Perfume (2019)

Perfume. You were an easy marathon binge. We get to see a different story that is also very similar to the regular cliches.

The acting at times was a tad over the top. It was realistic except where it obviously goes against reality. The characters were a joy to watch. Every character was fleshed out excellently. The soundtrack was always great at matching the situation. There were laugh out loud moments, and moments that yanked your heart from your chest. Many life lessons were demonstrated in this drama. I watched it for the story, but also to see the main lead Shin Sung Rok playing a different character than usual. As well as Kim Min Kyu. That man has a smile that can melt chocolate. Now the production was overall well kept together. The plot was written very well. Overall it showed motives, both positive and negative. Obsession was thoroughly depicted throughout the drama. In a underlying fashion and blunt right in your face. Also there is a great amount of supporting characters that just make this production even greater.

It is worth watching hands down. Give it a good try people. Yes the trope is known. Yes, but the way it is depicted is truly interesting to watch. Hopefully you like it!

Sara Rojas APRIL 6 2020

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This drama is one of a kind - it takes the entirety of Korean society's standards of beauty and social norms and completely stomps all over them in a fragrant, pink fashion. I had many predictions for how this drama would end when I started watching it, and this drama went against all of them and presented the audience with something so incredibly empowering for women who may not fit a society's harsh standards of beauty or lack confidence in themselves. While the message of this drama was a lot more wholesome than other similar dramas, the storytelling was a bit clumsy, which is why it didn't receive a very high rating for me in the end. While the overall story was quite entertaining, 16 episodes were just too much for a simple story like this. The last few episodes of the drama were filled with Min Jae Hee going back and forth between wanting to be with Seo E Do and not feeling confident enough to proudly date him, resulting in her hurting his feelings as two separate people over and over again. There's no trope I hate more than the "pretending like I hate your guts so you start hating me and our separation is less painful for you because I don't deserve you/ I'm trying to protect you" trope. Kdrama writers, I beg you, please STOP. It's not cute. It's just annoying and a cheap tactic to increase the episode count of your show. All in all, this drama has a cute message and was full of really wholesome and extremely funny moments, however, I'd recommend to anyone watching it to be very liberal with the speed-up/fast forward button(s) in the latter half of the drama unless you enjoy driving yourself mad with endless, pointless conflict.

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This drama was really funny and it’s addictive. It centres around a woman who was given a second chance in life to fulfill her dream of her youth and how she encounters people through that finding love and healing. Main roles were Ko Won Hee who starred in Welcome to Waikiki very funny in this drama as well and Shin Song Ok as the main lead. My first time seeing both on a bigger screen as main leads and they didn’t disappoint. I would recommend watching this Because the storyline was so interesting. A lot was there to interest me and I loved the concept of fashion and modeling with the love hardships and hard work being put into that industry it’s fresh and new.

I really loved how they focused on the aspect of what weight and what body types meant in the society in and away from the fashion industry and how they translated that would have been more impactful but none the less it was to be applauded for. One thing I disagree with Is the way the main role behaved towards her daughter, it was kind of selfish to be honest and some decisions made were really out of context.

The main leads did their best, and made this drama really really funny. I would love to see them on screen again cause their chemistry was great. Love the storyline and the way it was approached would have been with a little care and the ending shocked me too. if you’re into a romcom kind of self finding and healing genre. WATCH IT!

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This drama starts out as if it's a wish-fulfillment fantasy, ie an older woman who's gained weight and whose husband has lost interest in her gets a magic perfume to turn her back into her younger self.
We've all of us had this fantasy, admit it. All those crying 'fat shaming' etc must either be too young to understand or not being honest with ourselves. In fact, it's not our heroine being fat so much as being 40 and out of shape - her dream was to be a runway model, and she's too OLD, no matter what shape she's in! The fashion industry does fat-shame to the point it wants anorexic androgynous young models - for real. I do believe there's a movement on to change this to a point, but we ain't there yet.
That aside, this turns out NOT to be fixated on this fantasy. In fact, it's more about dissecting said fantasy, and seeing how it works out in (semi) reality. The drama does flashbacks that show that in HIS youth our hero had the self-image problems, in fact.
The drama deals with other issues as well. Fan/saesang behavior, and toxic netizens, come under fire, as well as the dichotomy between the image of celebrities versus the actual persons.
All this sounds heavy, but in fact this drama had me laughing every single episode LOL Shin Se Rok has a comedic talent and his expressions and body language are spot-on. Everybody else in the cast acted as his straight man at some point or other :D I personally loved the interations with his half-brother LOL
The biggest amazement for me was the two lead actresses. I love Ha Jae Sook - and she had a leading role here :D Her younger self, Go Won Hee, totally impressed me. I still can't believe she's only 23 - there was a gravitas to her acting in this role that was definitely not there in the other dramas I've seen her in - I totally, completely believed she was a 40 year old rejuvenated because of her acting! Her facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, all of it convinced me. She's only a year older than the girl playing the daughter, but at NO point did I feel that the two were the same age at all.
The message in this drama ultimately - your appearance and age do NOT dictate who you are nor your innate loveability. THIS is something that South Korean society as a whole doesn't really embrace yet, and so this drama really emphasizes an area needing improvement :D

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Plus sized chick is actually a love interest for once.

It was alright. Not great but not bad either. I thought the first few episodes were done well. There was a good mix of dark humor, comedy, and the fact that the female lead, her 40's self was actually in the episodes!! The mother daughter scenes actually made me tear up.
But then the last couple of episodes, she has to conveniently transform and stay in her 20's Lindsay Lohan look-a-like self and the episodes tried shoehorning that dreaded love triangle, which wasn't even a love triangle!

It ended good, at least. But the journey was frankly a bumpy ride. At some point, in the middle there was just too much melodrama, hyung drama that came outta nowhere, the thoughts who were the fangirls, that horrid love triangle. And how many times must Kim Tae Joon, the villian in this story, keep doing the craziest things?! It ends up being rather predictable.

The drama tried doing a lot just to stretch out the plot but ends up flat. Like there were too many episodes. I ended up fast forwarding a lot just to get to the scenes with Min Jae Hee, who is hello the main character.

As someone who has struggled in the past with weight, I could relate. Min Jae Hee, your housewife, tries to end her existence but receives a second chance to relive her life: a magical perfume. Think of it like a Freaky Friday, with her self. With a whiff of her perfume, she can become her twenty year old self, where she honestly looked like Lindsay Lohan. Jae Hee used to be skinnier when she was training to be a model before quitting her dream, after she got pregnant and got married to Kim Tae Joon.

For those looking for some well grounded entertainment that's actually real and relatable, look no further.
The dude who plays Seo Do had dynamic. The actress who plays Min Jae Hee could make me laugh and cry; she's really good. Seo Do's lackey killed it in every scene.

As an average woman, yes it hits all the same kdrama cliches, like your youngish CEO; but this is the first kdrama I've seen where the lead is actually a plus-sized, healthy woman. What was disappointing in the last couple of episodes was that she was barely in it.

All and all, it wasn't your Sky Castle. It was above average. I just found myself fast forwarding. It was just too long. Would I recommend it?
Still yes because the scenes were Min Jae Hee confronts her trauma and low self esteem were honestly moving. I just wished that she, the actual main character, not her Freaky Friday self, had shown up more at the end. At least it ended well.

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Smells Fantastic, But Might Leave a Slight Tickle

Let's be completely honest right off the bat: you're probably curious about this drama entirely because of the novelty of seeing Shin Sung Rok as a romantic first male lead. If that describes you, stop reading this and just start watching Perfume now. I promise, you will enjoy it well enough for SSR alone. If you don't know who Shin Sung Rok is, or don't care (in which case, what is the matter with you??), then please keep reading.

Perfume in a nutshell is this: relentlessly silly, often low-brow and slapstick, but with a heaping dose of that usual kdrama warmth and heart that is the hallmark of Korean rom-coms. It is truly, often hysterically, funny, and the lead characters, as well as the villain, are all good to great. It is also a fantasy drama that has huge potential for allegory, but almost thoroughly fails to realize it.

STORY (8/10)
I have to say, Perfume is rock solid in this area, even if it is too uneven to truly shine. The plot wisely focuses on the characters, their struggles, their growth, their successes and failures. This is a good thing, and the beginning of all good storytelling. The only problem is that Perfume's foundational concepts easily lend themselves to telling daring, allegorical stories that shine a light on relatable, real-world issues, especially ones currently plaguing South Korea. Although that is not the kind of drama Perfume sets out to be, at least attempting to address some of the very obvious issues brought to mind by this drama (namely: toxic beauty standards, depression/suicide, problematic modeling industry standards, teen model issues, etc) would have been a no-brainer writing choice and lent easy weight to the scenarios and the characters' actions.
Instead, Perfume largely avoids all of those topics as if they didn't exist, despite their obviousness. The resulting mental dissonance can be distracting, even disappointing.
But overall, there's so much sweet fluffiness to enjoy in Perfume's plot that you'll find yourself consistently clicking 'Next Episode' over and over. Its major theme of Devotion vs. Selfishness will absolutely pack a satisfying emotional punch at all the right moments, minus a few pacing-related hiccups and one or two out-of-character writing faux pas.
The biggest story obstacle to both enjoyment and completion here is a bit too much Torture The Male Lead. At times, it is bad enough to make you angry and is written far too transparently to feel authentic to the characters. But minus this one true obstacle, everything else is very easy to like, making Perfume an easy finish.

ACTING/CAST (9/10)
Perfume gives you basically nothing to complain about here, with Shin Sung Rok in particular achieving transcendent levels at times. A significant majority of both laughter and "feels" are achieved from him alone. However, he's not alone in bringing one of his best performances: Go Won Hee, Ha Jae Sok, and Jo Han Chul all skillfully meet the high standard that SSR sets. The other members of the cast are all adequate to good, with the only noticeably weaker performance being from Kim Jin Kyung (who somehow struggles to believably play a model despite being an actual model in real life).
One of the most important things for a romcom to get right in casting is the chemistry between first leads, and let me tell you, Sung Rok and Won Hee have some seriously palpable physical chemistry here that really makes you want to see more and more of them. My wife and I agreed by the end that, although Perfume does a good job of keeping the focus on the two of them, we still felt like we didn't get enough of them together by the end.

MUSIC (9/10)
Perfume brings some seriously, seriously good OSTs here, although its incidental/non-vocal music is mostly flat. As usual, explaining music in text is stupid, so go listen for yourself. Start with these tracks:
"Starlight" by 소향
"키스미" (Kiss Me) by 앤씨아 (NC.A)
"Tick-Tock" by 신지훈
All of this is easily found on Youtube (although the actual video content will contain some spoilers, so be careful). Go Won Hee also croons a classic ballad in English for an episode here and it's just fantastic. Her pronunciation is predictably choppy, but still charming.

REWATCH VALUE (8/10)
I'm generally not big on rewatching anything, but there's so much cute and hilarious goodness here that a rewatch would be easy. And in fact, Wife and I plan to rewatch it rather soon with some family members, because this drama deserves to be seen. The score here would be at least a 9, but a major drawback to the score is some of the uneven pacing mentioned earlier, as well as way too many "transformation scenes" that are painful enough to watch once and are frustratingly overdone by the end.

OVERALL: 8.5/10
Perfume is a rock solid rom-com with an interesting fantasy hook, solid character-centric plot progression, and absolutely great chemistry between the leads. It's relentlessly fun and, minus some mid-drama hiccups, a breeze to get through. However, I do recommend going into it without expecting much in the way of big messages or radically novel depictions of romance and beauty. If all you want is Shin Sung Rok being adorable and hilarious, then again: why are you still reading this stupidly-long review when you could be watching Perfume?

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I really liked the concept of this kdrama but felt like it was gonna be another one of those shows where the 'fat' girl was ugly and unhappy with her life, and once she'd become thin and beautiful she would be happy and get the guy. I'm happy that later on in the show you find out the guy actually loves her regardless of her appearance all along. So while this show definitely isn't perfect, it does show improvement in the way people precieve beauty and love. Since the show isn't over yet I don't know how it will end, but I hope they'll be together with Jae Hee being herself and not Ye Rin.

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Overall, this was a nice, uplifting story. Shin Sung Rok has very strong features and plays a bad guy well. This is the first time I've seen him as the main lead getting the girl. He's not your typical male "exuding handsomeness" lead or "flower boy" lead but he showed his funny and softer side. I didn't like his hairstyle here since it made him look odd but I guess it fits the role of an eccentric and genius fashion designer. The main female leads Go Won Hee and Ha Jae Sook did very well too. Cha Ye Ryun is still gorgeous and svelte after having a baby. Her shine didn't diminish at all. Also, don't get me started about Kim Min Kyu since he's cute and deserves to be the main lead in another new drama. Enough said. :)

As a side note, thinking that a plus size woman doesn't deserve respect and love, shows how shameful our society has become. People are obsessed with what beauty should look like, depending on which country they lived. In Asia where I was born, milky white skin is considered beautiful because of our darker color. Whitening soaps and whitening lotions abound everywhere. You can even have your skin "bleached" if you can afford it. In contrast, when I moved to the U.S., darker skin was viewed to be more beautiful and people try to get a tan or apply tanning lotions to get that "golden" look. It's the same with bodies, mostly everyone is obsessed with being skinny. It's partly endorsed by our media.

Although this drama shows the difference between a slim and a plus size woman, that's not what the main story is all about. You'll actually get lessons on what's really important in life. It's not the looks that really matters but how we carry and value ourselves. It also shows someone who loves a woman beyond her appearance and embracing all she is.

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Importance of self love

Honestly I started this drama with very low expectations. I am a Shin sung rok fan and I wanted to watch it for him. But little by little this drama got me hooked. I'm not saying it was the best drama I watched or something but it was really light and funny.
Shin sung rok was perfect in this character. As someone who usually plays negative characters it was a delightful change to watch him in this role. The expressions, the comic timing he totally exceeded my expectations.
The FL(both of them) were great too. I have usually seen kdramas not casting heavier people as leads so for a change I loved Min Jae Hee more. Her insecurities and turmoils about her weight and life were well portrayed.
The best part of the drama was the importance of self love along with such amazing comedy. It was funny and cute at times.
I would totally recommend it if you want to watch something light and with a good message. Kdramas still have a long way to go to be fair to fat actors or actresses since their beauty standards are different but I loved how this drama broke stereotypes.
I loved the ending. Usually when I start a drama i feel unsatisfied with the ending. But the ending here wasn't rushed or bad.
I don't know if I'll rewatch it since I usually don't but if I ever feel sad or down I just might

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One tip if you will watch this drama, watch this carefully especially in the first few episodes because many things already happened in the first 3 episodes. This drama is amazing and refreshing. Not your typical and cliche Korean drama. All the actors and actresses are good and they really fit all the characters they portray. I like all of their OST's too, the songs will stay in your mind. I still don't know why no one talks about this kdrama that much. The story and plot of this is nice.

I'll give this drama an 8/10. I didn't give it a full 10 because some scenes are boring for me but overall this drama is good and won't waste your time. I'll recommend it for you to watch.

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Surprisingly funny and often underrated

9/10 is my rating. This is a 2019 South Korean Fantasy Romance drama with 32, 35 minute episodes.

I first provide a synopsis then a review.

Synopsis: At a point where she should have had everything in life, a loving family, stability and living her best life in her middle aged years Min Jae-hee's (Hae Jae-sook) life takes a sudden and tragic turn. That all changes though when Jae-hee discovers her husband Kim Tae-joon (Jo Han-chul) is having an affair with a younger woman. Saddened by the fact that she is no longer young and able to start over she decides suicide is the best way out of what she sees as an inescapable situation. Just when she is about to fulfill her dark fantasy of ending it all fate steps in, in the form of a delivery man with a magical perfume that transforms her back into a beautiful young woman with a second chance at life. She becomes a top model, goes by the name of Min Ye-rin (Go Won-hee) and works with a top fashion designer Seo Yi-do (Shin Sung-rok) who is unlikable in nearly every way. He also has a lot of allergies and phobias that makes it so he drives people even further away when he freaks out because someone triggers one. Can life change for both as they interact, conflict and grow?

Review: I hesitated for a long time in watching this because it reviewed so low. When I looked into it more some of the low ratings were not because of the story or acting it was due to one element of the plot line which some felt was "fat shaming." I think there is a fine balance between calling a spade a spade and actual fat shaming. If someone is heavy I don't think everyone should have to pretend they are svelte. I also do not think anyone should have to make believe that people who are physically fit are going to see the beauty inside and be okay and attracted to someone carrying around a lot of extra weight. So, I did not see it as fat shaming I just saw the reality in life. Those that are on the heavier side of average, are likely to find not as many people are going to be attracted to them in a society that admires skinnier body types. Men, and particularly women that are heavy might have self esteem issues because of societal pressures. There was a time and place in history where portly was actually favorable and skinny people were not looked on in a good light. It all has to do with what body type is favored by the majority. If you can get back the early episodes, where her husband is just a jerk who quits loving her because she gains weight, you find that the main characters are not as shallow as he is.

Spoilers**
What I liked
It was funny. Yi-do is over the top dramatic. And it is very comical. He is one of those that seems very rough on the outside but is very caring and kind internally. The designs they showed were actually something I could see people wearing. The slice of high fashion life was interesting. There was a little bit of idol trope with the younger brother. I liked that he was very nice. I really liked Yi-do's assistant and how he became one of Ye-rin/Jae-hee's top confidents and friends. I liked the romance between Ye-rin and Yi-do they had chemistry and it was believable. A magical perfume that transforms her into a younger and more beautiful version of herself was a unique premise and I really enjoy series with magical elements. I liked that the daughter finally realized she had been unkind to her mom and decided her dad did not deserve her loyalty.

What I didn't like
I didn't like the romance between Jae-hee and Yi-do. There was no chemistry between them and it wasn't because she was heavy. It really just did not seem like they were romantically a couple. They seemed like someone that would be really good friends. I thought the personality was too dramatically different when she was Jae-hee. Not only was the appearance different but the personality was different. To me Jae-hee seemed cold and bullish. She was mean to Yi-do a lot of times when she really did not need to be. Ye-rin seemed sweeter and more innocent. Really they should have seemed like the same person but they didn't. I think it would have worked better if they had used a skinnier model in a heavy suit. I also was disappointed, at the end, that her 1 year transformation did not result in her being a healthier version of herself. I mean I liked that he loved her no matter what but I just thought, for her own self, that going off and getting healthy would have been a success/win over her horrible husband. I was disappointed that the Idol younger brother was so disturbed when she turned into the "Auntie". I didn't expect him to still be in love with her in that form but it just made he seemed a lot more shallow. I didn't mind that the ex husband harassed her through a lot of the series but for him to come back, yet again, and break the perfume bottle, and then immediately be captured by the police just seemed like too much.

Overall
I enjoyed this series a lot. It was great comic relief and I enjoyed the characters. I liked the magical element. I would watch it again and recommend it to others.

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DO NOT PUT YOUR GLASSES LENS-DOWN ON THE PAVEMENT YOU MONSTERS!

TBH, I skipped over this one many many times before I decided to watch it. The plot sounded weird and I wasn't sure what sort of drama it would be. After having watched it...the plot is definitely weird and sparse and it probably would have been a really bad drama, but the actors and the director for sure took this thin weak plot and turned it into something entertaining. The dialog is written pretty well at various points, so that helped. The music was well timed and themed to the drama's events, which is always nice.

By far, the best written and acted role was Yi Do's secretary (played by Kim Ki Doo). That little dude, I liked him so much. He was never judgy or overbearing, he listened when he needed to listen and always asked the right questions or made the right comments with genuine concern. Usually these side roles in dramas end up being overbearing and annoying because they are designed to keep the leads from accomplishing their goals to create...well...drama. But that little dude was 100% of the time the friend all of us wish we had. He didn't get much of his own character development or back story, but somehow every scene he was in was outstanding.

The other actors/actresses were good as well. They did a great job with their emotional responses and chemistry with each other. The villain was appropriately evil, that dude always plays a great villain. He's got a sort of wobble in his voice that just makes him sound so greedy and spiteful and mean. Most of the fashion in the show was decent as well...except...why the literal crap did they keep dressing the main lead like he was the child of Herman Munster?? Like...ok, dude has massive cheekbones and always looks a little gaunt anyhow, and he's beastly massive, so your plan is to dress him in obscenely oversized clothes with chin to waist ruffles?? TWICE...he wore that god awful ruffle shirt TWICE. Or harsh lined weird full box box clothes?? When he wasn't cosplaying as an Amazon box painted black, he was cosplaying as a vampire from the 1500s. It was SUCH a weird choice. Like...imagine a cute anime goth boy with an oversized hoodie that has arms so long they drag the floor...but then stick that outfit on an 8 foot living gargoyle...that's what his outfits were like. Dude is super hot, it's like they went out of their way to make him look freakish.

The film effects were a little weird. Like intentional shaking and unsteady camera at times that seemed a little extreme for the scene, or these massive screen spreading lens flares. Initially I thought, oh the weird diffused light and lens flares are comedy for whenever the idol dude comes on the screen, and so I was fine with them. Like lol it's the hot guy again. But then they started doing them all the time and it got a little painful to watch. Not like painful-ugly but like actually physically painful from having bright lights glaring at you while you're trying to watch the actors speak.

Aside from those few small complaints, the one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way in this drama...like made me cringe and want to just shut the whole thing off... was the scene that played a few times where the child version of the lead dude falls onto the ground, takes his glasses of, PUTS THEM LENS DOWN ON THE FLIPPING CEMENT, and cries. Look. I'ma be honest with you here. I've been wearing glasses my whole life, and at no point in my life ever have I not cringed when accidentally setting them lens down. The pure unbridled rage I feel watching those lenses, which are for sure scratched to hell now, being set roughly onto pavement almost ruined the entire drama for me. Mr. Director, do you have ANY idea how ANNOYING it is to look through scratched lenses? People who wear glasses take GREAT CARE, even while having a tantrum on the ground, to not scratch their MF GD lenses. That alone should have put this drama in the horror category.

I should also say, I thought they did a decent job dealing with the whole fat person vs thin person social issues. Sure, they could have done better, but they could have done a lot worse too. Mostly they came out on the winning side of the equation though. They handled things respectfully but realistically without trying to stuff social justice down your throat or fat shaming the characters.

All in all, it was a much better drama than I anticipated. I wouldn't watch it again because it's a one-and-done sort of drama, but I do not regret watching it.

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