Not all K-dramas are 16- to 20-hour-long episodes. Some of the best I have seen, in fact, fall into the category of short web dramas: brief episodes, sometimes only a few minutes long, elegantly produced and beautifully shot, which serve as a canvas for alternative or experimental storytelling techniques. One such is Bite Sisters, a 2021 web drama available on YouTube, which consists of 10 episodes of 10 minutes each. Beautiful to look at, stylishly framed, and solidly cast, this series deserves more attention than it initially received, and is perfect short-form viewing as October winds down—an amuse-bouche, if you will, before diving into the thick of the fall sweeps season.
Kang Han-Na (My Roommate Is a Gumiho) stars as Han Yi-Na, an 821-year-old vampire who is one of a group of three otherwise unrelated sister vampires—the middle child, so to speak. Together with her elder sister, Mi-Sook, she runs an elegant fashion boutique in the heart of Seoul; their youngest sister, the workaholic Ji-Yeon, is a designer at a corporation. They have hidden in plain sight together for centuries, variously running hotels and working jobs. Inevitably, the passage of time, their unchanging appearances, and the limits of human lifespans have always made moving on and assuming other identities necessary. We meet the three vampires during the time of the Japanese occupation, and learn that although they mistrust humans in general, the sisters, and particularly Yi-Na, are strongly motivated by a sense of justice. Mi-Sook only drinks synthetic blood; Ji-Yeon only drinks animal blood. Yi-Na resists her vampiric urges unless presented with a wrongdoer who is harming other humans. Together they have created a safe, stable, and extremely chic life for themselves, and it has begun to wear thin. Mi-Sook is aggravated by the humans in the shop; Ji-Yeon butts heads with an abusive fellow manager at her job; and Yi-Na accidentally posts a photo of herself online—and the next day discovers she’s gone viral and has a million followers, not a comfortable state of affairs for a vampiric family that relies on comparative anonymity.
To make matters worse, Yi-Na’s human lover from generations ago has been reincarnated and is now Jeong Seung-Min (Lee Shin-Young, Crash Landing on You), who thinks he recognizes Yi-Na from his childhood in this life and, intrigued, decides to get closer to her. Mi-Sook, bored and annoyed by customers and seeking a little relief from work, decides to take on a part-timer. She recognizes Seung-Min as the reincarnation of Yoon Kyung-Ho, who abruptly left Yi-Na when he grew old rather than make her witness his death. The temptation to stir things up a bit at home proves irresistible to Mi-Sook.
Does Mi-Sook hire the reincarnation of her vampire sister’s former paramour? Of course she does. Does Yi-Na find herself giving advice online to random netizens who turn out to be Ji-Yeon’s underlings at work about how to get one’s boss off one’s back? For sure. And does Seung-Min fall in love with Yi-Na all over again, even after he figures out that she really did strangle that one guy, she’s looked exactly the same for over 90 years, and that’s probably not cherry juice that she’s knocking back from the employee refrigerator at the shop? You betcha. The K-drama DNA is strong in this little series.
Ultimately, the story is about seeing and being seen, about shaping and displaying identity, and how, in the end, what we show others and choose not to show them is an exercise in coexisting. The vampire sisters at the center of the story have reached yet another era in which they must redefine themselves, but now, rather than moving from isolation to isolation, they find that they are able to do so via connection, rather than distance. Yi-Na is now a social media darling; Ji-Yeon has connected at last with her work team and invites them to join her for oxblood soup outings; Mi-Sook has found new meaning in the boutique and in an unexpected friendship with a clear-eyed local cat lady, who is unfazed by her vampiric nature and helps her realize how much the sisters have in common with the humans around them.
The question at the heart of the drama is how we move through the world and remain true to ourselves. Despite the brief episode length, the drama accomplishes this beautifully. The show is shot almost as a series of vignettes, and its storytelling is necessarily compact. At about an hour and forty minutes of total run time, Bite Sisters is a gorgeous afternoon interlude and just the ticket for a fall viewing palate cleanser.
