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Pierce Conran

2.5/5 stars
Lead cast: Jeon Yeo-been, Ahn Hyo-seop, Kang Hoon
Jeon Yeo-been (Glitch) and Ahn Hyo-seop (Business Proposal) team up for A Time Called You, Netflix’s remake of the hit Taiwanese time-travel romance series Someday or One Day.
Time-travel narratives – those rooted in fantasy rather than science fiction, sometimes called “time loop” dramas – have long been popular with Korean writers.


First came classic romantic films Il Mare and Ditto and later other genres, such as Kim Eun-hee’s serial killer drama Signal or the thriller The Call (itself a remake of a Puerto Rican film).
It may appear unusual that Korean creators would tackle an adaptation of a foreign story that already has so much Korean melodramatic DNA coursing through its blood, but after a few episodes the reasons behind this choice become apparent.
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This is a romantic time-loop drama on steroids. Tangling its characters in dizzying story loops, A Time Called You is far more ambitious than previous expressions of fantasy time travel in Korea, which have typically featured unyieldingly parallel timelines.
The result is unwieldy and frequently beggars belief. But if you can make it past four episodes without shutting off your screen in frustration, the show begins to embrace its silliness, and boy does it get silly.
Jeon plays two very different characters. In the present she is 35-year-old Han Jun-hee, a confident marketing executive still reeling from the sudden death of boyfriend Koo Yeon-jun (Ahn) in a plane crash a year earlier.

In 1998, she plays the diffident high-school teen Kwon Min-ju, who has a crush on her school’s heartthrob, Nam Si-heon (also Ahn). To her shock and mortification, Si-heon starts hanging out with her.
Rather than being interested in her, he’s actually trying to set Min-ju up with his friend Jung In-gyu (Kang Hoon, Little Women), who has a crush on her.
Back in the present, and following the first anniversary of the death of her lover, Jun-hee starts receiving mysterious items. These include a picture she doesn’t recognise of people who look like her and Yeon-jun, and an old cassette player with a tape of Seo Ji-won’s classic 1990s ballad “Gather My Tears”.

During a bus ride home she plays the tape and drifts off to sleep. When she opens her eyes again Jun-hee is in a hospital bed in 1998 – and she’s been transported back into the body of Min-ju.
Flicking back and forth between past and present, Jun-hee’s heart is torn this way and that. She’s also busy trying to solve a mystery in 2023 and prevent a murder that will happen in 1998.
Why do these two sets of identical people, roughly five years apart in age, exist? How is it that both pairs are connected? What makes their souls time travel to other bodies? Why does the cassette player bring people back to different times?

An endless stream of logical lapses is glossed over by the show’s constant insistence that “fate” is dictating the events of the story. Even if you can accept this, the show breaks its own rules in the end. It’s a classic case of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too screenwriting.
There’s far too much going on in A Time Called You, and the show doesn’t have the confidence to maintain an even tone. Serial killers have a bad habit of popping up in K-dramas they don’t belong in, and the one that shows up here is a particularly wonky distraction.
The sudden violence is at odds with a bright rural high-school romance which is otherwise awash in cherry blossoms and sun-dappled summer showers.

There’s also a gay subplot that is given insultingly little screen time and then cruelly cut short just as the characters open up to each other. The queer theme is never touched on again; given the short shrift it receives, it would have been better off excised completely.
Given the ludicrous story the cast, who are all too old to be playing teenagers, have a hard task and as a result performances are uneven.
Jeon starkly but brashly conveys her different characters, while Ahn struggles to differentiate his. Meanwhile, Kang’s constantly pinched shoulders make for a dry performance.

The show frequently references Marcel Proust’s classic novel In Search of Lost Time. A Time Called You feels about as long as that tome’s seven volumes – but alas that’s where the comparisons end.
A Time Called You is streaming on Netflix.


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Netflix K-drama review: A Time Called You – Ahn Hyo-seop, Jeon Yeo-been reconnect in head-spinning time-travel romance

Jeon Yeo-been as Jun-hee in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

Jeon Yeo-been as schoolgirl Min-ju, one of two characters she plays, in a still from “A Time Called You”. The time-travel K-drama romance on Netflix is a head-spinner, with so much going on it gets very silly. Photo: Netflix

Ahn Hyo-seop (top) as high-school heartthrob Nam Si-heon and Jeon Yeo-been as a schoolgirl with a crush on him, Kwon Min-ju, in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

Kang Hoon as Jung In-gyu, friend of Nam Si-heon, in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

Jeon Yeo-been in the present as the grieving Han Jun-hee, a marketing executive, in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

Ahn Hyo-seop as Koo Yeon-jun, Jun-hee’s boyfriend who died, in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

Jeon Yeo-been back in 1998 in a still from “A Time Called You”. Photo: Netflix

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Jin Seon-kyu as courageous firefighter Ma Ju-seok in a still from “The Uncanny Counter” season 2.

Yum Hye-ran as Chu Mae-ok in a still from “The Uncanny Counter” season 2.

Kang Ki-young as Hwang Pil-gwang in a still from “The Uncanny Counter” season 2.

Kim Se-jeong (left) as Do Ha-na and Yu Jun-sang as Ga Mo-tak in a still from “The Uncanny Counter” season 2.

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Jo Bo-ah in a still from “Destined with You”.

Jo Bo-ah as Hong-jo in a still from “Destined with You”. The fantasy romcom lacks charm or charismatic lead characters – only time will tell if the show is worth sticking with.

Jo Bo-ah (left) and Rowoon as Hong-jo and Shin-yu in a still from “Destined with You”.

Rowoon as Shin-yu in a still from “Destined with You”.

Ha-jun as Jae-gyeong in a still from “Destined with You”.

Jo Bo-ah as Hong-ju in a still from “Destined with You”.

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Lee Sang-yeob as sports agent Kim Tae-young in a still from “My Lovely Boxer”.

Kim So-hye as boxing genius Lee Kwon-sook in a still from “My Lovely Boxer”.

Kim Jin-woo as vice-principal Han Jae-min in a still from “My Lovely Boxer”.

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A woman (Jeon Yeo-been) grieving the death of a boyfriend (Ahn Hyo-seop) is whisked back 25 years, where she has a crush on the school heartthrob (also Ahn)
The show’s tone is uneven, with an aborted gay subplot and a serial killer who’s a needless distraction, and breaks its own rules at the end


A remake of Taiwanese series Someday or One Day, Netflix Korean drama A Time Called You is a head-spinning time-travel romance with way too much going on.


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Review | Netflix K-drama review: A Time Called You – Ahn Hyo-seop, Jeon Yeo-been reconnect in head-spinning time-travel romance