Burn Baby Burn
Changing the tone to a more comedic, lighthearted nature, Persona returns with its episode Kiss Burn, acting as an exploration of friendship and love, set on a backdrop of a rural farm. The episode begins with a girl arriving at the farm and looking for her friend Hye-Beok. After her Father dismisses her, tell her to leave, the girl explores round the side of the house to find her friend hiding amongst the clutter. Intent on finding out what’s going on, she quizzes her friend only to find strange marks all over her arms and neck. It turns out this was a result of a passionate night with a boy. As she sits down and listens to Hye Beok weave her tale of mischief, passion and love, the two inadvertently cause a fire that burns down part of the farm. Chaos ultimately ensues and the two find themselves scrambling to stop the flames from spreading. The episode then ends with the friends pondering over what’s happened and what their future entails together. For the most part, the comedic tone is really the one thing that helps keep this tale interesting compared to the others in this anthology. Some of the camera work is pretty good too and the sound bites of uplifting key strokes helps as well. Ultimately though, this is story all about friendship and our attitude toward our friends. Aside from that, there isn’t a whole lot else to comment on this one. The 20 minute length is perfect too but compared to some of the other, more thematically strong episodes in this collection, there just isn’t a whole lot going on here. Personally, Kiss Burn is the weakest episode of the four, failing to really nail the themes as well as some of the other episodes showcased in this collection.
