“A Time Called You” (너의 시간 속으로)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
September 25, 2023

☆☆☆
Koo Yeon-jun / Nam Si-heon (played by Ahn Hyo-seop)
Han Jun-hee / Kwon Min-ju (played by Jeon Yeo-been)
Jung In-gyu (played by Kang Hoon)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

A remake of the Taiwanese series “Someday or One Day,” the Korean version of this time-travel drama isn’t always easy to follow. But if you suspend your belief in reality and just go with the flow, you will find yourself immersed in a compelling plot that centers on love, while it also navigates story arcs about guilt, gaslighting and a serial killer. (That’s right!)

“A Time Called You” is a love story between two sets of doppelgangers whose lives are intertwined. One pair lives in 1998 and are high school students. The other couple resides in present day and are in their mid-thirties. Math will tell you this can’t be the same set of people, because their ages don’t add up. Literally. But what this story conveys so well is that eternal love transcends time and, sometimes, common sense.

It was confusing for me to keep track of the characters each time they time traveled, so I went by their mannerisms more often than not.  Jeon Yeo-been is the female lead, Ahn Hyo-seop is the male lead and Kang Hoon is the third wheel (who deserves a stronger story line). While Ahn’s Si-hyeon and Yeon-jun were differentiated primarily by age, Jeon played her two characters distinctively different.

All three actors are good in their roles, but this is Jeon’s series. At 34, she is the eldest of the trio and (like her male co-stars) looks too old to be a real high school student. However, her mannerisms convey such truth that when she is on screen, you believe she is who she says she is. Teenager? Sure! Mid-30s worker? Of course!

There is a moment in Episode 8 where Min-ju’s uncle — who somehow understands this parallel universe in a way that I wish was explained better — is talking to 19-year-old Yeon-jun when adult Si-heon calls him on the phone to clarify a matter. What in the “Doctor Who” is going on?

There is a gay subplot that I wish had been fleshed out and an ambiguous ending that won’t make some viewers happy. But I choose to believe that the ending promises hope. I’ll discuss this a bit more in the Spoiler Alert below.

Airdates: Twelve episodes — ranging from 46- to 75-minutes each — dropped on Netflix on September 8, 2023.

Spoiler Alert:

I’m not really sure why an unexplored gay subplot was added to this series. It deserved to have at least one full episode to flesh out some details. In a backstory, viewers see that before all the time traveling and body jumping, Yeon-jun was gay. He died in a car crash with his boyfriend Taeho (Rowoon). At that same time, Si-heon was in a bus accident, survived and his soul jumped into Yeon-jun’s body. The two looked identical to each other, which made this supernatural feat possible. (I dunno. Just go with it.)

Remember that serial killer I had mentioned earlier in the review? The culprit was the younger brother of a classmate, but the elder sibling ended up locked away in a mental institution after witnessing the younger boy’s horrific crimes. The child had killed teenage Min-ju.

And stricken with grief that he hadn’t been able to save her, In-gyu confessed to a murder he never committed. Once released from prison, he dies by suicide. I’ll be honest: I didn’t understand this at all. I get that there is survivors’ guilt. But why would anyone throw their life away for something they literally didn’t do?

But, Jun-hee and Yun-jeon are able to figure out how to save them both through their final time traveling trip. In order to give peace to Min-ju, whose body she inhabits when she goes back to the past, Jun-hee asks In-gyu to destroy her time traveling device: an old cassette player with a tape in it. (Speaking of which, the show never explained how and why this song was so important in their time travels.) She realizes, and so do we, that this means she can never be reunited with Yun-jeon in the past, present or future.

While there is no traditional happy ending, the series ends with hope. Two strangers, who look just like our lead couple, reunite on a bus. As for a happily ever after? That’s left for them to decide. I choose to believe that true love transcended time and they found their way to each other in a time that wasn’t saddled by a troubled past.

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