Summary
Miss Night and Day gets off to a very likeable start in its first two episodes, with a great cast and a novel premise.
With Episodes 1 and 2, Miss Night and Day establishes itself as the kind of K-Drama that people catch by chance and fall in love with; the gateway drug of Korean television, so to speak. It’s light and charming and funny, with a bit of depth beneath the surface, but it’s happy to let a talented cast and intriguing premise do all the heavy lifting.
Netflix know what they’re doing here. It’s going to be big. Sometimes you can just tell.
Meet Mi-jin
Episode 1 of Miss Night and Day is an extended introduction to Mi-jin, a job-seeker in her 20s who, quite by chance, suddenly starts transforming into a middle-aged woman during the day. The circumstances involve a fortune teller and a cat, for what it’s worth, but the logistics aren’t really the point.
In her 20s, Mi-jin is realizing that, in the eyes of many, she’s old. She has been trying to pass the civil service exam for years, but fears being overlooked for a younger applicant. She’s in that awkward space where she doesn’t look old enough to be taken seriously but doesn’t quite qualify as youthful.
After a woman with the same name gets the job in her place, Mi-jin’s life unravels. She loses her money to a dodgy fortune teller, can’t bring herself to let down her proud parents, and burns her books in protest. After getting drunk, she and the cat end up down a well. When she wakes up, she’s a different person.
Miss Night and Day
When I say different person, I mostly mean it. She’s in her 50s, which takes some getting used to (there are lots of funny moments of her ruining her parents’ home life and frightening passers-by). But once Mi-jin realizes that she returns to her usual twenty-something self at night, she realizes she can exploit this new quirk in her life to secure an internship. After all, who wouldn’t employ an experienced middle-aged woman with all the skills and enthusiasm of a fit woman in her twenties?
Naturally, though, the transformation process will inevitably complicate things with Ji-woong, the prosecutor whose story keeps intersecting with Mi-jin’s.
First Day At Work
In Episode 2 of Miss Night and Day, Mi-jin starts working in the senior citizen branch of the prosecution services alongside other older employees, including a retired detective and former soldier. She begins to like Ji-woong instantly, as is the K-Drama way of things.
This episode gives us a little more background on Mi-jin. We learn that she has named her older persona after her missing aunt, Im Sun. We also meet her best friend Ga-yeong and her father. This ends up being important since Ji-woong, newly transferred to the area, rents an apartment from Ga-yeong’s father which ends up being right under Ga-yeong’s own.
It’s easy to see how this may lead to some mishaps.
Genre-Bending
While a good chunk of Miss Night and Day is a comedic romance, another part of it slants more toward a crime thriller. Ji-woong’s dogged investigation lends an air of danger to the story which is welcome, and will likely become the focal point in the long run.
These threads also intersect now and again, with the two characters trying to romantically bond – in Mi-jin’s younger form – without the rigors of crime-solving getting in the way. Of course, it doesn’t go especially smoothly.
A late axe-murderer sequence typifies this genre-bending style, intensifying the drama just in time for it to conclude on a cliffhanger that implies Mi-jin is about to be hit by the speeding car of a suspect. Yikes.
Even at this early stage, it’s obvious that there’s a tremendous amount of appeal to Miss Night and Day. It’ll be interesting to see how the show develops over the coming weeks as Mi-jin grapples with her new double life – provided she makes it out of this predicament unscathed.
Oh, and where’s the cat?
RELATED:
