They Kiss Again Episode 4 Recap

Form: C+

Category
Taiwanese romantic comedy

What it's most
This sequel to 2005's It Started with a Kiss follows Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin every bit they settle into married married life and effort to find their places in the earth.

Outset impressions
They Kiss Once again starts off a lot like its predecessor—add one part goofy, I Beloved Lucy-style antics; ane office adorable, fanficy dear story; and one part taciturn male atomic number 82, and you've got it exactly. Playing spot-the-smiling is quite fun—Zhi Shu might not be fully domesticated yet, but he obviously finds his new wife to exist quite amusing. He keeps hiding smiles whenever she does something featherbrained.

Concluding verdict
The beginning half of this drama was a pleasure to watch. Its setting and characters were cozy and familiar, and it did a great job of surrounding its lead couple with a constellation of family, friends, and colleagues who provided interesting, most complimentary-standing, plots for each episode. Information technology was funny and light-headed and cute, and the couple scenes featuring Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin fabricated my heart go pitter-patter.

Merely past the time the midpoint rolled effectually, the same problems that plagued It Started with a Kiss were impossible to ignore. Both shows share a reason for being: the clashing of their diametrically opposed couple. Even after they're married, Xiang Qin is insecure and obsessed with their relationship, and Zhi Shu doles out affection equally if information technology's something more than costly than diamonds. There's a lot to enjoy in the episodic stories along the way, but I started to feel like the female lead: I was being strung along by the promise of a dear that never really materialized. We'd become a few minutes of ambrosial snuggling past the leads, but it would be immediately followed by three episodes of Zhi Shu being nasty and cold and harping on Xiang Qin's eternal failings.

Which is not to say that I wanted this drama to be all unicorns and rainbows—I appreciate that martial discord is peachy fodder for stories, and They Osculation Again made good use of the device. I enjoyed it a lot whenever the plot skewed toward melodrama. But the prove's merciless delineation of clownishly inept Xiang Qin and the written-in-stone personalities of the atomic number 82 characters eventually did me in. Like the bear witness itself, they aged and moved forrard in their lives, only never actually inverse or evolved into adulthood.

If you lot liked the first serial, this drama is definitely worth watching only to encounter more of its lovable cast of characters. Only if you're impatient and prefer shows with strong central narratives (not entirely unlike yours truly), I have an alternate suggestion: watch the first and last episodes and skip everything in between. You'll miss out on a lot of stories about the peripheral characters, but you'll meet the best the series has to offer, and you might just come up away loving Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin instead of being frustrated by them.

Random thoughts
• Episode 1. Dramafever has the long versions of this show's episodes—each one lasts an 60 minutes and a half. I much prefer the half-episodes that Sugoideas had for ISWAK. I may have an insane attention span, only fifty-fifty I observe these long episodes to be a stretch. On the bright side, Dramafever's video quality is peachy. On Sugoideas it was so bad you could barely read people'southward facial expressions.

• Episode 1. And then in a drama it's mildly cute if someone insists that their wedding video be played on an airplane's central amusement organisation. In real life, I've killed over significantly less obnoxious beliefs.

• Episode 1. An embarrassing confession: I was all, "Huh, they speak English language in Guam. Who knew?" Then I looked on Wikipedia and realized that there's an excellent reason for this--it'southward an American territory. My lack of knowledge about the modern world—and my own country—is pretty staggering.

• Episode 1. Well, there really is a get-go fourth dimension for everything: the 37 thousand gifs I've seen of this episode's large kissing scene don't fifty-fifty brainstorm to do justice to its epic, scorching hotness. I always suspected this aureate-boy graphic symbol's natural aptitude for everything always might not fail him at the fundamental bridal moment, and I think this ear nuzzling, neck hickeying, hand-wandering make-out session on the balcony proves me right. I genuinely believe this scene would take been as well steamy for network TV even in America.

• Episode 2. A lot of people say this sequel is really better than the original. It'due south a fleck too before long for me to decide if I agree, just I know one thing for sure: Joe Chen's hair is nigh 150 percentage less horrifying than it was in ISWAK. Were mullets a thing in 2005 Taiwan?

• Episode 2. All sorts of characters in this episode ran past a sign reading "Medical Students Only." You know what y'all're likely to see if you exercise that? Cadavers, that'due south what.

• Episode 4. Information technology'south always so weird to meet foreigners represented in Asian dramas. The heroine and her friends were just then freaked out past a white daughter asking them for directions that they didn't fifty-fifty realize she was speaking Chinese, not English language. This must be the character that showed up in the concluding few episodes of Playful Kiss—the Westerner who's destined to be with the second male person lead. Impressive that she supposedly speaks great Chinese later just three months of study (and that she tin can't speak English, fifty-fifty though she'south supposedly from London.)

• Episode 4. The testify is kind of making a joke out of its dim female lead becoming a teacher, but I actually think she'd exist cracking at it. She'south kind and empathetic and unfailingly believes that annihilation is possible—what more could you ask for an elementary school classroom? She's definitely out of her league in high school, but that's non the merely game in town.

• Episode 5. This episode really gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "food infant." Information technology's also clearly the basis for i of the more wonderful Playful Kiss YouTube episodes.

• Episode 5. According to this prove, "a girl's best friend" is a euphemism for menstruation. Frenemy would be more than appropriate, I remember. Also, you don't get a lot of jokes about period sex on television. Unbeknownst to the writers of They Kiss Again, that might be a skilful thing.

• Episode 5. A-Jin looks groovy in sleeveless shirts. I'm non so sure how I experience about them while serving food at the schoolhouse cafeteria, though. Oh, await. I am sure how I feel: grossed out. Would you similar your soup with a side of armpit pilus?

• Episode 6. I liked the afterwards Korean version of this drama well enough, only information technology's kind of amazing how many swell story lines they let go to waste. The Taiwanese original and its sequel add together up to way more hours of tv, simply they never got repetitive and dull the way Playful Buss did by the end of its 16-episode run.

• Episode 7. There'southward a party scene in this episode where a bunch of characters sit around a birthday block that mysteriously takes the class of 2 pink mounds with ruddy bows on tiptop. The question is: Were they supposed to look like like two huge breasts, or is that merely a surprise bonus?

• Episode 7. Finally, a drama with a realistic aerodrome scene. Instead of stepping out of a cab just in time to come across the person he must stop from boarding a plane meandering toward an hands accessible gate, this guy is wandering through last B like Moses through the desert. (Simply without mana.)

• Episode ix. This episode's big enema scene was...unexpected. I could do with less mocking of the female person pb and more cuteness, show. The jealousy plotline you seem to take cooking is a large improvement, but no more disgusting medical treatments played for laughs, okay?

• Episode 12. Hooray for progressive gender politics in dramas. The charter member of the male lead's fan club is another guy, and one who clearly likes him for more than simply his mind. The fact that the guy besides wants to be "crowned" as a nurse with the girls in his graduating class is just icing on the block. (Now if only he'd go himself a cute beau...)

• Episode 12. Like many Taiwanese serial, the great affair about this show is how well it handles its extended cast. Kdramas can starting time to feel claustrophobic with the same few characters filling every minute of air fourth dimension, but Taiwanese shows are total of secondary characters that seem to be living interesting lives off-screen while nosotros're watching their friends practise something else. They simply pop by to break the monotony with an occasional shotgun wedding, job crunch, or tragic breakup.

• Episode 13. At first I was kind of weirded out by the granny who's obsessed with this show's male lead. Then I thought nearly the age difference between me and Lee Hyun Woo, which put it all in perspective. Older women and younger men are totally on trend, right?

• Episode 15. I've now officially seen the all-time piggyback ride Asian drama has to offer. Somewhat unexpectedly, information technology involves a very small girl and a very large dog. Thank god Cutie Pie is okay—he's second in my heart only to Sweeper.

• Episode 15. I've quite enjoyed this show upward until now, but it'southward chop-chop turning into an annoyance. The female pb is yet the same idiot she was in episode 1—instead of growing and changing, she's stuck in a oestrus of doing stupid things for the sake of her human relationship with Zhi Shu. And he still barely tolerates her (although at that place are some rare moments of beautiful couple action). Unlike almost Asian dramas, They Kiss Again doesn't really accept an overarching, novelistic plot. The leads are already together, so it's all just wheel spinning to fill screen time. Information technology may still recover, but as of now I wish the second season had been about ten episodes long.

• Episode 15. Was Zhi Shu attacked with a weed whacker on his way to the island? That's the only possible excuse for his jagged rats-nest of a hairdo in this episode.

• Episode 15. After 35 episodes, they changed out the actor who played the younger brother without a word, which is Lynchian in its surreality. I was like...who's that stranger at the dinner table? I don't care if the series had a time jump—the original histrion should have remained in the role until the end of the show :b

• Episode 20. You know, I'm not crazy almost Dramafever'due south Google TV app. It almost never tracks the episodes I've watched, and I merely accidentally skipped from episode 15 to twenty without realizing it because the numbers are these tiny little buttons, rather than being front end and center like they are on the website. On the bright side, this drama has a neat, 4-hankie finale. That Joe Cheng isn't the all-time looking drama hero, but he can convey emotional and concrete longing like nobody else. Then the question is: exercise I backtrack to episode sixteen after watching this, or motion on? [Finale notation: I retrieve fate stepped in. It's time to get out this one behind.]

Y'all might besides like
The other dramas based on They Osculation Again's source cloth—Korea'due south Playful Kiss and Japan's Playful Kiss—Beloved in Tokyo

In Time with You, which sees this testify'southward pb actress playing a capable grownup who gets shit washed

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Source: http://outsideseoul.blogspot.com/2013/09/drama-review-they-kiss-again-2007.html