Reviews

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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I genuinely think the first season was better than this one and it was not because this cast was bad or they are bad actors. it's because there was no commitment to the characters, either from the actors themselves or the director. this show is meant to be messy and to showcase these new adults relationships and behavior in the situations they were put in. It looked like they were scared to kiss people outside of their fixed couple when it made total sense for their character to do so. I feel like stuff was cut that was meant to make us care for certain characters that did these big things or were from the past, in the end it didn't have the desired effect.
AouBoom is what made me come back and catch up with the show, because I was bored halfway thru. it was kind of stuck.

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Nothing Burger

The entire series kind of felt like it was the ascent of a roller coaster that never reached the drop. The buildup at the beginning really hooked me and then as the episodes went on it gave the sense that nothing ever actually happened. Once I got to episode 10 it almost felt pointless to finish it off because everything was either predictable or just not worth it watching. In the first season even the final episode had twists and things still kept you sitting up but by episode 5 in this one I was already losing interest.

We’d get these over reactions by the characters but then you’d think about what caused the over reaction and it just didn’t add up to the feeling they wanted you to feel. For example in season 1 it made so much sense for Mew to get mad at Top and Boston for what they did and even you as the viewer felt mad with him but the “climax” of the show being a slow dance and an almost kiss made everything feel like a huge outburst for no reason.

The most annoying part of them all was all the fake outs. Why try to constantly build this moment of “omg what will they do???” for absolutely nothing to occur? By the time I got to the halfway point I couldn’t ever feel like I was on the edge of my seat because I knew exactly what was coming. Two characters would get really close and then one would pull back or they’d get interrupted and this HAPPENED every single time. By the third time you sit there with a straight face and just think “yeah they won’t even kiss anyways”. And it’s true. They didn’t.

The beauty of the first season was that I genuinely had no clue what was going to happen next but in this season it all felt like by the time the “climax” happened I knew where we were headed without even having seen the previews. You could already sense what would happen between each couple and each character before you even watched the next episode.

They even made Boston lacklustre. The one character everyone wanted to shake things up ended up being the level headed one that just did nothing at all the entire season? Next time just don’t even add him in.

I will however say that the cast did a great job with the slop they were given. They acted so well and really tried their best but even their great performances could not save the atrocities and snooze fest this entire scriptwriting had . Don’t use the only friends name if you’re not going to commit. If I did not have the expectations I felt I was given at the beginning maybe it would’ve been enjoyable but this was just a miss entirely for me.

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I've seen this in 2005 when I was 10 years old and I haven't really paid attention, but I remember the entire premise.

I dunno what has gotten into me recently but I found myself revisiting these old K-dramas I've seen in the past on free TV that I haven't watched in full. Boy was it worth my time!

The story is simple. The characters aren't really that complicated but I love the romance! Han Ji Hye and Lee Dong Gun are just so good on screen! In this age, the entire premise might be off but it's their dynamic as a married couple is what I liked the most. It's not iffy, guys. There's no power manipulation or dominance, just cute romance. And I love that. The conflicts are also not that serious, and they get resolved easily.

If anything, I really love the sweetness of the couple; it's so adorable!

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Nao develops a pair

This second season of Liar Game is just as entertaining as the first season in terms of mind games and being cunning. This is why I don't mind if it diverged from the source material, which at that time was still publishing. (Round 4 is Revival II in the manga. What follows this is changed in the jdorama)

Despite my not liking Nao's character and what she represents, she has grown as a character and was able to make her belief in people somehow work.

If there's an added reason to watch the second season, it's the antagonist Katsuragi Ryou, who reminds me a bit of Classroom of the Elite's Sakayanagi Arisu in terms of her demeanour. Unfortunately, she is only a jdorama original. The jdorama did dirty on Yokoya Norihiko's characterisation, and his good qualities had to be put into Katsuragi.

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It had it's moments

Disclaimer

What I am writing here are my views and thoughts about this series. Some of you may not like it. That does not give you the right to try to come at me with your opinions on why this series should get a higher or lower score and why it is better/worse than I think it is. You have your own opinions, and I have mine. Kindly respect that.

I felt like if I was waiting forever for this series from when it was first announced. And I had high hopes for it as i thoroughly enjoyed the thai parent story 'Only Friends' for the drama and the messiness that it served to us viewers on a weekly basis. And this series did start off in the same way, with me enjoying Dean, Rome and Raffy to the fullest as these respective actors truly brought their role to life on the screen.

I felt that after the series progressed, the messiness was still there but was not as strong as I would have liked it to be. I felt that their issues were handled quickly, making me feel like if I was watching the other BL dramas with the way that they handled their issues. I am a fan of Earth/ Mixx with a small crush on Joss/Gawin and I will tell you here that the star main couple who stole the scenes every time that they were on was Aou/ Boom. They did a terrific job and was one of the main reasons why I wanted to continue watching this series.

It was nice catching up with some of the previous characters from 'Only Friends', especially Boston, as it seems that he has turned over a new leaf and is no longer the bitch who we know and loved from the first season. And I felt that the person who was really the bad person for this season wasn't really dealt with to my liking. Yes, the situation was dealt with, but the person should have suffered more. All in all, it was a good watch that needed to be more messy like it's previous one.

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it’s a love story with no romance

I can see why this has the low end of reviews but it is still a beautiful story of love, hardship and connection. if you watch the series expecting boys love it’s a 5/10 since there’s no real excitement or romantic scenes that make you giddy. but if you watch this series expecting love, hardship and connection, it’s a solid 8/10. minus 2 points for the abrupt plot turns.. but still lots to enjoy about this series. I’d still recommend it for the unique Japanese Korean boundary crossing mature acting and story. don’t let all the negative reviews deter you from watching this series! Reset your expectations and enjoy what this series offers.

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A Lukewarm Echo of a Groundbreaking Original

The original "Only Friends" was a massive step forward for the BL genre, delivering a rich, complicated, interwoven story about unique, flawed characters in conflict. In contrast, "Dream On" simply exploits that brand value while delivering a thin story with low-energy couples you mostly don’t care about.

Where the original offered three masterfully interlocking stories, "Dream On’s" three narratives barely relate to each other, creating a frustrating lack of cohesion. I primarily tuned in to see if JossGawin could replicate the magnetic sexual energy they displayed in "My Golden Blood." They didn’t—but frankly, their weak story arc didn’t give them the narrative room to show what they could do. The same was true for EarthMix’s storyline; though underserved by the script, Mix’s outstanding, nuanced acting at least provided the show with some badly needed heart.

Ultimately, only AouBoom brought genuine energy, charm, and sexiness to the screen. Repeatedly cast as second bananas, they have become absolute experts at making the most out of smaller parts, and they easily carry the show here.

Overall, "Dream On" replaces the grit and complexity of the original with weak characters and a shallow plot. A major disappointment.

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