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!!! 🤪
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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