OrangeCatto

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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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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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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Worth rewatching.

This is not my first time watching this show, and it probably won’t be the last (I am a sucker for Jang Uk). The number of bad reviews for this season was a shock to me, actually; I, too, find the first season better, but not for the reasons many stated here.

The common feedback seems to be: “the first actress was better!” and “there is no romantic chemistry!”. As those are subjective interpretations, I will just say that, to me, Lee Jae Wook can even develop chemistry with a wall. And for the second actress, I think her acting is good. Not better or worse than the first one, just good overall (I also like Jung So Min, but I wouldn’t call her acting in part one “peak” as many reviews here do. I mean, her “I-know-something-you-don’t” face was basically the 😏 emoji)

No, the real problem with this season is the writing. First, let me address the strong points before I start to break down the failed details: Throughout every Hong Sisters’ show, I always find the strong character development to be a fixed constant – which is also true in part 2 of AoS. As much as people might not like Naksu and Jang Uk’s new personalities, they are perfectly fitting as a follow-up to part 1’s finale. Jang Uk is a depressed mess, having been stabbed by his one true love, and Naksu now has a more “gleeful” aspect, having forgotten all the tragedies of her past.

HOWEVER… The plot. Where is it? If you asked me what the protagonist's main goal was at the start of this season, I would have a hard time responding. Jang Uk wanted to die, and Bu Yeon wanted to escape her prison. Okay, she achieves her objective in episode two, and Jang Uk never really does anything about getting her to develop her powers so that she could remove the Ice Stone from inside him. That’s why we, the audience, keep anxiously expecting the moment when they’re going to realize that Bu Yeon is actually Naksu. But when they do, nothing changes. This information does nothing to enhance or move the story in another direction. All we are watching is Jang Uk and Naksu falling in love again, which, don’t get me wrong, I love and find super cute, but I can understand that it may feel like a gigantic filler, especially when the ending of part 1 was so impactful.

And what even is Jin Mu’s objective? Why would ANYONE volunteer to be a soul shifter when, day in and day out, we see them running wild and getting petrified? They SAY that is because the rich can be rich forever, young forever, powerful forever, blah blah blah… But we never really see this taking place. None of Jin Mu’s followers has ever seen a successful case of someone who’s been through the alchemy of souls and whose life became better afterwards. You could argue that Master Lee is an example, but it only worked nicely because he shifted into a dead body. None of Jin Mu’s soul-shiftings did that.

Seo Yul’s storyline was the one that made the least sense. He finds out Bu Yeon is Naksu, and his first thought is to die together? Why, my good guy? Why would you not say a single thing to anyone about the pain you were suffering FOR THREE WHOLE YEARS? Was So-i sending you medicine from the capital to the North Fortress all this time? Is mail a thing in Daeho? When she figured out that there was a cure, why would you still not do anything about it? (Speaking of So-i, we can all agree she was the most plot-devicey character ever made in this entire show, yes? Okay then.)

About the two-ish final episodes: I have different opinions from my first and second viewing. The first time I watched it, I was too deep into the story to wonder why all that was even happening. This time, however, it hit differently. Once I reached the part where Jang Uk and Naksu recognized each other again, I lost any interest I had left in the story. The whole Fire Bird plot is meaningless and is only there to add impactful visuals. The OG Jin Bu Yeon/Seol Ran says that they must wake the Fire Bird even after the main threat (Jin Mu and the other mages) had been defeated, because… reasons.

My final thoughts are that I like this world and these characters a lot, so I will probably watch it again in a few more years. Part 1 definitely feels richer and more developed, but despite its simpler plot, Part 2 has its moments. I’m overall grateful for the number of episodes we were given to enjoy Jang Uk and Naksu’s story.

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Promising, but I’m still waiting to see where it goes.

My thoughts on Extraordinary You up until episode 11:

I’m so happy I watched Alchemy of Souls before this, I would have had a hard time buying Lee Jae Wook as a good guy otherwise. He is so disturbingly perfect in his rage as Baek Kyung! I actually feel frightened whenever he throws tantrums and starts to hit and break things, his eyes full of anger… he truly is an amazing actor.

Rowoon’s character on the other hand has been a complete nothing burger so far. He lacks depth and development and his only personality is liking Dan Oh. For a show that began so strong in deconstructing clichéd relationship tropes (Dan Oh always observing how childish and uncreative Ju Da and Nam Ju’s plot on “the stage” is) I would have thought they would spend more time creating an actual interesting ML. I don’t blame this on Rowoon though, I’ve seen his other dramas, he is a good actor.

For the rest, I hope we get to see more of “Dried Squid Fairy” in the next episodes, his character is promising.

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