-May contain major spoilers-
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| Photo source: JTBC. |
Miss Night and Day (낮과 밤이 다른 그녀 literally: She's Different from Night to Day) is a 16-episode JTBC fantasy rom-com and mystery Kdrama starring Jung Eun-Ji (Apink), Lee Jung-Eun and Choi Jin-Hyuk.
Summary
Lee Mi-Jin (Jung Eun-Ji) is a bubbly young woman in her late 20s living in Seohan who has spent years studying and trying to pass the civil service entrance exam. After trying so hard for years, she passes the exam only to discover that she is deemed too old by the job recruiters (who instead hire a younger woman with the same name as her).
When she is ready to throw in the towel, Mi-Jin remembers that after the exam, a strange man gave her a business card, promising he would help her get hired in exchange for money. Mi-Jin meets the man at a café with everything he had requested (including cash and her bankbook). Gye Ji-Woong (Choi Jin-Hyuk), a prosecutor from Seoul (who had accidentally bumped Mi-Jin in the head at the café entrance), notices that the man is a scammer and interferes with the "transaction." When confronted, the scammer runs away with Mi-Jin's things and the prosecutor chases him, with Mi-Jin trailing a bit behind.
Ji-Woong catches the scammer and has him arrested. He lends Mi-Jin a pair of shoes (as she used hers to hit the scammer) and offers to drive her to the police station. When they arrive, Mi-Jin finds out that she can't get the money back because it has already been transferred to a burner account. Mi-Jin is distraught because she had secretly taken that money from her parents, Lim Cheong (Jung Young-Ju) and Lee Hak-Chan (Jung Seok-Yong), expecting to pay it back soon. On top of all her problems, another one gets added because she gave the scammer her bankbook; she could turn into a perpetrator herself if it gets used to scam another person -what a streak of bad luck!-.
The prosecutor notices that Mi-Jin accidentally took a super important case file instead of her résumé. He tries to call her, but she mistakes him for another scammer (a "prosecutor" on the phone attempted to scam her after she left the police station) and hangs up on him, but not before calling him names.
On her way home, Mi-Jin meets a mysterious orange cat and feeds it some milk. That night, Mi-Jin burns her study books and "her" résumé while drinking like a sponge. A super drunk Mi-Jin jumps inside a well, trying to save the mysterious cat she had met earlier -it reminds me a bit of Alice.-
Mi-Jin wakes up in the morning looking like a woman 20+ years older (Lee Jung-Eun) and gets chased out of her home after her parents think she is an intruder. Mi-Jin gets arrested but runs away from the police station. After hiding for a while inside a restaurant, she discovers that when the sun sets, she returns to her old ...I mean normal, maybe young? self (she is like a reverse Fiona from Shrek, but instead of an ogre, she turns into a "granny" like Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle -Sophie was way older, though-).
Although at first saddened by her situation, she decides to make the best of her situation by trying to get a job at Seohan's City Hall senior internship program under the borrowed name "Lim Sun." Unlike her previous job interview, this time, Mi-Jin is the youngest applicant and gets the highest score out of all the other would-be senior interns which lands her a cleaning gig at Seohan's prosecutor's office.
At Seohan's prosecutor's office, Mi-Jin meets again with Ji-Woong, who transferred from Seoul alongside Joo Byeong-Duk (Yoon Byung-Hee), an investigator, to work on a 20-year-old case closely connected to the prosecutor.
Fate will continually intertwine Lee Mi-Jin's life with Gye Ji-Woong, both as her younger self and as the old Lim Sun...
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Thoughts
The premise of Miss Night and Day is excellent, but the execution leaves some things to be desired. There is only one case during the 16 episodes of this Kdrama (or two if you count [SPOILER] the dr*gs case), but as they are so entangled in each other, they don't really count as separate, no? [SPOILER ENDS] It would have been a lot better if they worked on other smaller cases in the meantime because, in some episodes, the story felt as if nothing happened ﹘ like the plot wasn't moving forward at all, but it didn't feel super stale, I found the plot entertaining. I never felt the "need" to drop this Kdrama.
The cinematography is beautiful. Some scenes truly remind me of Howl's Moving Castle, like the scene -which I loved- in the first episode where Mi-Jin walks through that small grassy hill dressed up as a Joseon court lady and the scene where Mi-Jin wakes up for the first time as an old lady and covers her head with her duvet. Another scene I loved a lot is in the penultimate episode, [SPOILER] where Ji-Woong is reflected on the water at dusk as he runs towards a fainting Mi-Jin who turns into Lim Sun (it lowkey reminds me of the first ending of Sailor Moon [Heart Moving]) [SPOILER ENDS]
The CGI of the magical orange cat looks almost as if it was an asset from a video game, but I forgive it as it is a magical cat -maybe that's just how magical cats look, who knows- It was a very cute cat, though, especially when they use a real one in some scenes.
I LOVE the intro of this Kdrama a lot; it's one of the best I have seen. I love, love, love the Sailor Moon references in it
The acting is good. Jung Eun-Ji and Lee Jung-Eun do a great job as Mi-Jin/Lim Sun, but in some parts, they feel as if they are two different characters and not the same person because (sometimes) Mi-Jin is super mopey in comparison to Lim Sum. My understanding of Mi-Jin's transformation to an old lady is that [SPOILER] her older version "appeared" to help her understand that being old or older is not necessarily a bad thing and the only way to stop transforming into an old lady was to accept herself as she is and get a real motivation (her old version says goodbye when Mi-Jin decides where she wants to work at, what SHE wants to do) [SPOILER ENDS]
I first saw Choi Jin-Hyuk in the 2014 Kdrama Pride and Prejudice ( which I didn't like very much, but you can guess why I watched it, lol), and I have loved his voice and acting since then (he also plays a prosecutor in there, lol). I liked Gye Ji-Woong's character development, he went from a workaholic who only cared about work and nothing else to someone who cares a lot for Mi-Jin and her family ﹘ he even ends up growing fond of Lim Sun.
I liked Mi-Jin's best friend, Do Ga-Young (Kim Ah-Young). In some Kdramas I find the best friends of the leads to be a bit annoying, but in this case, I truly enjoyed her character. The friendship between Mi-Jin/Lim Sun and Ga-Young felt quite real. Kim Ah-Young has a great chemistry with both Jung Eun-Ji and Lee Jung-Eun.
Mi-Jin's parents, Lim Cheong and Lee Hak-Chan (Jung Young-Ju and Jung Seok-Yeon), are lovely and very supportive of their daughter. I think that Lim Cheong's grief [SPOILER] after the discovery of the body of her sister Lim Sun [SPOILER ENDS] felt realistic and was one of the best scenes in Miss Night and Day.
Baek Seo-Hoo portrays Ko-Won, an idol who is doing his military service as a civil servant at Seohan's Prosecutor's office. He is credited everywhere as a main character, but I found his role to be unnecessary in the second half of this Kdrama [SPOILER] I understand that his "job" as a way of saying is to make Gye Ji-Woong jealous so he contemplates his feelings for Mi-Jin, but think it would have been a lot better if instead of getting a crush on Mi-Jin he became her friend and confident alongside Ga-Young (I felt that it was a waste that they never met) [SPOILER ENDS]
The romance is a bit of a letdown as Mi-Jin and Ji-Woong start dating in episode [SPOILER] 12/13 [SPOILER ENDS], but there aren't many romantic scenes. I still found them to be very cute together, though.
The OST is very enjoyable. The intro song "She's Back" by The Vane is quite catchy; I liked it a lot. I love lullaby-like songs, so "My Little Dream" by Sarah Kang is my favorite song in the OST; it's such a lovely song. My other favorite song (aside from the two I just named) is "Stay" by Jung Eun-Ji herself. "Stay" is a lovely ballad and Eun-Ji's voice sounds beautiful (like always). I also loved the instrumental tracks used to musicalize the scenes of this Kdrama.
I recommend this Kdrama if you like Ghibli movies, a good comedy and a mystery to solve.
Rating
Acting - 10/10
Plot - 7/10
Romance - 7/10
OST - 10/10
Cinematography - 10/10
Cute cat - 10/10
Overall Rating - 9/10
Extended Drama Info.
Quantity of Episodes: 16.
Run Time: 65-70min/each.
Release Date: June 15, 2024.
Network: JTBC.
Directed by: Lee Hyeong-Min and Choi Sung-Min.
Written by: Park Ji-Han.
Cinematography by: Moon Se-Heung and Kim Do-Hee.
Edited by: Sung Ha-Rim and Kim Jae-Hee.
Music by: Jeong Ye-Gyeong.
Starring: Jung Eun-Ji, Lee Jung-Eun, Choi Jin-Hyuk and Baek Seo-Hoo with Yoon Byung-Hee, Jung Young-Ju, Jung Seok-Yeon, Kim Ah-Young, Ahn Sang-Woo, Moon Ye-Won, Bae Hae-Seon, Choi Moo-In, Kim Jae-Rok, Jung Jae-Sung, Kim Kwak-Shik and Choi Bum-Ho.