A supremely addictive, highly rated science fiction themed romance drama about switched identities, available to watch on Netflix, Miss Night And Day (2024) reached over 12% ratings on small cable station JTBC in Korea (while most of their dramas average 2% to 3%), and it was highly touted on the WWW when it aired streaming. When I looked up who directed it I could definitely understand why my daughter and I were so addicted to watching this drama over Christmas-time: it was directed by genius Lee Hyung Min, who had directed the very first Korean drama I ever watched, in 2006, I'm Sorry, I Love You (2004), which changed my entertainment habits permanently towards Korea's output, plus he directed other classic K-dramas I loved like crazy (and still do!) including Winter Sonata (2002), Sang-doo Let's Go To School (2003), The Snow Queen (2006-7), Bad Guy (2010), and the fantastic, original film Postman To Heaven (2009). Thank you, Director Lee, for all the incomparable pleasure you have given me with your superb work on Korean dramas and films over the years.

The whole cast was superlative in Miss Night And Day, absolute perfection! They all could play comedic scenes, melodramatic scenes, romantic scenes, scary scenes with equal brilliance. Our main leads included handsome Choi Jin Hyuk (Gu Family Book, Beautiful Days, Pasta, Heirs, Pride And Prejudice, Tunnel, The Last Empress, Numbers), darling Jung Eun Ji (That Winter The Wind Blows, Trot Lovers), brilliant, prolific senior actress Lee Jung Eun (Oscar winning film Parasite, dramas When The Camellia Blooms, Jealousy Incarnate, Soundtrack 1, A Piece Of Your Mind, While You Were Sleeping, Tomorrow With You, Awl, Remember, The Queen's Classroom) and the actor who played Choi Jin Hyuk's male friend and co-worker in the drama, Yoon Byung Hee (Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Soundtrack 1, Love In The Moonlight, Heirs, Chuno) who had me in fits of laughter multiple times during the story (comedy is really his forte!).

The great actors playing Jung Eun Ji's funny parents were Jung Young Joo (My Mister, My Secret Terius, Bossom: Steal The Fate, Lovely Runner, Moonshine and My Liberation Notes) and always great to watch Jung Suk Yong (Beethoven Virus, Beautiful Mind, DP, Romance In The House). Rounding up the main cast was young second male lead Baek Seo Hoo, and the actress who played Jung Eun Ji's best friend, Kim A Young. They were both new to me but I really enjoyed their performances.

The Story:

Pretty, young Lee Mi Jin (Jung Eun Ji), a college graduate, still lives with her parents, Mom Lim Chung (Jung Young Joo) and Dad Lee Hak Chan (Jung Suk Yong), as she approaches age thirty, having tried unsuccessfully for seven years to pass Korea's difficult, competitive civil service job exam so that she can attain a secure government job. She has taken various menial jobs over these years but none of them have paid her enough to live independently. Her parents, who own a butcher shop, are frustrated with her but do understand how hard she studies and tries to succeed.

In desperation at one point Mi Jin meets with a job scammer and the situation becomes dangerous for her. A man passing by helps her to escape the scammer and he turns out to be a leading prosecuting attorney with the nearby Seohan District Prosecutors' Office, named Gye Ji Ung (Choi Jin Hyuk). She expresses her gratitude to him and it's obvious he is intrigued by her personality and pretty appearance. In the disruption Mi Jin leaves her personal information and resume in Ji Ung's custody by mistake, so later he can read all about her. When he calls her to return the information to her she thinks he's the scammer and hangs up on him! He will have to try again some other way to return her papers to her, which suggests at a future meeting.

Soon afterward Mi Jin has a strange encounter with a glowing orange tabby cat (who looks familiar to her for some reason) and soon after, when she sees the cat jump into a well, she tries to rescue it, but ends up falling into the well herself! But ... was this all a dream?

Next thing Mi Jin knows she wakes up in her bedroom as a 50 year old woman (Lee Jung Eun)! Her parents think she is an intruder into their apartment and a fight ensues. She leaves her home in a rush and has to face the strange supernatural phenomena of aging 30 years overnight! Did that cat do this to her? She confides what has happened to her to her best friend Do Ga Yeong (Kim A Young) and her friend is very compassionate and supportive over this miraculous transformation of Mi Jin into a senior citizen. She does everything within her power to aid her frightened friend.

Mi Jin seizes this mind-boggling opportunity to attain a full time job as her senior citizen self during the day. And where does she end up working? As a cleaning lady in the Seohan District Prosecuting Office where her rescuer Prosecutor Gye Ji Ung works! She calls herself Lim Sum after a maternal aunt she had who had disappeared years ago and who was thought to have been possibly murdered by a mysterious unknown assailant.

When the sun begins to set and she leaves her job Lim Sum suddenly changes back to her young self, Mi Jin. So she can sleep at home with her parents at night as Mi Jin, leave their apartment at daybreak and perform her duties on her job at the legal building as Lim Sum, then change back when night falls. There are other senior new hires at the legal building too, working menial jobs, and as time passes the other seniors become impressed by Lim Sum's knowledge of technical issues. These talents surely aren't coming from Mi Jin, who hadn't been able to pass the civil service exam in seven years! They would have to be coming from this older identity person who takes over her body during the day. Yet, mysteriously, Mi Jin also begins to learn these same technical talents as Lim Sum displays them during the day. Will these learned skills help Mi Jin find a decent full time job eventually, just as herself and not as Lim Sum?

Could one of these seniors be a ... murderer?

This proficiency at tech issues and computers is brought to the attention of Prosecuting Attorney Gye Ji Ung and Lim Sum's job is upgraded to office assistant for Ji Ung and his partner, attorney Ju Byung Duk (funny actor Yoon Byung Hee, below, who often had me in stitches!). She amazes both of them with her hard work and software proficiency and soon they begin to feel they cannot complete their daily legal tasks without her help!

And of course, as Ji Ung and Lim Sum are thrown together every day, that causes Lim Sum to feel closer to Ji Ung so that as Mi Jin she has already fallen deeply in love with him. He has no idea of her feelings but he still is intrigued with her whenever they meet. She learns more about him, too, including the fact that he had a mother he loved who disappeared around the same time her maternal aunt had disappeared. Could both disappearances be related? And even scarier, could there be people working at the legal building who might be tracking both of them for nefarious, devious, and even murderous intentions?

Gye Ji Ung's job as a lead prosecutor in the narcotics investigation unit keeps him in personal danger to some extent all the time, so he has adjusted to that reality, and he maintains a relentless pace in tracking down criminals. He has always been frustrated with the lack of information he received about his mother's disappearance when he was young, so he holds quite a bit of sadness about it in his soul. It makes him rigid in some ways at work, and he holds a zero-tolerance policy for errors. Due to his prior colleagues quitting one by one because of his very serious personality, he easily becomes emotionally intertwined with the mysterious intern Lim Sum and her alternate identity, Mi Jin, both during the day and night.

When both Lim Sum and Mi Jin are kidnapped on two separate occasions by the hooded and masked character whom we suspect might be after her to kill her, possibly due to her aunt's tragic case, it is Ji Ung who rescues her, further revealing his deep affection for them both. He also finds himself jealous when he sees a new temporary intern who was once in an idol band, named Ko Won (Baek Seo Hoo), grow close to both ladies. Lim Sum had even saved him from an anti-fan who wanted to hurt him! Ko Won early on was tuned onto the mystery of their changing appearances, while Ji Ung still doesn't realize what is going on. Will he ever catch on?

 

Then suddenly a call goes out to the legal office that two female skeletons have been discovered in a lake. Could these skeletons finally provide proof that Ji Ung's mother and Mi Jin's maternal aunt had been murdered? After all this time had passed will it be possible to track down who the murderer could be? This effort consumes Ji Ung and Mi Jin both and even risks their own lives.

If one of the skeletons is confirmed to be Mi Jin's aunt Lim Sum how will that affect Mi Jin's alternate identity as her aunt Lim Sum? Will Will Sum have to disappear permanently? And what if the other skeleton proves to be Ji Ung's long lost mother? How will he cope with a tragedy like that when he had always held out hope that she could still be alive? And what about the glowing cat that had seemed so familiar to Mi Jin? Will it possibly reappear and make everything all right again?

Miss Night And Day is definitely in my top five favorite Korean dramas of 2024, including Goodbye Earth, What Comes After Love, Face Me, and DNA Lover. There were others of course that I enjoyed but these five stand out the most for me! They never once bored me. It's to the point that I feel so sorry for folks who don't watch superlative Korean dramas! They have no idea what brilliance they are missing: great unforgettable stories, gorgeous cinematography and music, excellent writing and direction, and not to leave out the wise and beautiful acting of the BEST ACTORS AND ACTRESSES ON PLANET EARTH!!!! Enjoy Miss Night And Day. Be prepared to be hooked, especially with all the great cliffhangers. Enjoy!

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