KUALA LUMPUR, January 5 — A Malaysian adaptation of South Korean series W: Two Worlds is under fire on social media for a ‘kissing’ scene.

In the controversial scene from one of its episodes, Daiyan is seen kissing Hun on the lips with a piece of clothing being the barrier of actual physical contact between them.

The clip has circulated across social media with many deeming it insensitive to local Muslim culture.

Following the backlash, Daiyan and Hun along with the series director Datuk Yusry Abdul Halim in a joint statement have apologised to the public for causing a stir with the scene, reported Berita Harian.

“We thank our audiences for the advice and feedback. We will be more careful in the future,” was their joint response.

Yusry added that they are refraining from commenting further to respect streaming platform Viu Malaysia, who is also the series producer and distributor.

Meanwhile, according to MStar, Yusry said that although the series was an adaptation, they decided to include more originality to it as Viu Malaysia doesn’t want a direct adaptation such as their previous adapted series She Was Pretty.

He denied that their decision to tweak the storyline was due to the controversial scene.

“If we didn’t change some parts of the series, audiences would say that it’s better to just watch the original version.

“So we made some adjustments so they can see the difference between the South Korean version and the Malaysian version.

“Actually the K-Drama fans are a bit hardcore, we were actually scared to change the series,” he said.

“But we can’t keep it the same, so we’ve chosen the middle path where we kept the first six-episodes and made our own adjustments for the rest.”

W: Two Worlds is a romantic drama series which originally aired in 2016 starring Han Hyo-Joo and Lee Jong-Suk.