Perfume (Korean Drama) Review

CHARACTERS

Min Jae Hee/Min Ye Rin (민재희/민예린) 

Actresses: Ha Jae Sook (하재숙) & Go Won Hee (고원희)

A 40-year old woman who led a miserable life due to her appearance and being unappreciated by her daughter and cheating scumbag husband of 17 years. The only person who was her source of happiness Yoon Min Suk(윤민석), a famous superstar who she imagined at times. She tried to commit suicide in a dramatic way using the Rube Goldberg Machine (a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way) with the intent to kill her husband to rid him of the world but a perfume was suddenly delivered by an old man that turns her into her beautiful and younger self. 

Seo Yi-Do (서이도)

Actor: Shin Sung-Rok (신성록)

The CEO of E-Do Collection, a top fashion designer in Korea who has countless phobias and allergies which makes him very picky about the food he eats and the people around him. He's somehow like a Tsundere who puts up a strong front when deep down he is extremely wounded by his past and longs for the return of his first love. 

Yoon Min-Suk (윤민석)

Actor: Kim Min Kyu (김민규)

A superstar with a lovable personality who pretends to be in a relationship with Jae Hee to prevent a different scandal from getting out but eventually really falls for her which complicates the lives of those around him including Jae Hee's. 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Perfume is about Min Jae Hee, a woman who was considered as a "beauty" as a youngster but gained a lot of weight when she grew older that resulted to society and her husband to shun her. After she tried to commit suicide, an old man appeared and gave her a magical perfume that made her look like her younger self and she assumed that she would die after the perfume is all used up (1 year). She left home and decided to pursue her dreams to become a model. Right after, she bumped into Seo Yi-Do a big-time fashion designer who also turned out to be Min Jae Hee's old friend who considered her to be his first love whom he never got over. Turns out, he became a fashion designer because of her and created the perfume for her as a kid to make her fall in love for him. It was supposed to be delivered to her twenty years ago but because the delivery service went bankrupt, the package was never delivered until now. In the end, I could feel the resentment and regret of Jae Hee when she found this out, saying that if it had been delivered twenty years ago, their lives could have been different. But "God" told her that they weren't at fault that the company went bankrupt and that she's still the one who decided to marry Kim Tae Joon and she's still accountable for her own decisions. We keep on saying that if only our circumstances are changed then we would choose differently and have a better outcome but in the end, she still chose her own decisions, she chose to forget her promise to never forget Yi Do (although unintentionally), she chose to have sexual intercourse with Tae Joon while she was still in college, she chose to marry an asshole (though still concealed during that time, I absolutely don't know how he managed to hide his true colors), she chose to let go of her dreams for her family (although this is not a bad decision, she still chose to let go of her dreams to become a model) and she chose not to take care of her body as much. 

Although I was a little skeptical at first, the issue of society's beauty standards and low self-esteem is tackled in the drama pretty well. Everyone would look at Jae Hee all the time in public for her weight and absurd appearance while Ye Rin was treated nicely for her beautiful and light appearance. 

I've read some comments that they can't think of Jae Hee and Ye Rin as one person because the two characters act so differently when in their forms but for me, it's only natural for Jae Hee to act timid and with low self-esteem in her present 40-year old form since she's been looked down upon by everyone she encounters for years and even when she is in the form of Ye Rin, she still displays signs of low self-esteem (it's rooted in her core). What was really touching was when Yi-Do recognized Jae Hee in her true form and still loves her, not caring about her appearance. It was hilarious that he thought he was falling for two different women when in reality, Ye Rin and Jae Hee were one person. Although it took him a while to get used to the true form of Jae Hee, he strived to get used to it (being so used to Ye Rin's form) and loved her all the same, even telling her not to use her perfume anymore.

For me, it's a bitter sweet ending. I started crying really hard when Jae Hee disappeared after the World Fashion Week and when Yi-Do celebrated his birthday without Jae Hee and read her letter from a year ago. But in the end, it was revealed that she actually came back (even if it was shown that she was somehow inclining to the decision of leaving her world) and after all this time, she had been working really hard so that she would be worthy of Yi-Do and he had been doing the same. The writers passed it off as just like how Yi-Do can't comprehend and explain how they were able to find each other after decades, he couldn't explain either how she came back to him after disappearing. I assumed that Jae Hee would die after the perfume is gone like as she predicted and I feel like that kind of ending would have me hooked to the drama for a long time. I'm somehow grateful that it did not turn out that way otherwise my mind would have incessant thoughts of the drama but at the same time, I want to be hooked to the drama more (?) I'm a little bit undecided regarding this.

Overall, this drama is a 8.5/10 for me. I tend to skip scenes when it's somehow irrelevant for me but I still really liked the comedic and romantic aspects of the drama. I really love the love triangle between Min Suk, Jae Hee and Yi-Do; it clearly showed the constrasting sides of infatuation and love.