Seven First Kisses (2016)
첫키스만 일곱번째
Starring: Lee Cho Hee, Choi Ji Woo, Lee Joon Gi, Park Hae Jin, Ji Chang Wook, Kim Jong In (Kai), Ok Taec Yeon, Lee Jong Suk, Lee Min Ho
Seen: January 2020
I remember I picked this drama quite spontaniously because I recognized almost every single actor in the show. I also appreciated that the episodes are only 10-15 minutes long, since I quickly had to get used to hour-hour and a half long episodes when I stared watching Korean dramas. This was a sweet little and simple drama I watched after Christmas, I remember. Overall precisely a fangirl's everyday daydreaming!
This review is more or less only a traditional review, where I go through the episodes. Since they're so short, there's not a lot to analyze, like I usually do. 100% spoiler of what happens.
Story summary:
Min Soo-jin works at Lotte Duty Free and is longing for a boyfriend. On her 25th birthday, she meets the goddess of dating who grants her a wish and attempt to pick the perfect partner among seven men for her first kiss. Her options are a religious tech billionaire (Lee Joongi), a serious yet romantic boss (Park Haejin), a sexy secret agent (Ji Changwook), an adorable younger male friend (Kai from EXO), an innocent chaebol heir (Ok Taecyeon), a beloved K-pop idol (Lee Jongsuk) and, lastly, a free-spirited travel writer (Lee Minho). Who will it be?
First impression:
This drama is a short, sweet and very relatable show. I wonder if it was made as a joke or a tribute to all fangirls who constantly dream about their favorite actors/singers while bored at work.
Every guy that comes along in this drama is a famous actor, and Soojin knows them as such, but her colleagues keep correcting her about this. The actors' characters share their real names, but not their personaltites. Both understandable and confusing.
Ep 1 (The present)
The first episode showed Soojin's honest and sincere side, when she chased after the customer who lost her passport. What a lucky thing that the lady turned out to be some kind of godess who grants wishes. To wish for ones first kiss on ones 25th birthday I'd say is completely alright, and who wouldn't want it to be with a handsome, respectable gentleman (if you're interested in men, that is)?
Ep 2 (Lee Joongi)
The first guy who comes along in Soojin's dream is Lee Joongi (read my reviews of his dramas here and here). He plays himself, namewise, but has the role of a religious tech billionaire. He comes in during the end of episode one, by stutting up to the information desk where Soojin works and tells her up front that he'll be waiting for her outside when she gets off work. Soojin is very confused by this, considering she doesn't know his, just knows about him, and he realistically doesn't know her either. Nonetheless, she ends up meeting up with him in the beginning of episode 2. She quiet frankly confused to the point of uneasy, but still intrigued by Joongi asking her to dinner. I thought right away that she's reacting way too logically. Had this been me, I wouldn't have asked how he knew me or tried to slither away with a "I think you must be mistaking me for someone else". No, if Lee Joongi suddenly appeared like an angel from heaven, I'd play along. Of course you can hold my hand! Of course we're going for dinner! Why wouldn't we? 가자! Let's go! But at the same time I understand her shock, of course. It's too dreamy to be real. Her reaction is completely logic, for every guy that comes along.
Ep 3 (Park Haejin)
Park Haejin is the only one of the actors I didn't know at the time I watched this, and honestly still don't. I've seen his picture, but not any of his dramas. I therefor can't comment much on his character, but I can of course comment on the episode regardless!
Park Haejin plays the boss at the Lotte store where Soojin works and enters the beginning of episode three by grabbing her phone from her, scolding her about using it while at work. He proceeds with taking it from her and telling her to pick it up at his office when she's finished her shift. At the office he "smoothly" asks her about her plans for the evening, if she has a boyfriend to hangout with. I loved the sound effect when he heard her say no, the little ding, as if ding ding you're clear to take a shot.
In the office, after a quick meal and company while he continues working, she finds strange stalker photos of her in a file on his desk. Startled, she runs. Park Haejin ends up saving her from a creepy photographer who starts taking his clothes of when he wants to take her picture! very uncomfortable! Park Haejin's episode ends with him asking her to be his girlfriend! Of course, she ends up right where she begun the second he leans in for a smooch.
Ep 4 (Ji Changwook)
Ji Changwook's entrance in the end of episode 3's 13 minutes is different from the two previous guys. Ji Changwook, in all his action heroism, entres the show by running from some hitmen in the Lotte Duty Free parking garage. Episode 4 continues with Soojin being given a USB-drive and a note. As she's on her way home, drive in purse, she gets pulled into an alleyway by Changwook. It turns out, however, that he is a secret agent for the bad guys, who meet them right outside the alley with a gun to Ji Changwook's head. In this episode, Soojin plays the unknown part of retired agent - which is how she's supposed to know Changwook. A really badass, girlpower scene follows, where Soojin and Changwook fight off the hitmen together.
The episode ends with Changwook and Soojin at a safe house. Changwook turns out to be injured, naturally, and Soojin demands to mend his wounds for him. The last thing before she's flashed back to "reality" is him confessing his true reason for firing her as an agent; his feelings for her (shocker).
Ep 5 (Kai from EXO)
I personally found Kai's episode the cutest, not because of Kai but because of what his character does with Soojin. They really just have fun, and I appreciate the simplicity in that. There's no extreme storyline and extra extra, like with Ji Changwook (even if I completely understand why his epiosde had to be one with action).
The episode begins with Soojin suddenly being able to speak Mandarin, which she realized when her manager assignes her to interpret a VIP couple while shopping. Back at her desk, Kai's been calling her phone. She gets surprised by him waiting on her on the street outside the Lotte Duty Free store, as she doesn't know who she's expecting to meet. Kai is Soojin's student, who has a huge crush on her. They spend the day looking at fun stuff in stores, trying out sunglasses and taking pictures, before they end up caught in the rain. Of course Kai, being the love-smitten gentleman he is, holds his jacket up above their heads as they run. At a burger restaurant, she figures out how she suddenly speaks Mandarin - she's Kai's Mandarin teacher!
Kai's episode to shine ends with them dancing at an outdoors presentation with other dancers and him giving her a matching ring - a couple's ring. This is the episode I think Soojin, as a character, enjoys the most because she thinks throughout the entire time with Kai that she hopes to see him again, that she's having a fun time with him and she tries to avoid his kiss so that the moment won't end.
Ep 6 (Ok Taecyeon)
Ok Taecyeon is already Soojin's boyfriend when the episode starts, as her co-workers insist on her getting off work early to hangout with him. Even they appreciate his good looks and thick wallet. They go shopping together, or more he shops for her. He gifts her the perfume she'd planned on getting with her Christmas bonus, the necklace she wanted to buy with her savings and a luxurious bag she never thought she would be able to afford. As they make their way out from the last store, they bump into Taecyeon's fiancée (arranged marriage). Soojin ends up square in the middle of their drama, getting a glass of water thrown in her face! His fiancée really doesn't appreciate him having a girlfriend that isn't her. That's not the end though, when Ok Taecyeon's supposed mother shows up and starts insulting her. She reveals Soojin's apparently taken a bribe from her to stop seeing her son, but obviously not followed through. Taecyeon announces that he plans to marry Soojin instead. At that, the mother raises her hand to throw kelp at her, but with Taecyeon's protection, the kelp ends up in his fiancée's hair.
This is clearly the scenario Soojin dislikes the most, exclaiming how she hates the cliché soap opera plots with all the family drama and stuck-up divas. She tries to end it early by kissing Taecyeon, but he's having none of it. Towards the end of her time with Ok Taecyeon, the young chaebol calls a press conference to announce that he relinquishes his inheritance of his family's company to be able to be with Soojin instead.
Ep 7 (Lee Jongsuk)
Lee Jongsuk is the only one of the actor's who is actually an actor in the drama. At the end of episode 6, Soojin gets dragged to the main hall of shops in the mall to film a commercial for Lotte Duty Free - with Lee Jongsuk.
The commercial is a bit of work, since Soojin is super nervous to be firstly on camera and secondly in the presence of Jongsuk. I can understand that anxiety, having to act, when you don't know how to and never have before, with an experienced actor whom you admire. Yikes. Technically speaking though, I find this scenario most likely - meeting an actor in an actor environment. He is the one who acts himself the most!
They get to know each other a little better, so Soojin can feel more comfortable going throught the scenes with Jongsuk. After the final frame, a kissing scene (naturally), she's transported back to reality once again. Lee Jongsuk is the last guy the godess grants her, which of course makes Soojin a bit worried after her dream with him ends since he never got to actually kiss her. But of course, faith's got other plans and in comes Lee Minho.
Back in reality, Soojin meets the godess again. She reasures her that her wish hasn't been fullfilled yet and that Soojin gets to choose one of the guys to whom the godess will send her back to. There, she'll get to continue where she left off with them and thus have her first kiss with the celebrity she picks. How could she ever choose just one of them, though??
Ep 8 (Lee Minho)
The beginning of the final episode is quite awkward, since Soojin's tried to get used to the other guys already knowing her and seeing her as a love interest. When that turns out not to be the case with Lee Minho, the situation turns uncomfortable real fast. Mostly for Lee Minho, actually. When Minho approaches the information desk where she's working, her co-workers start squealing. They compliment him on his travelbook and Soojin once again realized that her reality is being altered by a celebrity she knows as someone else. She draw the conclusion that he must be there for her, to ask her on a trip or something. She's greatly embarrassed when that turns out not to be the case. He just wanted some information about the Lotte service.
The episode is the shortest of all eight. Right at the four minute mark, half way through, Soojin's walking out from the building with Lee Minho's book open and already finished. She closes it and hears someone calling her attention. Lee Minho, of course. She apologizes for her foolishness when she first saw him and tells him she liked his book. After a few moments talk about a specific quote, she asks him why he called her and he gives her another card. When she turns it over, his picture shows up. She got another option, one considered "reality".
Cultural imput:
This part will be more of a reflection section this time, rather than a cultural interpretation.
I think that the message with this short drama is not to rush with love. You'll meet someone, eventually. It doesn't matter if you're 25 years old and haven't kissed anyone. You're not the only one. Someone will come along, and while you might enjoy daydreaming about a certain (unreachable) celebrity, the best dream to come will ultimately come from your actual reality. Don't stress. Your prince(ss) will come.
Quite funny, though, how a drama with such a title doesn't have a single kiss in it!
Hmmm if I was Soojin, who would I pick? Episode theme-wise, it'd be Kai. Out of which celebrity I personally like the most, it'd be Kim Soohyun. Card nine~That's cheating though, so I think I'd pick Ji Changwook in that case. Who would you pick?? If you had a card nine to choose whoever you wanted, who would be on that card?
Hope you enjoyed the review! It wasn't the one I was originally planning on writing, but it's the one I ended up finishing! A few new ones are in the making, but I'm not actively working on any at the moment. Have to take the opportunity to enjoy summer, too~ Fear not! There will be more reviews~
Have a lovely summer!
안녕~
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