Kdrama Kisses

Playful Kiss is a romantic comedy about a high school girl named Oh Ha Ni (Jung So Min) who moves into the home of her crush, Baek Seung Jo (Kim Hyun Joong), after her house is destroyed. The drama follows their relationship through high school, college, and beyond.

Playful Kiss is a charming little drama.  It has quite the following in the drama community, and I finally got around to watching it.  It is based on a popular manga, and the drama certainly has a manga feel to it.

Ha Ni is a naive girl who does really poorly at school.  After she gives a love letter to her crush Seung Jo, he ‘grades’ it by pointing out all of the mistakes.  He proceeds to make fun of her and treat her pretty poorly in front of the whole school.  I found Ha Ni to be the highlight of this drama.  She is such a quirky character, and the faces she makes are hilarious.  I had a lot of good laughs just from watching her.

Then we have Bong Joon Gu (Lee Tae Sung) who is quite the fun character.  He looks like he stepped out of the 1950’s with his cool hair and wardrobe, and he proudly proclaims his feelings for Ha Ni with no shame.  His character provides a lot of comic relief with his constant pursuit of her.

When Ha Ni and her father’s house is destroyed, they move in with his old friend, who of course is Seung Jo’s father.  Seung Jo continues to be rude to Ha Ni, and she is conflicted with her feelings towards him.  She dislikes how he treats her, but still finds herself constantly fantasizing about him.  This is certainly not the healthiest relationship, but keep in mind, it is just a show.

Seung Jo’s character remains pretty cold and stiff throughout the drama.  We get those lovely little moments here and there where you see that he is in fact developing feelings for her.  But even then he still likes to toy with her emotions, and it is a slow progression.

When they start college, another girl, Yoon He Ra (Lee Shi Young), begins to vie for Seung Jo’s affections, but Ha Ni is not swayed.  Despite his hot and cold treatment of Ha Ni, he still seems to gravitate towards her, and we see their relationship take baby steps forward at this point.

SPOILERS BELOW

This drama is also pretty unique in that we actually get to see Seung Jo and Ha Ni get married!  We even get several episodes of their married life together.  You have to admit that is not something you see to often in the world of kdramas.  It was nice to see our young couple in this stage of life as they began to focus on their careers and future.

Playful Kiss is light and cute from start to finish.  It has a laid back and easy to watch feel.  Sure, it is predictable and has plenty of clichés, but it’s really a fun watch.  Seung Jo remains cold for a bit too much of the drama for me to fully love it, but I did thoroughly enjoy the couple moments.  It’s also nice that the drama followed the couple over a long period of time, and we got to watch them progress in a more natural way because of that.

This is another drama that I think would be best viewed early in your drama watching for the most impact.  But despite seeing many dramas myself, I found it cute and really enjoyed it as a whole.  I can easily see why Playful Kiss remains to be one of the most popular kdramas.

My Rating: 7/10

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