Ready for the perfect binge watch? Perfect Marriage Revenge is just the Kdrama to snuggle up to on a cold wintery day. Jung Yoo-min stars as Han Yi-joo, the adopted daughter of a wealthy family who learns that her husband, Yoo Se-hyuk (Oh Seung-yoon), only married her to be close to her sister, Han Yoo-ra (Jin Ji-hee). After being framed for a crime by her adoptive mother, Lee Jung-hye (Lee Min-young), she flees and is severally injured in a car accident. Wanting Yi-joo out of the way, Jung-hye takes steps to kill her daughter in the hospital. As Yi-joo takes her final breath, she suddenly finds herself one year in the past, shortly before her marriage.
Vowing to get revenge, Yi-joo breaks things off with her fiancé and instead proposes marriage to the man her sister likes, Seo Du-guk (Sung Hoon), second son of the powerful Taeja Group. Du-guk has his work cut out for him on the road to a happy marriage. He must crack through the hurt and trama Yi-joo has experienced in her life and find his way to her heart.
- Series Title: Perfect Marriage Revenge (Korean: 완벽한 결혼의 정석)
- Starring: Sung Hoon, Jung Yoo-min, Jin Ji-hee, Kang Shin-hyo, and Oh Seung-yoon
- Written by: Im Seo-ra
- Directed by: Oh Sang-won
- Network: MBN
- Where to watch in the US: Viki
- Premier Date: October 28, 2023
- # of episodes: 12
- KafeNook Rating: 4.3 sips
Perfect Marriage Revenge — !! Spoilers Ahead!!
Perfect Marriage Revenge was not on my watch list. I blame social media for changing my mind. (Thank you, social media!) I don’t typically gravitate toward revenge dramas, but after reading a gazillion posts about Perfect Marriage Revenge, I gave the first episode a try. That’s all it took to hook me in. After all, the first episode ends with a time travel twist. And boy do I love a good time travel drama (The King: Eternal Monarch, A Time Called You, Twinkling Watermelon). While the majority of Perfect Marriage Revenge is not about the time travel – it plays a big part in the overall story.
Before the Accident
There are two distinct timelines in Perfect Marriage Revenge. The first involves the events leading up to Han Yi-joo’s car accident and subsequent death. As a child, Yi-joo survived a fire that killed her mother. She is then adopted into the wealthy Han family. Her parents, especially evil step-mother – um, I mean, adoptive mother, Jung-hye, treat her differently than younger daughter, Yoo-ra. Yi-joo lives in a small room with only a few personal items, and as a child, was often locked up in that room by Jung-hye. At one point while living with her adoptive family, someone tried to poison her. As a result, she only eats pre-packaged food. No wonder Yi-joo is often timid and has low self-esteem. There are some bright spots in her life. She is married to the man she loves, Yoo Se-hyuk, and she enjoys painting.
Yi-joo’s happiness is short-lived, however. At an auction at the art gallery led by Jung-hye, one of the paintings is called out as a forgery. Jung-hye quickly points the finger at Yi-joo who, at her mother’s request has been creating replicas of famous paintings for children’s hospitals. At the same time, Yi-joo learns that her husband, Se-hyuk, never loved her. He loves her sister, Yoo-ra, instead.
A distraught Yi-joo flees the art gallery before the police can arrest her but decides to return in order to clear her name. On the way back, her car collides with another car. Though shaken by the accident, she seems okay until a truck crashes into both cars. The next thing she knows, she is in the hospital where a gleeful Jung-hye turns off Yi-joo’s oxygen and confesses that she wants Yi-joo dead. Jung-hye’s assistant, Kim Jae Won (Byun Jun Seo) turns the equipment back on, then holds a phone up to Yi-joo’s ear. Whoever is on the phone will be the last voice she hears before she dies.
A Second Chance
The second timeline in Perfect Marriage Revenge starts after Yi-joo’s “death” in the first timeline. In this timeline, Yi-joo wakes up in her bed and discovers she is exactly one year in the past – shortly before her marriage. She also notices a blinking message on her wrist – flashing the date she died. For whatever reason, she is given a second chance. She decides to use that second chanced to get her revenge. It’s an easy decision to make but not so easy to execute.
Fortunately, Yi-joo has a partner in her quest – Seo Du-guk, the man her sister, Yoo-ra, wanted to marry. Asking Du-guk to marry her is the best decision Yi-joo has ever made (and not just because he is as charming as he is good looking!). Du-guk is someone who provides her with unconditional love and support. By taking care of her needs – cooking for her, giving her a nice place to live with space for herself, encouraging her when things are difficult – he creates an atmosphere where she can learn to trust and to heal. Love him! (Not to mention he has some serious moves! Talk about steamy kisses. . .)
Yi-joo has a lot to overcome – not just from her past but in her new present. She must win the approval of her future in-laws, deal with the slanderous actions of her ex-fiance’s family, discover what really happened to her mother, survive attempts to kill her, and determine what Du-guk is keeping from her. Along the way, she grows from a timid, broken person to a strong woman who is ready to open her heart.
Family Drama
Admittedly, there were times when I wanted to fast forward through some of the family drama and get back to perfect couple, Yi-joo and Du-guk, but what is a good revenge show without nasty characters? Perfect Marriage Revenge features two, imperfect families starting with the Han family. They are full of secrets, like the fact that Yi-joo is her father’s biological daughter from a previous relationship with her mom. It’s a secret Jung-hye has known for some time and has kept from her husband.
Sister Yoo-ra also has a paternity issue. She is the daughter of her mother’s former lover – the same person that Jung-hye coerced into attempting to kill Yi-joo and her mother years earlier. Yoo-ra likes the attention given to her by Yi-joo’s ex-fiance, Se-hyuk, and sleeps with him, but that doesn’t stop her from going after, Du-guk’s older brother, Seo Jong-wook (Kang Shin-hyo). Yoo-ra thinks she will beat out her sister by marrying the potential head of the Taeja Group.
As for Du-guk’s brother, Jong-wook, he wants to be his grandmother’s successor and will get there at any cost. He is a dirty businessman who cuts costs and safety in favor of schedules. The limp he sports is from an event that happened when he fell overboard on a boat after taunting his half-brother, Du-guk. He tells everyone that Du-guk is to blame but Du-guk, his parents, and grandmother know the truth. Du-guk’s mother, Cha Yeon-hwa (Lee Mi-sook) isn’t without her own secret. She wants him back at Taeja and goes so far as to bribe Yi-joo by saying she will support their marriage if Yi-joo can convince Du-guk to return.
Du-guk’s Secret
In the first timeline, Yi-joo briefly encounters Seo Du-guk at the art gallery. Though they don’t know each other very well, Du-juk voices his frustration that Yi-joo doesn’t stand up for herself. He seems to want to say more – but leaves before the auction starts.
I had my suspicions about Du-guk in the second timeline. Sure, he is a nice guy, but he practically jumps at the chance to marry Yi-joo when she comes to him with her proposal. Clearly, he is hiding something. Then he looks at Yi-joo’s drawings of the car accident and flinches. Could it be that he is the person in the car that hit Yi-joo in the original timeline? The even bigger twist comes with the reveal that he has his own flashing wrist date!
In a well-placed flashback to the first timeline, the drama reveals what happened to Du-guk on the day of his and Yi-joo’s deaths. While in a coma due to the injuries sustained from the attack by his brother, Du-guk relives the events of the original timeline. After hearing what is happening to Yi-joo at the gallery, he heads back, only to crash into her car. Shaken, he looks across the street to Yi-joo, but before he can go to her, the truck hits both of their cars – sending his rolling. Despite the fact he is broken, battered and bleeding, Du-guk somehow manages to get out of his car. The desperation and sadness on his face is heartbreaking as attempts to reach Yi-joo before collapsing in the middle of the street where he (presumably) dies.
Like Yi-joo, Du-guk wakes up one year in the past. He determines to seek out Yi-joo to try to protect her and instead she comes to him with her proposal. Now all of his subsequent actions and how he falls in love with her so quickly makes sense.
Random Things I liked
Actor Sung Hoon’s wonderfully, gravelly voice. When Du-guk says Yi-joo’s name (Formal: Han Yi-joo-sii which out of his mouth sounds like hanijuicy. Informal: Yi-joo-a) it feels like a soft caress.
The mystery behind Jung-hee’s assistant, Jae-won. In the first timeline, he appears to help frame Yi-joo and then is indifferent to Jung-hee’s attempt to kill Yi-joo in the hospital. Why is that? In the second timeline, the reason he becomes Jung-hee’s assistant is revealed. He believes his deceased father, a well-known artist, may be alive and that Jung-hee is using him to create art signed by him that she can sell. It’s nice to see Jae-won going over to Yi-joo’s side and getting to the truth about his father.
Perfect Marriage Revenge Ending
Perfect Marriage Revenge ends perfectly with everyone getting what they deserve. After having tried to kill Yi-joo yet again, evil mother Jung-hye is in jail, penniless and disowned by her daughter. Yoo-ra learns that her unborn child is not an heir to the Taeja Group as she hoped but rather, Seung-Yun’s child. Seung-Yun, with a new fiance’ in tow, is blindsided as Yoo-ra informs him of his impending fatherhood. Bonus – she will be living with him and his family in their small home. It is not how he thought he would end up with the woman he once loved. Du-guk’s brother, Jung-wook, is in jail for his crimes as head of Taeja construction.
A happy Du-guk and Yi-joo decide to register their marriage – and – learn that baby Seo is on the way. Everything seems great until Jung-wook escapes and kidnaps Yi-joo. If he can’t be happy, neither will his brother. Du-guk races to save Yi-joo and they all end up at the very intersection where the accident from the first timeline occurred a year earlier. Fortunately, the accident is averted and Yi-joo saved, but at the cost of Du-guk being severely injured by his brother. Jung-wook returns to jail, probably for life this time, and learns his angst toward his father all these years has been misplaced.
After multiple surgeries and two months in a coma, Du-guk recovers. In the meantime, Yi-joo becomes close to his family and reconnects with her own mother, who – surprise – survived the fire and is non-other than the teacher of Yi-joo’s cooking class. The final moments in the series come a year later as Du-guk and Yi-joo take pictures with their adorable little daughter. It is the beautiful, happy family they both deserve.
The time travel guru in me is ignoring the idea that the second timeline could all be a dream, one that comes about in the moments before Yi-joo and Du-guk die in the first timeline. Instead, I will believe that the first timeline is only a possible one which is overwritten when the two go back in time and change their fates. Yeah. I’ll go with that. Happy Ending it is!
Perfect Marriage Revenge Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Perfect Marriage Revenge fits the show well. The theme song, Halo, belted out by Son Ye Rim, nicely echoes the revenge theme, as does Meaningless, sung by Collie. Other nice songs include Vincent’s Blue’s Smile for You and the lovely What I Want to Say to You sung by Jung Yi Han.
