows, maybe i’m just giving preferential treatment!!! 🤪
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Great rom-com, bad political drama
The premise caught my attention at first cause it's right up my alley and i eat this kind of dramas up. The rom-com at start was perfection to me and i enjoyed so much that it would've been my favorite drama of the year if it held it up. It all changed around at the 7th episode, when political 2nd act started, it was out right bad and characters made 180s on what little development they had. It definitely partly ruined rom-com magic for me.Positives
- I loved the leads, both were great and delivered what was asked from them.
- The rom-com arc at the first act and second acts romantic scenes were great and i'm big rom-com fans so i enjoyed them.
- OST was great
- Visuals in this are next level, this was visual masterpiece at it's core and it's the best thing by far in this.
- Brother and sister-in-law were great subversion of expectations and were great addition.
Neutral
- I don't mind the abolishing that much, i feel like it was always coming so i was prepared for it.
- The ending as a whole, liked the romance of it but the whole execution was kinda meh.
Negatives
- All political plot lines were half baked cause they did nothing with them at the first rom-com act which meant it never stood a chance
- SML/PM, straight up character who when the villain arc started just switched up from what little was established before, very poorly written character, good acting though.
- SFL/Queen mother, pretty much same problem as with SML/PM, her character was villain until switch flipped and suddenly she isn't. Also she got scot free abusing her children and that is just awful. Korean dramas usually don't do anything to mother when they abuse their children and it's no different here, very awful for Korean society to be like this, worst character by far for me, good acting though.
- Queen mother father AKA Jin Mu, terrible miscast, i feel like casting director failed the writers here, writers clearly tried to do some mystery on who is the villain and the casting just spoiled it and then writers wasted the character anyway.
- FLs father, such a non character and terribly written one.
- Secretary pairing seemed very forced and written just cause kdramas need second pairing.
Conclusion
For the rom-com parts i applaud, i enjoyed them and leads were great. Visually this is 10/10 and it was pleasure to watch this through out. The political plot was failure and it fell super flat, i think this would've done better with more lighthearted direction or leaned more in to political plot lines and make it longer, this combination which left both little meh in the 2nd act was blunder.
I have to say, i was going to rate it 8.5 but for SFL/Queen mother get away scot free with the kid while she abused him while in power was too jarring to see so that took the half away. It is just so weird to see child abuse as a little mistake and it's never addressed or she never gets punished for it, i just can't believe this is still a thing in 2026.
For the rom-com parts and visuals i can give it 8.0, it's okay one time watch for them. I probably wouldn't rate it this high if i wasn't big rom-com enjoyer.
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Fun but Fell Short of its Potential
Perfect Crown started off strong. I’ve watched the first 4 episodes multiple times while waiting for the next one, I was that hooked. The entire cast did amazing, they really pulled off their respective roles. The chemistry between everyone really sparked the screen and it kept me going despite some disappointment with where and how the story is going. Honestly, the set up of the first few episodes really upped my expectations. They made both the main leads’ characters as these strategic (at least to me they had that effect in the first episodes), individuals but instead of coming off as strategic and being the one leading their story, they became the firefighters fighting all of the fires their enemies would set, they looked quite naive in some scenes, not what you would expect from the characters that they are playing. But that was more of a script issue than the actors’.The other thing that got to me is the editing, there were a lot of scenes from the past and present that they would insert, and that would have been fine if it was all neatly tied to the story. Some foreshadowings could have been a red herring to confuse the viewers, but I just view it as loose ends and weak story telling. I feel like they could have used a couple more episodes to tie every bit of foreshadowing they added.
Overall, Perfect Crown brought me back to the K-Drama land, I enjoyed watching it, I had fun reading theories from other viewers, and I would still rewatch it but I wouldn’t take it too seriously.
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It Was Okay
The last episode of this drama was the most “go girl give me nothing” ever. It could have been an email. At first, I was bummed when I saw it’s “only” 73 minutes long, but for what it gave me… the episode was too long. The Prime Minister’s betrayal had zero impact on me because we never saw I-An and the PM BE friends despite the characters insisting on that for whatever reason. The fact that the revelation of the PM’s murderous actions against the Grand Prince brought I-An to tears … why? Lol? We’ve never seen these dudes interact in a friendly manner that suggests genuine comradery, so what are we doing here? The best bit of the last episode was probably when the two secretaries kissed lmao.Generally speaking, the show is a bit of a let-down. The first half gave me nothing but complaints. I am one of those people that fixated on the terrible press-on nails of the female lead. Not because I am bored, but because the director himself brought them to my attention. Several times. (Even in the last episode he thought “let’s give her one more close-up of her ugly nails <3”). I don’t care if the female lead has “nail picking problems” due to anxiety or something. She’s rich, she likes to flaunt her wealth, she should have enough money to invest in nice nails. An absolute bummer to focus on her hands so much only to have the nails be such an eyesore.
In the beginning, I found it hard to like IU’s character. All she did was yell at her employees or glare at them. That’s not badass or girlboss, it’s annoying. Especially in the beginning, her little chuckle was so annoying… I don’t care if it was meant to be pretentious or whatever, I did not like it. Throughout the whole show I actually wondered why I-An and Hui Ju even like each other to be honest. He was a bit bland and well she was hot tempered, I guess. It got better in the second half, and I started enjoying the show from episode 7-11. Despite the script maybe not being the best, and certain things not making that much sense, I appreciated the added political intrigue and drama taking the center of the stage because the romance did not give me much. Or the comedy. (This changed as the show went on, it was just in the beginning that the comedy didn’t do much for me)
The styling was also eh. I wasn’t the biggest fan of some of Hui Ju’s clothes, although the wardrobe improved as the show went on. In the first episode, apart from the color, I didn’t quite get the frenzy over the suit combo she wore (More than that, I hated the shoes?? They looked terrible and ruined the outfit for me). The biggest let-down for me was the proposal scene. It was so anticipated, but fell flat in the end. For one, Hui Ju’s dress was beautiful and I liked everything but the color. It was too pale and washed her out in my opinion. On the other hand, the Queen Mother’s dress was stunning. It looked like the midnight sky on her, with the gems sparkling like the stars… just stunning. Both dresses had a nice shape and were elegant, I just took issue with the color of Hui Ju’s. Next came the waltz. Was the dialogue between HJ and IA meant to excuse the lack of actual refinery, or was the choreography of that whole scene meant to be… kind of bad? Okay, they both never liked those dance lessons, but that’s not an excuse for whatever they were doing. The concept of that scene was nice; the PM and Queen Mother switching partners to dance with HJ and the Grand Prince respectively was a nice idea! It should have added some tension as each character had their own agenda, but … eh. I wasn’t that impressed. It lacked the whimsy and magic I had been looking for since the beginning of the show.
One thing I begrudged in the beginning, which actually got better in the second half, was COLOR. I feel like the show was so bland and bleak at first. The end of episode 5 was visually stunning; for once we had vibrant colors such as green and pink actually POP with life. The editing was choppy at times, especially in episode 11. It shouldn’t be that way since the show had a considerate budget.
The best character in the whole show was probably the boy king. He was just a cutie patootie.
Anyway, the show is somewhat worth watching. The styling is okay; the OST has some beautiful instrumentals; the political stuff is interesting (except the last episode) although one should not expect to see much of on-screen scheming from the villains because apparently the scriptwriter didn’t care. I enjoyed the show as a no-brainer-end-of-the-day kind of show the best and had a good time from ep7-11. The first half was okay, the second half was better (minus the last episode). I personally think the show is overhyped; people attribute depth and nuance, attention to detail and layered storytelling to it when there really isn’t any. It is a worthwhile show to watch in-between, but I don’t think it’s a highlight in any of the actors’ portfolios. Good for them for the successful airing time, but this is not representative of IU’s acting talent or characterization for example. It was nice while it lasted!
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