UGH, YOU THREW OFF MY GROOVE *throws a small golden summer palace miniature across the throne room*
*ahem*
As previously mentioned, my groove is off, thus I don’t know if this will up to my usual standard but I also don’t know what that is so, here goes nothing. Validate me @hebang, I’m doing this for you.

VINCENZO EPISODE 14 KISS SCENE ANALYSIS, BREAKDOWN AND MELONIA CRITIQUE

NOTES ON THE PRESENTATION:
1.If you’re new here and are NOT familiar with my Royal Kiss Analyses and are sensitive to tired snark and or the ravings of a mad queen, please keep scrolling. If you wish to proceed, please do so at your own risk; the Queendom will not compensate for any casualties instigated by sh☠️tposting. Company Insurance Policy and all that.
2. If you’re asking me why I’m doing this … you should probably scroll through my wall.
If you’re asking me why I’m nitpicking things that might not even seem worth nitpicking, well… you should probably scroll through my wall … and also know that I’m sorry but we don’t accept that kind of Optimism here.
3.Had to use a ripped version because The Swoon has weird video cuts and doesn’t have the whole thing which means it’s USELESS FOR SCIENCE so please refer to the below video for the following timestamps and pray it doesn’t get taken down by whoever before you see this.

BREAKDOWN:
RIGHT WELL THE KISS. THE KISS WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. Maybe. Maybe not if you don’t ship them but that’s not my problem… I actually don’t HATE this kiss scene. It’s not my FAVOURITE but then idek what is anymore, I liked parts of it but then I also drafted this at least twice in the shower after watching it a week ago which means its flaws are annoying and worthy of critique. (despite the fact that most shower essays never get written.)

For this scene we are counting from time stamp 0:12 to 1:44 as the “Kiss Scene”, or, from move in to pull away. Whilst this is technically slightly longer than the actual literal kiss, I prefer to count these caps as the scene as well, since it doesn’t really feel like a complete scene without them.

Total length: 1:30

Cut Scenes: 22
– Ah cut scenes, the bane of my kdrama kiss watching existence. Except for when counting them cos usually that’s just funny.
– Well let’s see, if bad is MOA at 38 or Boyfriend at 28 for about the same time, and good is SLMOS EP8 with 8 for about a minute… then that puts this as about the same level as My Strange Hero, which is not the worst I’ve ever seen, but still not really that great if I’m being perfectly honest.
I genuinely don’t know why kdrama directors feel the need to have so many cut scenes during a kiss. In this case you COULD argue that it’s a stylistic and narrative thing, and in part it is certainly the latter, but stylistically I don’t see how this many contributes to the scene at all. Because for me almost always, with this many cuts, it works AGAINST itself, and draws me out of the scene to have so many; it feels more obviously manufactured and edited, and less like… well like two people are actually kissing. It makes it so much more apparent that it’s more than one take pieced back together and the result to me is far less cohesive than say if oh idk… you had a shot where you just let them go for it…
It’s not like the actors here are 12 year olds. I’m sure they know what they’re doing… actually I’m pretty sure THESE TWO DO know what they’re doing. (PSH is an outlier and should not be counted).
And almost always, it’s completely unnecessary.
Time to go over the waterfall~~

Shots/Camera Angles FEATURING Hand placement/movement/positioning AND Lip Action:
I counted 10 but could be 8 in theory. We’ll go with 10- that seems like a lot I mean that kind of is a lot but for kdramas not really… could’ve been 12…
~List that definitely doesn’t have the right terms sue me I didn’t go to film school:~
1. Over Cha Young’s LEFT shoulder
2. Over Vinnie’s left shoulder
3. Low angle front on
4. Low angle behind Cha Young, to the left
5. Mid close up, front on and level (debatably the only one you ACTUALLY need)
6. Slightly more level and slightly more directly behind Cha Young
7. Shoes
8. Over Cha Young’s RIGHT shoulder
9. Over Vinnie’s Right shoulder
10. Medium Long shot, high angle, front on ish
asdfghjklkjhgfdsa
– Lip action: Putting this one in first cos it’s RELEVANT
Considering these two are both in denial about their feelings, I am ok with the double fish eyes BECAUSE hear me out, it is part of the character development as it were, AND they both end up just making out anyway … HOWEVER
– Idk what makes me more mad, excessive cut scenes or like really bad camera angles. Actually no, I do. It’s bad camera angles especially when they mean you can’t frakking see what’s going on– are we watching a kiss scene or AREN’T WE PDNIM.
– Okay so narratively I am fine with honestly probably about 8 of these camera angles, I would still personally cut it down to about 5 if you include the shoes, and 6 if you want a long shot. (You could also just do it in 1… but let’s not get ahead of myself)- I don’t MIND the cuts when it goes from him being flustered and surprised, to him responding, to HER being surprised, to HER responding AGAIN; like it works NARRATIVELY but but what I do have an issue with is
– Why in the ever loving shit are there so many shots that obscure the kiss
– I’m serious if you COUNT the shots that like Actually show THEM LOCKING LIPS there are MAYBE maybe 15 seconds OF RESPONSIVE GOOD KISS SHOTS, (20 if you count him not responding but EHHHHH) and since I’m not a generous person when it comes to drama critiques
– 15 seconds. Of 90. That’s 16%. Why are you like this. JUST FRAKKING –
– LINGER ON SHOT 5. IT’S NOT HARD.
– 1:20 HAND PLACEMENT TIME MY FAVOURITE PART maybe idk,
I’M GOnna go off at a slightly weird direction here but if you consider a Good Kiss Scene like a piece of art, perhaps like a sculpture ok, if we consider this, a kiss scene needs good composition in the same way–in order to be satisfying kiss scenes they need to look aesthetically pleasing and be balanced; it’s why if they’re in an awkward position, you the viewer is just not into it. (or is that just me? Am I just an art/kiss scene snob?) Whatever, therefore
I would’ve liked it better, if he’d gone more for the waist with his right hand, and pulled her slightly to him, and thereby having her tip slightly back, either from him or the natural progression of movement, which would’ve made HER hand movement and placement less awkward with her elbows akimbo- this positioning can work, you just have to… well make the angles look right. It’s a piece of artwork ok, BALANCE IT… or in this case unbalance it in order to… rebalance it… ye ken?
– The closer they are the better it is.
– The hand positioning of him cupping her face is fine, but I wish we could’ve seen more of it and for longer (See above and below)
– Now for the things you probably didn’t notice but will be unable to unsee
– …
– At 1:27 her hand is on the side of his neck
– At 1:28 her hands are locked AROUND his neck
– Why isn’t there a connecting scene, why did you just jump from one to the other, nobody would be complaining if the kiss scene was 4 seconds longer and we saw that shift, I don’t know WHY IT HAS TO HAPPEN LIKE THAT
– 1:31 LIPS LOCKED doesn’t really look like they’re stopping any time soon
– 1:32 OOP A CUT to them PULLING AWAY
– Rubs temples
– I suffer so much in ways you will never know
– Namely in that for a scene that lasted a minute thirty I felt like we only scraped the surface of THE POTENTIAL of THAT KISS
–
But here’s the thing ok, the crux point if you will, you could easily do this entire scene, WITHout losing the narrative points, in one shot, one cut, and one camera angle, and in my humble, extremely professional opinion, it would not take away ANYTHING from the scene, in fact, in many ways, it would/might add to it.

MOVING ONWARD!!!!!
SQUIRE! CHANGE THE OVERHEAD PROJECTION SLIIIIDE!

Jaw line: You know who has a great jawline for a slim dude? Bai Jingting. You know who doesn’t have my favourite jawline? Song Joong Ki. I’m sorry Carrot Boy. It’s not bad, there are just better.
For example… Jeon Yeo Been’s.

Male leads hand structure: They emphasised it more when she was hugging him tbh… which coincidentally was imo probably the most impactful part of that scene. Ahem.
Comparatively there was not a lot of focus on the hands during the kiss… like their KIND OF WAS but also not, it’s the same thing as with the camera angles- they were THERE they just weren’t THERE.
Related Side Note: If it were me, just cos I could, I would’ve shifted the focus at the 50s mark from her face to the ring lol

Atmosphere and Context: Fantastic and Hilarious, I love it, please get married have an army of smol Mafia children thank you~

Song: Should they have kissed to one of the few songs in the soundtrack that has lyrics, that also extremely maybe too aptly fit their scenario, or should they have kissed to epic orchestral background score befitting the rest of the show , or should they have kissed to something Italian- DISCUSS.

The Good, other than what I’ve mentioned already, so that I don’t fester too much in my own negativity:
I like that she initiated. I like that not only did they have to fake date he had to SPONTANEOUSLY FAKE PROPOSE AND SHE WAS ENJOYING EVERY FRAKKING SECOND OF IT, as she should. I like that he seemed to MEAN it when he said ofc he loved her. I like her outfit (I don’t like his as much BUT I’M PURPLE SUIT BIAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE AND THEY WERE UNDERCOVER)
I like that they thought ahead, for once in their lives jk, and their plan for getting caught was indeed part of the plan.

Overall ranking: I won’t destroy your village to make my summer splash palace, but we do need to go on a life changing road trip before I make that decision.

Kay-BYE!
*turns back into a llama*