Review of Dynamite Kiss / 키스는 괜히 해서!

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For the past few months or so I’ve been starting all of my blog posts off with the fact that I started a new job, but now it’s December and I feel like I can’t keep saying I started a new job. It’s been a handful of months now, but I was starting my blog posts off that way because my adjustment period was a bit rough to me.

I worked from home before this and was used to having all of this time to watch shows, movies, and lock in on the latest book from the library, but when I started working full-time hours and was doing this blog on the side, I found myself with a lot less time than usual. And when I was coming home from work, I was really tired and had a tendency to pass out at 9 PM.

I’m finally starting to get the hang of being an adult and functioning in these conditions. I’m not complaining about it at all, but it’s been certainly a time to get used to all of this. Like what do you mean I can’t spend an entire day binge watching Korean dramas if I don’t want to? I’m slightly joking when I type that out, by the way.

One of the shows I’ve been watching recently is Dynamite Kiss. This review I’m typing on the day of the final episode’s release, which also happens to be Christmas where I live. When I started watching this show I was locked into it, and when each episode dropped weekly I was on top of watching it that day. I was really into this show y’all, even if it meant some frustrations along the way.

Let’s get into the blog post before I ramble too much!

An unemployed thirty-something woman finds a shot of love on Jeju Island, but her sister’s fraud forces her to leave him behind—for now.

In this drama, our female protagonist is Go Da-rim. She’s in her thirties and still hasn’t managed to land a career yet, much to her and her mother’s disappointment. When she finally decides to go on a vacation to Jeju Island for the first time, it puts her on the path of chaebol heir Gong Ji-hyeok.

He’s there trying to get a business deal with Go Da-rim’s ex-boyfriend, and although Da-rim and he are clashing at first, he ropes her into a deal where she has to pretend to be his girlfriend in order to clinch the deal. While this deal ultimately may or may not work out, the two realize they have explosive chemistry and Ji-hyeok becomes obsessed with her.

Which doesn’t help when she runs away after they slept together. Turns out her sister and her man ran away because they were very much in debt, and Da-rim’s mother collapsed from shock when she found out the sheer amount of debt they were in. The loan sharks are now after them, putting Da-rim in a precarious position.

Now forced to pay off the debt and her mother’s medical bills, Da-rim starts interviewing for jobs. She lands a job at a company with products towards new mothers, despite interviewing poorly, but discovers two things on the job: she was put on a team of mothers, when she is not one, and Gong Ji-hyeok is now her supervisor.

Ji-hyeok has been looking for all this time too, and now he thinks she’s a married mom with a child. Forced to keep up the appearance or lose her job, Da-rim now has to fight off her attraction for her boss while also putting up a pretense with her best friend that they’re married and his kid is actually hers, too.

The storylines in this show give off classic romantic comedy vibes. I wouldn’t exactly describe the plot as reinventing the wheel or doing anything different, but I think both of the lead actors, as well as the side couple, do such a good job with the material that it feels fresh. I was really invested in this show, and I think it helps that the leads have solid chemistry to back up the story.

The only thing that really comes across as iffy to me tends to be in the story itself. For example, the fact the sister just kind of runs away and leaves her family with this debt is lowkey swept under the rug, especially when it comes how the debt itself is resolved.

They also kind of stretched out the whole “Ji-hyeok is in love with a woman who has a husband and a kid” storyline to the point where they couldn’t anymore, which makes sense, but man was I starting to kind of get annoyed with the fact it wasn’t revealed yet.

Overall Thoughts

As I wrote before, I was really invested in this series. I personally tend to find Jang Ki-yong dramas to be hit or miss, but this one was a hit for me. It was a solid winter watch in the sense that it was well filmed, the storyline didn’t frustrate me too much with the holes, and all of the characters were fairly solid all-around.

I had only seen Ahn Eun-jin in Hospital Playlist before, but I think if she pops up in another drama I want to watch it’ll definitely be a reason I watch it! I liked her take on Da-rim, even though Da-rim does kind of come across as a damsel in distress throughout the course of the show. She does reclaim her agency in different ways towards the end, but she feels like a little bit of an inconsistent character at times.

I wouldn’t call this show high art, especially considering the characters are fairly static, but I did find this to be a good time overall! Sometimes you don’t need something that’s highly provocative and makes you think about the state of the world. Most of the time people watch television to escape, and this is definitely a show that’ll make you smile, laugh, and root for the couples involved.

So go watch it if you have time and haven’t already! I think it’s worth watching at least once, or giving it a shot.

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