When it was released in 2018, To All the Boys I've Loved Before showed that romantic comedy - a genre underrated in cinema amidst the crisis of medium-budget films - could not only survive in streaming but also reach a new wave of viewers. Generation Z is precisely the target audience of XO, Kitty, a spin-off that departs from the romantic and delicate tone of To All the Boys and invests more in K-drama, the name given to South Korean dramas.
With Lara Jean's (Lana Condor) coming-of-age journey concluded after the third film, Netflix and Jenny Han, the author of the original books and a producer on the films, saw potential in Kitty (Anna Cathcart) - the younger, extroverted sister with a knack for "bringing couples together" - to have her own story in a series. In the plot, Kitty is 15 years old and secures a scholarship to KISS, an international school in South Korea that her late mother attended and where Kitty's boyfriend, Dae (Minyeong Choi), currently studies.
The series already resorts to convenient plot devices to establish these connections and provide the context for Kitty's new adventures, such as enrolling in an international school without her father's consent, staying in the boys' dormitory for a while, or trespassing the records room of a hospital with impunity. The first episode is packed with information: Kitty meets Yuri (Gia Kim), her schoolmate, who, being the heiress of an important family, ends up involving Dae in a fake relationship for political maneuvering. Secrets from the past and a love triangle shake up Kitty's days in the series.
Being set in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, the series emulates the elements of K-dramas to drive Kitty's story, which may require the audience to adjust their expectations in the first half of the ten episodes. The problem is not relying on the same artifices as Korean dramas but rather familiarizing those who followed the To All the Boys trilogy - where convenient plot devices and clichés were employed with skill - with a dynamic in the spin-off that may come across as awkward, in an attempt to appropriate an "imported" narrative style with its own rules.
In the arc of the main couple, the series creates many convoluted situations where Dae never manages to explain to Kitty the reason for dating Yuri, which may be more frustrating for the viewer than for the protagonist. It is evident that both Jenny Han, who serves as the showrunner of the series, and director Sascha Rothchild (The Bold Type) are treading on unfamiliar ground, even though Han is of Korean descent and may have more familiarity with K-dramas. The transition from a feature film to a series and the lack of a literary work to rely on, as was the case with To All the Boys, may explain why the spin-off starts off slowly.
Fortunately, the feeling of strangeness disappears once the main conflict is resolved, and new couples are formed. From that point on, XO, Kittyshowcases its strength by being light, daring with plot twists, and addictive to watch. Supporting characters develop throughout the episodes - sometimes they are rivals, sometimes friends, sometimes love interests. The series skillfully balances this fluidity of sides without becoming arbitrary and manages to address the doubts and insecurities that each character experiences in a deeply empathetic and human way, including interest in other genders and family conflicts.
Yuri and Dae's friend, Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee), initially start as antagonists but undergo an unexpected development. Meanwhile, Q (Anthony Keyvan), Dae's friend, goes beyond the stereotype of the "gay friend who helps the protagonist" and gains his own growth within a conflicting same-sex relationship. Of course, all the young characters are impulsive and volatile, constantly changing the dynamics of the love triangle among them, which seems well-placed to mirror the hormonally-charged youth phase - and also justifies the longer duration of this spin-off.
In addition to exploring the sexuality and maturation of teenagers, XO, Kitty presents the protagonist, an American with Korean heritage, experiencing cultural clashes in her ancestors' country and addresses these differences with lightness. In the end, the adjustment to the rules of K-dramas becomes part of this adaptation - all while accompanied by various K-pop songs featuring BTS, BLACKPINK, and Stray Kids, alongside the already obligatory "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, which marked the third film in the franchise.
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