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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