Kiss Sixth Sense (2022– )
8/10
Starts really good, lulls and then departs from what made it compelling
13 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
8/10 is my rating. Is a 2022 South Korean Supernatural Romantic Comedy with 12, 60-75 minute episodes.

First I will provided a synopsis the review.

Synopsis

Hong Ye-sool (Seo Ji-hye) is a hard working unit lead in an advertising agency. She works so hard she gets nose bleeds and is accident prone but still her boss, Cha Min-hoo (Yoon Kye-sang) nit picks every project she works on. Others think he shows favoritism to her and gives her the best opportunities. Their situation is very confusing to Ye-sool who just wants to get ahead in her career in a very competitive industry. Her personal life is a mess as she has a sixth sense that allows her to see the future when her lips touch another person. Specifically, she can see the future surrounding herself and that person but not when the event will happen. When she accidentally kisses her boss, she is beyond confused when she sees a future where they are together romantically. With the way he treats her on a daily basis, that vision does not make any sense to Ye-sool. While she is reeling from confusion her ex-boyfriend, famous director Lee Pil-yo (Kim Ji-seok) shows up hoping for a second chance with the woman he still has feelings for. But she has seen her future with him and it was the reason she broke up in the first place. All of this leads her to wonder is she seeing the future that will inevitably happen or are the action she takes as a result of her visions the cause of that future?

Review I really liked the premise of this. Kissing someone or having your lips touch someone and seeing the future - that pulled me in. And he has some kind of super sensory super-power? I though wow! What's that all about. And the first episodes where he was the overly mean boss, she had ended relationships based on things she was in the future, and they are in this high powered add agency, all of that was very interesting. And it was clear they would get together but, in those earliest episodes, it was hard to imagine how. He was over the top mean to her at times. It reminded me of that old idiom about the boy who picks on the girl liking her. I don't subscribe to that because anyone that acts like that to me is too immature to be worth anyone's time. I really liked her ex-boyfriend, Pil-yo, and could not understand why she seemed to be leaning toward her mean, demanding boss. Slice of life is always interesting to me and getting some insight into what it is like to be a lead on a big add project was something I had not seen before. So there were a lot of things to pull me in and reasons to recommend others watch it. The male lead could be very attractive at times and, when he was being nice it made him more attractive, I thought. But, of the two I thought Pil-yo was more attractive and it was likely due to the fact he seemed to be consistently nice.

Spoilers*

Early in the series, Ye-sool was this kind, competent woman who was friendly and liked by her co-workers it seemed. The set mishaps and all the accidents between the two leads that triggered her visions and his super sensory were interesting. The way he completely avoided her was amusing. When we got the back-story of her break-up I thought, even though, but how does she know she can't change that future? I also thought perhaps it wasn't what she thought it was. Maybe he is just around a woman with a child but it's not his. When it came out later that was indeed the case and that he had waited three years to prove to her that things weren't what she thought they were, it was heart breaking. I had serious second lead syndrome. But usually there is something that makes you think her choice was the better one, at least for her. But in this case, I never saw anything about him or their relationship that indicated she made the better choice. He was consistently sweet and awesome to her. I liked and could tell there was something developing between him and the actress. They had that playful flirty energy going on. And I actually found that story more heart-warming than the main story. I also liked her cousin and the doctor and found their relationship very believable and cute. I found myself wanting to know more about those side romances than the main romance. I liked their secret romance at work and all the signals they came up with that used his special abilities. That was cute and funny. But then they really drove her whole vision of Ye-sool and Min-hoo having a steamy sexual encounter into the dirt. It made no sense to me that, after all the build-up, they had already been together before that happened. Then, the fact they went to so much effort to create all the circumstances surrounding it, to effectively make her vision come true was weird. It became like a fetish between them. And added nothing to the story at that point.

I agree with others that said the whole killer angel was put in awkwardly. There were so many ways they could have had a tragic accident in the past that would have given them abilities that some super stalker just seemed unnecessary. If they had kept that as an element the whole time, all these creepy encounters or something it would have been different, but it felt like they basically threw elements of it in at random junctures. Logic did not follow that this man would have killed her husband and she would choose to hide the details from her daughter. She knew he was not only obsessed with her but also delusional in thinking Ye-sool was his daughter. So the fact that he was able to stay so close to Ye-sool as a friend/confidant did not make sense. There was also the instance where they moved into a new house and Ye-sool was lost and that is how she met Min-hoo and most would assume they made this sudden move to get away from the stalker but that was never stated. And they spent very little time showing him actually stalking them before he is just suddenly in the house and murders the dad. So then they go to the USA but there is nothing about how that was significant or why and when Ye-sool came back. Lots of disjointed elements around the whole stalker story.

There were also character inconsistencies. Ye-sool goes from this somewhat demure, kind person that gets along with everyone to some unreasonable harpy after they start dating. She picks fights with him and seems to enjoy serial break-ups. They were so sweet together when they were younger that relationship built on constant conflict did not make any sense. They both were so careful about how they presented themselves in the office that their very public fights and shows of affection made no sense. It was funny on one hand but very disturbing on the other. It would be completely inappropriate behavior for any workplace and their big boss seemed to have very strict standards for professional behavior. I felt embarrassed for them and uncomfortable for their co-workers. She also became this hyper critical, mean-spirited lead and that did not make sense with her earlier character. She hated when Min-hoo was that way with her so for her to "grow up" as a leader and act like that made all the build-up earlier non-sensical. The fact they are both so hard to work with they can hardly find a director, you wouldn't last long in their profession if that was the case.

It was the first time I felt like rooting for a couple to split. Their constant fighting, breaking up and getting back together made for such a toxic relationship I felt like just quit it already. It was funny but cringy because anyone that acts like that should not be with the other person. On the plus side it did help me get over the second lead syndrome because I felt happy for him he escaped the completely toxic harpy. I did not feel she was fair to him anyway, if she loved Pil-yo as she indicated earlier, you would not have let something like that break you up. You would have tried to change that future or at least talked to him about it. They also did not give us much build up with them as a couple. We only saw a few snippets of them together happy then some crazy break-up.

My daughter read the web toon and said they deviated quite a bit from that. It isn't always bad they do that but, in this case, the deviations made less sense and made the story less engaging. In the webtoon she was always nice she said. It was a traffic accident that brought them together. Just a lot of things she said that made the story less grating. So, I think it would be worth reading the webtoon for comparison.

I recommend this just not as a top recommendation. It is interesting and has its high points but don't expect the romance to be heart-warming. Like seriously, at minimum they need a couple's counselor.

#KissSixthSense #SeoJiHye #YoonKyeSang #KimJiSeok.
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