Dynamite Kiss
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SBS (Late 2025) 14 Episodes
Romantic Comedy, Streaming On Netflix
For Mature Audiences, Grade: A
Korean Drama Review by Jill, USA
(No End Spoilers)
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An addictive Korean romantic comedy drama that is a bit more steamy at times than others out there, Dynamite Kiss (Nov, Dec. 2025) benefits most from the intense, keen screen chemistry between our two lead actors, outstanding actress Ahn Eun Jin (My Dearest, Goodbye Earth, The Good Bad Mother, Hospital Playlist) and handsome actor Jang Ki Yong (My Mister, Now We Are Breaking Up, Search: WWW, Beautiful Mind). Yet the series is not just about love and sexual attraction but also about workplace stresses and employees' ambitions to succeed against all odds.
I must admit that this is the first Korean drama I've watched featuring actor Jang Ki Yong where I actually warmed to his character! Other characters he's played in the past just didn't endear me to him but here he excelled at creating a multi-faceted, sympathetic character who didn't believe in True Love at first but who then discovered how wrong he had been, that it did indeed exist, and he found it with the most unlikely of women, someone he had met by accident while trying to improve the financial picture of his family's company. As for lovely actress Ahn Eun Jin she succeeded beautifully in portraying a girl who is energetic and witty, but also full of vulnerability. I probably will always love her best in the masterpiece My Dearest, with actor Nam Goong Min, but this drama allowed her to play a more modern girl who experiences deep emotions while dealing with a difficult family situation as well as problems finding .. and keeping ... decent employment.
Our second lead couple were also captivating in their own ways: warm and wonderful actor Kim Mu Jun (My Dearest, Nevertheless) who played a young single Dad very lovingly, and perky, adorable actress Woo Da Vi (Dear M, Maestra, Melancholia, At A Distance Spring Is Green) whose character fell in love with him immediately despite many obstacles.
Screenplay writers were Ha Yoon A and Tae Kyeong Min, and the director was Kim Jae Hyun. They were accomplished in creating an addictive romantic story overall, although there were a few things I felt needed some improvement, for instance there should have been some cutting back on the abundance of typical K-drama tropes like couples falling accidentally into each others' arms, plus one that I call the "fix the boo boo" scene, where one person gets injured and the other person has to bandage them up. It seemed that in every episode the writers used these two cliches way too often to help bring the main couple together romantically. Korean drama writers need to create some new, innovative, less formulaic plot situations to introduce the main characters to one another more naturally, and to draw them closer together over time less awkwardly. How about actually asking real life romantic couples how they met and fell in love and then incorporate those more realistic situations into their screenplays? That would be fresh and new! I should also add that the amnesia trope popped up as well toward the end of the drama; please writers, enough of that one, too!
The Story:
Young single college graduate Go Da Rim (Ahn Eun Jin) has struggled for quite some time to find a decent, well paying job, especially since she has had troubles passing the civil service exam. She has to keep struggling in low paying retail types of jobs, hoping that her luck will change eventually so that she can attain a more prestigious corporate job with a more lucrative salary.
Meanwhile, her own sister Go Da Jeong (Kim Soo A) is embarrassed about her sister's lack of success in employment and she even tells her own well-to-do fiance a lie, that her sister is away in America employed in a plush job. Da Jeong doesn't even want Da Rim to be at her wedding! She offers her sister a free trip to Jeju Island (Korea's Hawaii) instead so that she isn't around to attend the wedding! (What a sister!). Their mother, Jung Myeong Soon (Cha Mi Kyung, Fanletter Please), is not thrilled about the whole situation but feels helpless to object. Da Rim hides her hurt feelings and agrees to go off to Jeju Island, hoping at least to have a nice free vacation while visiting the island paradise for the first time ... and enjoying their mandarins!
At the same time that Da Rim leaves for Jeju Island a young executive named Gong Ji Hyeok (Jang Ki Yong), who works for his family's children-oriented corporation, called Natural BeBe, is visiting Jeju Island as well, interested in attending a large formal gathering at a luxury hotel where other executives in the same industry are staying for a big social event. At one point during his visit he stands near a cliff admiring the watery scene below when Da Rim happens to see him and thinks he is about to commit suicide! She runs to grab him and they fall on the ground together, both in shock. Despite the awkward "meeting" there is obviously an instant attraction. They begin to converse, to get to know one another as a tourist couple.
He confides in Ga Rim that he hopes to scout a new investor for his company while he's on the island, a man named Kim Jeong Gwon (Park Yong Woo) who is attending with his fiance named Sang Hee (Jang Se Rim). Crazily enough, Kim Jeong Gwon and Sang Hee had both gone to school years before with Da Rim, and Jeong Gwon had even dated Da Rim before he hooked up with Sang Hee. When this couple both run into Da Rim and Ji Hyeok the situation becomes extremely awkward. Da Rim had been dumped by Jeong Gwon in the past because he felt she would never be successful in life.
Fatefully, Ji Hyeok manages to get Da Rim to agree to pretend to be his date at the formal executive gathering at the hotel, hinting that she can prove to her old boyfriend that she is desired by another man if she does so. He also hopes their pretend love relationship might intrigue Da Rim's old boyfriend enough to invest in his company. A bit reluctantly Da Rim agrees but then at the hotel event real sparks fly between her and Ji Hyeok and they end up kissing passionately, in full view of everyone during a public fireworks display. Since Ji Hyeok did not believe in True Love he is quite shaken by this turn of events in his feelings toward a woman, and he decides he likes her enough to pass on the opportunity to accept the old boyfriend as an investor.
For the next few days the two of them spend enjoyable time together enjoying the sites of beautiful Jeju Island and it even looks like they might become intimate at one point, but then suddenly Da Rim gets a call from her sister that their mother has been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. Da Rim takes off for the airport, not even informing Ji Hyeok why she was abruptly leaving him. He runs around trying to find her but to no avail. She is gone.
Ji Hyeok is heartbroken, but once back home he tries to hide his feelings, even from his sympathetic best friend and right hand man at work named Kang Gyeong Min (Shin Joo Hyup, Castaway Diva, nice performance). He decides to refocus on work at the company, especially since his CEO Dad Gong Chang Ho (Choi Kwang Il) is about to retire. He decides to start up a new publicity group, a Mothers' Task Force, called The Natural BeBe Mother TF Team, only hiring young married women with children. He hopes their input can improve future baby and toddler products that the company wishes to produce for the children of the nation. His first three hires are Bae Nan Sook (Park Ji A), Jang Jin Hee (Jung Soo Young) and Lee Go Eun (Park Jeong Yeon), all nice women thrilled to be accepted into the company despite their lack of corporate experience. Ji Hyeok wants to hire a fourth appropriate employee for the Task Force but at first a candidate seems elusive. He gives over the job to find the right person to his right hand man Gyeong Min.
Meanwhile, Da Rim is now even more desperate to earn a good salary in a good job so that she can pay her Mom's expensive hospital bills as she recovers from her heart attack. She sees the job ad in the paper for the Natural BeBe company and decides she has no choice but to apply, even though she is not married and is not a mother! She reasons to herself that since her Mom has been a surrogate mother for years to a young man who is like a brother to her, a divorced single Dad named Kim Seon U (Kim Mu Jun), and like a surrogate Mom herself to his little son named Kim Jun (Chae Ja Woon), that she is almost like a married woman with a child anyway.
Her lies aren't picked up by the company (definitely a weak plot point in this story!) and she is hired at Natural BeBe for the new task force. She is thrilled. She swears friend Seon U to secrecy and in future he even covers for her lies, which becomes problematic when a new attractive woman enters his life who seems to fall for him, named Yu Ha Yeong (Woo Da Vi). What happens when she finds out he is supposedly married? And will Seon U ever have the courage to admit to Da Rim that he actually IS in love with her and has been since their childhoods?
Ultimately, of course, boss Ji Hyeok discovers who the fourth female task force hire is ... and he is furious that she deceived him on Jeju Island, that she didn't tell him she was a married woman with a child! He considers firing her but she soon proves herself the most valuable team member, suggesting the best improvements for the new child products the company wants to produce, so he reluctantly lets her stay on.
But eventually we all know that Da Rim's bubble will end up bursting -- but will Ji Hyeok ever be able to forgive her? Even more incredibly, his own Mother, Kim In Ae (Nam Gi Ae, Moon River), who has suffered from severe depression for years, ends up making friends with Da Rim's Mom while both are in the hospital at the same time. Will that friendship of their two mothers end up smoothing over or even resolving Da Rim's and Ji Hyeok's frenzied relationship? How can there ever be trust in a relationship when there have been so many lies?
Dynamite Kiss has many advantages for a Korean drama, such as realistic portrayals of complicated romantic and family relationships, plus excellent workplace scenes depicted with strong empathy shown between the members of the female task force who all wished to succeed at their creative jobs. The actors all give vibrant performances. The only real weaknesses are the overuse of certain K-drama cliches that I mentioned earlier, plus I think that the drama could have resolved the two sisters' strained relationship in a much more satisfying way. Also, honestly, I was more than a little ticked off that actor Nam Goong Min, actress Ahn Eun Jin's screen partner in the historical K-drama My Dearest, had a short cameo appearance in Dynamite Kiss, in episode nine, but no scenes with our leading lady! HURUMPH! How I would have LOVED to have seen them together in a scene, since I still have such warm, cherished memories of watching the unforgettable My Dearest.
The main reason to watch Dynamite Kiss is the very strong fascinating screen chemistry between the two leads. It certainly kept me addicted to the story. Try it out on Netflix and see if you like it. Enjoy.
