WATCH it or DROP it: Time

Hello again from me! We meet again in my new WATCH it or DROP it article and this time I will cover the new Korean drama with a rating of 8.6 – Time.

How I stumbled on this drama?

I was watching the drama which aired before this, called Come and Hug Me and if you know me, then you know that I even wrote an article about that particular drama. So, as I was watching it, in the right corner I saw a snippet of an upcoming drama which is as you can guess - Time. The little snippet was very fascinating and dark, so I googled it and was shocked by the summary I read. At first, I was discouraged a LOT! I am a person who loves happy endings, but just based on the summary, I knew that this will be a very sad ride to the final destination. But as I thought about it more, I said to myself that once in a while I need a go tear jerker too, hence I started to watch it as it premiered!

This is the story of two polar opposite people that come together in tragedy. One remains stuck in time, whilst the other only has a limited amount of time left to live.
Seol Ji Hyun is a woman who, although living a hard life, remains positive, upbeat and social. Cheon Soo Ho is the CEO of a restaurant and the son of a wealthy family with a terrible temper and no regard for other people. They both meet briefly under negative impressions of each other.
However, their lives become entangled once more when Ji Hyun's sister dies unexpectedly at Soo Ho's residence. From there, Ji Hyun's time stops and she becomes a cold, miserable person who finds nothing to live for. But Soo Hoo, who carries the heavy guilt and is drawn to her, promises to himself to use the 6 months he has left to live to help her, whose life was destroyed because of him.
In the process, Soo Ho falls in love with Ji Hyun, but how far can love develop when you only have a limited time left to live? 

What stood out for me was the definition of time. We live our lives everyday, but we often forget that we are not here forever and sometimes we are even wasting our time on useless things. This drama portrays just how precious our time is.

Expectations vs. Reality

As I mentioned above, I knew that this drama will eventually have a sad ending. Even though it’s still airing now, I think the ending is unavoidable, so I just have to prepare my tissues.

Before I started this show, I knew one main lead and that’s Kim Jung Hyun and I was thrilled! I knew him already from Eulachacha Waikiki and Rebel: Thief Who Stole The People which I was even subbing. I knew from the start that he would breakthrough the dramaland, so I had no worries about him being cast here. What I was worried about was Seohyun. Trust me, I don’t have any prejudice against acting singers, so it’s not about her being part of SNSD. It was more about her personality? To put it simply without sugarcoating it – I don’t like her. That’s why I was worried about if I would be able to enjoy the show or not. But in the end, I gave it a try. 

What were my expectations about the plot?

• Acting: It sounds obvious, right? Many of you might think that every tv series should have great acting, but honestly, I am not so harsh about the level of acting in certain light-hearted shows. But with the plot this tv series had I knew that I needed to see very good acting, otherwise it would really ruin  the whole plot!  

• Drama: I know this expectation is absolutely useless since the writer of this show also wrote Mask, which is FULL of drama, but still… Look, there can be a tv series with lots of dramatic moments and twists but it always needs to fit the scenario and the scene. The drama must fit the plot in order to make it enjoyable for viewers. To put it simply, I wanted a good balance between drama and romance.  

• Romance: If you read the summary you really can’t see any love scenario there, but come on, we all wish that the arrogant CEO of a restaurant would fall for the depressed main lead, whose world just collapsed because of HIM. Or am I the only one who wants to see it? I am up to any dramatic love story and trust me, if this tv show will have a romance between the two main leads, it will be one hell of a romance, right? Why? Because the secrets that the main lead man holds are so deep that not everyone can handle it = making a perfect fight between the main leads aka making more drama.  

What was the reality?

• The acting in every character is on point and I can’t stop the praise I have towards Seohyun. As I mentioned, I knew Jung Hyun before, but he still impressed me. He lives the character as if it was his own reality. The crying scenes are really the most painful to watch and trust me, even his outbursts of anger are painful to watch because deep inside you know that those are just screams for help. This is exactly how many people react, you know? Imagine what you would do if someone told you, that you have a few months to live. Anger, sadness and frustration are given. But the important thing is that he realized that with anger he just wasted his treasured time.  

• The drama kicked off in the very first episode and I am not so sure, how it will continue... With each episode we unfold the case of Seol Ji Hyeon’s younger sister and also unmask the character’s personalities. What was good is bad and wicked now. We can see what part of themselves some characters are hiding. But what I AM worried about is the sister’s case actually. ‘’Who should be responsible for her death?’’ is a question which appears in every episode but what is the answer? From my point of the view, it obviously wasn’t suicide, but an accident, since she was very drunk. So, is anyone guilty of it? No, but still since some characters said that it was a suicide, they can be charged for false statement, which isn’t as bad as a murder. Let’s not count lawyer Shin’s attempted murder of another character.

• Romance? I see some hints here and there and I will keep my fingers crossed that something will bloom, because I really don’t want Soo Ho to spend his last months only uncovering the truth and trying to be a new better human being, but also to learn how to love and cherish someone. He has been lonely all his life, so even though it may sound selfish, I want him and Ji Hyun to have a relationship. The chemistry between the leads is very good and I think they suit each other very much.  

• What surprised me in the show was the other relationship I found! I kept talking about love and I didn’t mean only romantic kind of love but also friendships. I am really happy that this series show strong bonds.  

Introduction to main characters

Cheon Soo Ho

- a broken man who hides himself behind anger, money and fame

- a man who wants to change himself

- inside a soft kitten who just needs to be petted

- a man full of justice

Seol Ji Hyun 

- a strong woman who loves her family more than anything

- a hardworking woman

- a woman full of justice and compassion

Shin Min Seok

- a weak character which is easily influenced by wealth

- a man who can sacrifice everything for his own gain

- a living puppet

- a man who is lying to himself, to make himself feel better

We are at the end of my new WATCH it or DROP it article and I hope you enjoyed my analysis just like the previous edition of this article series. I leave it up to you, if you really want to watch this drama despite the low domestic ratings, which I think comes from Kim Jung Hyun's ''scandal'', which for me played zero role in choosing this drama...

If you are up to some good and active drama, then it's definitely WATCH IT!

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