Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Perfect Crown’ on Hulu, where a CEO with little status seeks to marry a crown prince who dislikes his lack of power

Korean romantic dramedies seem to follow a pattern, don’t they? Two people from different social circles, a meet-cute, lots of bickering, and then the two people fall in love. In Perfect Crown on Hulu, the two people doing all this are a member of a chaebol family that was born out of wedlock and a crown prince who hates the emptiness of being a royal.

Opening Shot: Traditional shots of Joseon warriors and royalty, as a narrator talks about how, under a constitutional monarchy in the 21st century, the role of the royals is mostly ceremonial.

The Gist:  Sung Hui-ju (IU) has always been a hard-driving, high-achieving person. Despite being the second daughter of the family that owns the conglomerate called The Castle Group, the circumstances of her birth — she was born out of wedlock — have trailed her. But we see her in her private high school in 2009, getting the highest grades in the class, and telling her closest rival to basically go kick rocks.

Flash forward to 2026. Hui-ju is the CEO of Castle Beauty, and we see how hard-driving she is in her job. She wants to come in first in sales in her category, no matter what it takes. But five minutes into her meeting with her top executives (all men), her assistant Do Hye-jeong (Lee Yeon) comes in and tells Hui-ju that she needs to get ready to go to the celebration dinner for the king’s birthday.

The King (Kim Eun-ho) is turning 8, thrust onto the throne after the sudden death of his father. His mother, Queen Dowager Yoon Yi-rang (Gong Seung-yeon), is fiercely protective of her son and his throne, and hates that her brother-in-law, Crown Prince I-an (Byeon Woo-seok) was appointed regent to perform royal duties on the child King’s behalf.

I-an isn’t super comfortable in the role, either; he’d rather go out and hunt. When he shows up late to his nephew’s birthday dinner, wearing a “casual” ceremonial coat, the Queen Dowager is horrified, but it gets lots of media attention. The Queen Dowager is intent on marrying off Prince I-an, so he can step back from his duties as regent. I-an confides in his friend, Prime Minister Min Jeong-woo (Noh Sang-hyun) that he wouldn’t mind getting married, so he can stop doing the mind-numbing ceremonial duties of a regent.

What also attracted media attention is Hui-ju’s red suit at the birthday ceremony, a general no-no for royal functions. The outfit and accessories quickly sell out. But no matter how well Hui-ju is doing, her father still insists that it’s time for her to marry. No one seems to match the high regard Hui-ju has for herself, until the idea to marry Prince I-an pops into her head. After dozens of denied requests to have an audience with him, she connects on the fact that they went to school together, with him being in 12th grade when she was in 9th.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Perfect Crown has a bit of the same feel as Bon Appétit, Your Majesty, though this show doesn’t have the time travel plot of the latter show.

Our Take: Perfect Crown is pretty typical as far as Korean romantic dramedies are concerned; two people who have no business meeting end up meeting and falling for each other. Sometimes there are tweaks to the formula, but they tend to proceed the same way.

Here, we get a very drawn-out 72-minute episode that sets up Hui-ju’s story, then sets up I-an’s story. We have a scene where the two of them meet quite by accident, as Hui-ju wanders the palace grounds looking for a cell signal. There’s a tiny bit of danger: An unexplained fire breaks out in the palace building where the dinner is taking place, but no one is hurt.

But it takes the first episode a very long time to get to the basic premise: Hui-ju decides to pick I-an as her future husband, and she tries to convince him to go along. Even though the engagement is arranged, and something that will allow both of them to accomplish what they want to accomplish, the idea is that they’re going to actually fall for each other over the course of the season.

The premise is fine, and we like the chemistry between IU and Byeon Woo-seok as Hui-ju and I-an. But it also feels like a story we’ve seen a lot in the K-drama world. We just wished that the first episode took less time to set things up.

Performance Worth Watching: IU makes Hui-ju, who most would consider to be a ruthless and conceited character, actually likable. When she smiles while insulting two of her executives, for instance, we somehow took her side.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After Hui-ju gives I-an her proposal for marriage, we see a post-credits epilogue that shows that their connection might be stronger and older than we initially though.

Sleeper Star: Min Jeong-woo, played by Noh Sang-hyun, knows both Hui-ju and I-an well, and we expect he’ll be a big factor in how his friends’ relationship progresses.

Most Pilot-y Line: “You eclipse the Crown itself”, says the Queen Dowager to I-an, basically saying his influence on businesspeople and politicians is at its peak in his role of regent. It’s a bit dramatic.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Perfect Crown will likely scratch the itch of K-drama fans who want to see a romance between a royal and a “commoner.” But the show follows a pretty predictable pattern, and the long episodes make that predictability a tiring thing to watch.

How To Watch Perfect Crown

If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.

If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.