"Contrived," "brazen." Singer and actor IU is showcasing a variety of charms in Perfect Crown while polarizing viewers with sharply divided likes and dislikes, pioneering a 21st-century girl-crush female lead.
IU plays the title role of Seong Hee-ju in MBC's new Friday-Saturday drama Perfect Crown, which began its first broadcast on the 10th.
Seong Hee-ju in Perfect Crown is a chaebol determined to transcend limits. She is a chaebol, but also a commoner and, above all, of illegitimate birth. In the setting of Perfect Crown, where a king and yangban exist, she is a character with social limitations. Despite being the "no. 1 in the business world" chaebol, she harbors strong resentment at becoming nothing more than a merchant in the face of the class system and has a burning desire to overcome it.
IU's Seong Hee-ju stands firm at every moment. She appears at the king's birthday banquet receiving the most intense attention, showing she is above all the yangban before the public, and in front of yangban family members who openly slander her as a commoner of illegitimate birth, she smashes a wine glass and laughs, showing she is a formidable opponent who can do whatever it takes.
Through this, Perfect Crown presents a 21st-century girl-crush heroine who finds a way forward by raging against unequal opportunities. Her unyielding resilience in the face of social limits completes the portrait of a determined, competitive female lead.
As a result of her indomitable spirit, Seong Hee-ju succeeds in getting Lee An-daegun Iwan (Byeon Woo-seok) — who only uttered "refuse" — to agree to a political marriage. She used her situation as a commoner of illegitimate birth and chaebol status dramatically as an opportunity, a sign of her competitive streak. Her bold steps as she carves out her own path toward the goals she set for herself continue to attract attention.
Above all, IU's expressiveness makes Seong Hee-ju's unstoppable actions even more dramatic. Her constantly changing facial expressions and sly performance show a marked advancement over Jang Man-wol in the earlier tvN drama Hotel Del Luna. Of course, this has led to criticism that it is contrived, but at the same time it seems to highlight Seong Hee-ju's competitive nature, unafraid in any moment to present herself.
Her rhythmic line delivery and consummate expressiveness, almost as if singing, fully preserve the charms of the romantic comedy genre. The 21st-century fictional constitutional monarchy of Korea feels almost like modern fantasy. As IU's fate-forging story that showed the start of a contractual marriage begins in Perfect Crown, interest grows in how it will unfold. <
[Photo] OSEN DB, provided by MBC.
[OSEN]