TDrama Review: Miss in Kiss

I know, I know... nobody sent help and I watched another remake of this show. I can't help myself! The good news is this was an excellent rendition. If you've never watched Playful Kiss (Korean), Mischievous Kiss (Japanese), It Started with a Kiss (Taiwanese), or Kiss Me (Thai), never fear, this is not a bad one to start with. Miss in Kiss is a second Taiwanese remake of the Itazura Na Kiss manga. It Started with a Kiss is fabulous, but Miss in Kiss is a great successor. Let's dive in!

The Gist: All seems helpless for plucky but not bright Yue-qin (Esther Wu), who has her eyes set on class genius Shi-zhu (Dino Lee). Fate intervenes when Yue-qin's house suffers a catastrophic accident, leaving her and her father on the street. However, a good friend of Yue-qin's father comes out of the woodwork and takes them into his home and it is only when Yue-qin moves in that she realizes that Shi-zhu is her new housemate. Yue-qin may turn Shi-zhu's life upside down, but for someone who doesn't have to try at anything, that may not be a bad thing.

Love:

1. The Ending

Spoilers. Obviously. So why start this review at the end? As you know, the best remakes keep the spirit of the original while changing enough to keep it interesting. MiK is a very faithful adaptation, which is excellent for a first time watcher, but can be a little boring for the re-watcher. However, some of the smartest changes I think came in that last episode.

MiK has the final confession in the classic rain scene, Shi-zhu hears that Ah-jin is proposing and hunts Yue-qin down to win her back. When they return home, Shi-zhu promptly asks for Yue-qin’s hand. In other iterations of this show, Yue-qin’s father lists out her bad points before wrapping up with why she’s worth it. MiK has an excellent turn where Yue-qin’s father starts listing out her bad points and Shi-zhu counters with why she is worth it.

Essentially, all versions have the main male character softening up, but MiK is the first one that has him lay out why he likes her and why he needs her this early. There is another nice moment later in the episode where Shi-zhu tells her that it’s because she’s not perfect that she is perfect for him. Round that out with a wedding where he plays Clair de’Lune for her and I am just swooning.

I am curious if there will be a second season to this show as Shi-zhu has all his barriers down by the end of this first season, seeming to be more committed to being nicer to Yue-qin. Yet, I hope they do as we don’t get to see much of Yue-qin or Shi-zhu’s medical pursuits and my heart just breaks for Ah-jin. I would like to see him get his happy ending. Still, if this is one and done, it was a nice way to wrap up.

2. Pacing

This show may seem long as Netflix has this broken into 40 1/2 hour episodes, but I like shows that get broken into smaller pieces. Dramas are such a long endeavor per episode, it was nice to have shorter episodes and just have more of them. I felt like I was able to get through this show faster because I didn’t need a whole hour carved out to watch an episode. With that said, I think that I wanted to watch the episodes faster than Netflix was releasing them, so there is that.

3. The Family

I adored that Yue-qin and Zhi-shu’s younger brother get to be friends in this version. One of my favorite episodes in all versions is when he gets sick and Yue-qin has to take him to the hospital. It’s a good bonding moment for the two characters and is a start of a turning point for Zhi-shu. The pay off of this relationship really is that when Zhi-shu starts dating another girl, the little brother is kind of an advocate for Yue-qin to him. It was all really sweet.

Additionally, I was really impressed with the writing of Zhi-shu’s parents in this version. In many of the versions, Zhi-shu’s father really forces his job on Zhi-shu. We may start there in MiK, but he quickly finds out that Zhi-shu wants to be a doctor and tells him to pursue his dreams. Even when Zhi-shu doubles down on his commitment to the company, his parents really just want him to be happy. Even Zhi-shu seems to really be pushing Yue-qin towards him because she knows Yue-qin can make him happy.

4. Cute Opening

I love the upbeat song and the mini version of the characters are adorable. I watched it the whole way through every time.

Meh & Hate:

I’ve been sitting on this for a few days and I just can’t find major faults with this show. My biggest gripe would be that some of the scenes are too identical to other versions, but if that is my only complaint, I’d say this show is a success. The characters are well cast, the story moves at a good pace, and it has everything you’d expect from this show.

So:

So… I am very happy with this rendition! If you are looking for a more recent introduction to this story, this is actually a pretty good one. It Started With a Kiss is starting to show its age a bit, which makes it a good time for an update. I was not sure about our main characters, but they had great chemistry and Zhi-shu really grew on me. If you’re looking for a wildly inventive take on this story, this won’t satisfy you, but if you’re looking for a faithful adaptation that adds its own sweet twist, Miss in Kiss is a fun, happy, warm show.

Final Grade: A