A Time Called You is a haunting, time-bending story full of mystery and romance. Jeon Yeo-been (Vincenco) is Han Jun-hee, a woman dealing with the death of her boyfriend when suddenly finds herself back in 1998 in the body of teenager, Kwon Min-ju. Jun-hee soon meets two of Min-ju’s schoolmates, Jung In-gyu (Kang Hoon), the boy with a crush on Min-ju, and his best friend Nam Si-heon (Business Proposal’s Ahn Hyo-seop) who happens to look like a younger version of Jun-hee’s deceased boyfriend, Koo Yeon-jun.
As Jun-hee searches for answers in both the past and present, she begins to unravel the mystery of Si-heon and Yeon-jun. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more she realizes that tragedy follows them all – starting with the murder of teenage Min-ju. Is her love for a boy out of time the catalyst that dooms everyone to their tragic fate or will it be strong enough to save them all?
- Series Title: A Time Called You (Korean: 너의 시간 속으로)
- Starring: Ahn Hyo-seop, Jeon Yeo-been, Kang Hoon
- Written by: Choi Hyo-bi
- Directed by: Kim Jin-won
- Network: Netflix
- Where to watch in the US: Netflix
- Year Released: 2023
- # of episodes: 12
- KafeNook Rating: 4.7 sips
A Time Called You — !! Spoilers Ahead!!
While I don’t normally binge watch kdramas, I couldn’t help myself with this one. I had so many questions that needed answers. Like – what happened one year earlier to Jun-hee’s boyfriend Yeon-jun? Who is the mystery man watching Jun-hee? Is it really Yeon-jun? If so, why is he sporting so many scars and using a cane? And why didn’t he contact Jun-hee? Who sent the picture to Jun-hee and why does she end up going back in time? Before I knew it, I became sucked into the wormhole that is A Time Called You and happy stayed there to watch this beautiful story of love, tragedy, sacrifice and hope. Add in the breathtaking cinematography (who can forget the scene of Jun-hee as Min-ju running in the rain?) and a lovely soundtrack and this drama is a winner.
A Time Called You is also filled with stellar performances starting with Jeon Yeo-been. She showcases her acting skills with her dual role as Han Jun-hee in the present and Kwan Min-jun in the past. Jun-hee is vibrant, straightforward, and personable. Min-jun is shy to the point of being unnoticed by others. Even when Min-jun pretends to be Jun-hee, it’s clear through Jeon Yeo-been’s acting that she is not really Jun-hee. Ahn Hyo-seop spends most of the drama portraying the many forms of Si-heon while effectively showing Si-heon through each of them. At the same time, his brief moment as the true Yeon-jun reflects a very different person from Si-heon in a poignantly memorable way.
The Time Travel of A Time Called You
I love a good time travel story (check out my review of The King: Eternal Monarch) – but especially one with a twist. The Korean title of A Time Called You translates to something like Into Your Time (너의 시간 속으로) which reflects how time travel works in the show. The drama uses two devices to facilitate the time travel: a cassette tape with player, and doppelgangers – people who look alike but are five years apart in age. As the time travel logic in the series goes, a person who plays the cassette tape in the player can travel either back in time or to the future and end up in their doppelganger’s body. Jun-hee is the first person in the drama to time travel, going back to 1998 to arrive Min-ju’s body. Then, in a series of well-timed revelations, other characters travel in time, upping the stakes.
Another device that appears in time travel stories is timeline integrity. Time travel stories can involve multiple timelines existing adjacent to each other (think multi-verse), self-contained timelines (the time travel is a loop where only one timeline exists with no timeline branches), or a scenario with one master/true timeline and anything else is a ripple until the master is reset. A Time Called You falls in the latter category. When Jun-hee goes back in time, the true timeline is disrupted. This creates an alternate timeline (or timelines) where Jun-hee (in the body of Min-ju) and young Si-heon meet and fall in love. From here, their love story spans decades via multiple time-travel events and host bodies. Unfortunately, it is this love story that triggers all the tragedy to come.
A Spiral of Tragedies for A Time Called You
Min-ju’s death in 1998 sits at the center of a spiral of tragedies in A Time Called You. A shortened version of the tragedy spiral goes something like this: Min-ju’s death leads to In-gyu’s imprisonment and later suicide. This leads to Si-heon ending up in Yeon-jun’s body where he makes the decision to save his friends and effectively end Yeon-jun’s life. After Yeon-jun dies in the plane crash, a crippled Si-heon helps Jun-hee go back in time which leads her to confess to Chan-yeong (Jin-Woong Min) about her time travel. This triggers him to go back to the past to try to kill Min-ju and in the present to kill Si-heon. He then breaks the tape-player making it difficult for Jun-hee to go back to the past to try to fix things. (Phew. Taking a deep breath….)
Now for the long version.
The Tragedies of Min-ju and In-gyu
Min-ju’s acute shyness, countered with her longing for acceptance, sets up her primary tragedy. In-gyu is the boy with a crush on her. His best friend, Si-heon, tries to facilitate In-gyu’s relationship with Min-ju, but this only makes Min-ju like Si-heon more. This leads to In-gyu overhearing Min-ju confess to Si-heon and then his friend rejecting her. Later, Min-ju is attacked, but it’s Jun-hee who wakes up in her body.
The first person Jun-hee sees in the past is Si-heon, her deceased boyfriend’s look-a-like. Though not attracted to Min-ju, Si-heon falls for Jun-hee’s bubbly, vivacious personality. This sets up a short-lived rivalry between the two boys. Once In-gyu realizes that the Min-ju he liked has changed, he gives Si-heon his permission to like her. Jun-hee pops back and forth between the present and past a few times, learning more about Min-ju’s attack. She tries to convince the boys that she is from the future and that Min-ju is in danger. Only Si-heon believes she is from the future and starts calling her Jun-hee.
Meanwhile, trapped in her body, Min-ju watches events unfold. This upsets her since Si-heon likes the Jun-hee version of Min-ju. Eventually, she keeps Jun-hee from taking over her body and tries to act like Jun-hee so that Si-heon will still like her. But Si-heon can tell that Min-ju is only pretending to be Jun-hee. In a sad moment for Si-heon (really – I wanted to cry for him here), Min-ju tells him that she made up Jun-hee and that he will never see her again. Min-ju, broken by Si-heon’s rejection and her inability to fit in, decides to die at Chan-hui’s hands (this is Chang-yeong inhabiting his brother’s body) so that through her murder, she will be remembered.
In-gyu learns what Min-ju plans to do by reading her lips and arrives shortly after Chan-hui refrains from killing her. He pleads with Min-ju to come away from the edge of the building, telling her how much he likes her as herself. But Min-ju doesn’t believe his words. In-gyu watches in horror as she plunges to her death. The tragedy spiral continues as In-gyu not only blames himself for her death but tells Si-heon that he is the one who killed her. This results in In-gyu going to jail for her murder.
Four years later, Si-heon is injured in a horrifying bus accident (special effects in this scene are crazy!) while he listens to the tape player. This sends him forward in time and into the body of his 5-year younger doppelganger, Koo Yeon-jun. (What? Se-heon is a time traveler too?) However, back in 2002, Si-heon is in a coma. When he comes out of the coma, he spends a long-time in rehabilitation learning to walk again – the thought of sending Jun-hee back to the past keeping him going. Several years later, he meets In-gyu outside of the prison on the day of In-gyu’s parole. The two have short-lived re-union. In-gyu’s tragedy in the increasing spiral is complete when his grandmother dies and he decides to take his own life in the same place where Min-ju died.
The Tragedy of Yeon-jun
Fast forward to 2007 where Koo Yeon-jun has a brief but powerful moment in the series. Standing on a rooftop, it’s clear that Yeon-jun has feelings for his friend, Tae-ha (in a wonderful cameo by Rowoon) but is afraid to express them. Tae-ha strongly hints he feels the same way and shows his disappointment when Yeon-jun doesn’t respond to his overture.
In the next scene, Tae-ha picks Yeon-jun up for a little road trip to Busan. On the way, Tae-ha tells his friend to get a cassette out of the glove compartment. Their hands touch. Tae-ha hesitantly removes his hand. A moment later, Yeon-jun takes Tae-ha’s hand and the two look with awe into each other eyes. Suddenly, they are hit by a truck (in yet another horrendous accident sequence) and Tae-ha dies at the scene. When Yeon-jun wakes up, his second tragedy in the spiral begins with Si-heon now in control of his body. The person who is Yeon-jun does not reappear again in the drama.
The Tragedies of Si-heon/Yeon-jun
Si-heon (from 2002), now in Yeon-jun’s body, meets up with the 27 Café owner, Min-ju’s uncle, and learns of the death of his friend In-gyu. Shaken by this news, he decides to make sure that Jun-hee will go back in time so that they can meet, fall in love, and have the chance to save Min-ju and In-gyu. Si-heon as Yeon-jun spends the next fifteen years building his relationship with Jun-hee (side note – what a fun throwback to see Jun-hee and Si-heon working at TGIF Fridays!). During this time, Yeon-jun is trapped in his body. Meanwhile, the scarred and crippled Si-heon lives twenty years of his life alone, waiting for the one-year anniversary of Yeon-jun’s death so that he can give Jun-hee the tape and player.
On the day of Yeon-jun’s death, Si-heon meets his older self at the airport who tells him not to get on the plane or Yeon-jun’s body will die. Si-heon makes the fateful decision to get on the plane, even knowing that it will kill Yeon-jun. If he doesn’t, Jun-hee will never go back in the past and Si-heon and Jun-hee won’t meet or have the chance to save his friends. In Yeon-jun’s final tragedy, his body dies in the airplane accident. Si-heon returns to his crippled body in 2002.
The Tragedies of Jun-hee/Si-heon
One-year after Yeon-jun’s death, Jun-hee struggles to get over the love of her life who she feels is still alive. She receives several mysterious gifts around her birthday – flowers, a cassette tape and player, and a picture of two boys and a girl. The girl looks surprisingly like her, while one of the boys looks like Yeon-jun. After some investigating, she determines that the boy in the picture is too old to be Yeon-jun. Sitting on a bus, she listens to the tape and is transported to 1998 in Min-ju’s body, shortly after Min-ju is assaulted.
When she wakes up again in the present, Jun-hee continues to investigate Si-heon, Min-ju and In-gyu. In the process she learns Min-ju will be murdered. She finally meets scarred and crippled Si-heon who can now reveal himself and learns he is the person who sent her the gifts. He tells her his sad tale, but also how there is hope that things can change. When he stood at the airport as Yeon-jun, he didn’t give anything to his older self, but when he stood there as his older self, Yeon-jun gave him his phone and the ring for Jun-hee. To Si-heon, this is evidence that they still have a chance to go back to the past and save everyone.
Jun-hee unwittingly tells Yeon-jun’s friend, Chan-yeong , about her time traveling and the tape player. Then in a big twist, its revealed that he is Chan-hui’s psycho younger brother. (How did I not realize this is the same actor who plays Chan-hui in 1998?) He uses the tape player to travel back to his older brother’s body in the past and hurt Min-ju. However, he is thwarted from killing her the first time when Jun-hee wakes him up. Before she can figure everything out, he knocks her out. Si-heon returns, sees Jun-hee unconscious and ends up in a fight with Chan-yeong. He seems to have the upper hand when Chan-yeong stabs him. In his final, tragic moment in the growing tragedy spiral, Si-heon slowly bleeds out on a floor, just inches from his love. (I can’t even…..)
Jun-hee has now lost Si-heon – again. In the best tear-jerker scene of the drama, she cries over Si-heon’s body in the morgue, then vows to go back in time to save him. But first, she needs the tape player Chan-yeong took. Chan-yeong uses it to go back in the past and is about to kill Min-ju when the police find him in the present. Before they take him into custody, he smashes the tape player.
After getting the tape player fixed, Jun-hee goes back in time, but her attempt to save Min-ju is thwarted when Min-ju remains in control of her body. The events play out as they did in the past with Min-ju’s death, returning Jun-hee to the present. By this point, the tape player really doesn’t work and it seems like Jun-hee will not be able to prevent all of the deaths that have occurred. The spiral of tragedies in this ill-fated timeline is now complete.
A Time Called You Ending
The ending of A Time Called You is filled with suspense, heartache and hope. Jun-hee pleads for the tape player to work one more time and – it does! (Thank the stars!) It takes her back to the moment before Min-ju falls to her death. This time, she grabs In-gyu’s hand. With this act, the tragic timeline starts to fade.
As the true timeline begins to settle, ripples from the previous timelines make their way into it. One of the first ripples happened when Si-Heon as Yeon-jun handed over his phone and the ring to his older self. A second ripple affecting the true timeline occurs when Min-ju remembers all the things that Jun-hee (in her body) told her – like how she expects more from the world than anyone which is why life has been so hard for her. This fills her with hope, and she begins to see In-gyu for the nice guy he is.
After asking In-gyu to destroy the tape and player, Jun-hee sets off with Si-heon for a day at the beach. (This must be a standard Kdrama troupe – sending the couple off for a lovely day at the beach before tragedy strikes. I don’t know if Boys Over Flowers started this trend but I’ve seen it in multiple Kdramas now including True Beauty and Heartbeat. Maybe a couple can go up to the mountains instead?) On the beach, Jun-hee and Si-heon profess their love for each other and Jun-hee makes him promise that in the restored timeline he will find her. Then they slowly disappear like petals blowing in the wind. Back in the future, Jun-hee wakes up and returns to her apartment. All the mementoes of her life with Si-heon (as Yeon-jun) begin to disappear. She asks, “Why am I still here?” then fades away.
The drama shifts to the year 2011 where a young thirty-something Si-heon is the head of a comic publishing company. (He is a creative artist after-all, but I am kind of sad he’s not doing the furniture designing and crafting that he used to.) He gets on a bus and the song from the tape starts to play on the bus speakers. In the aisle across and down from him sits mid-twenties Jun-hee who sings the words to the song. Intrigued, he watches her – then asks if she in Min-ju – someone he once knew. She leaves the bus and he follows, stopping her in the middle of a street (I guess no traffic this time of night?). The two look at each other and the final ripple from the past works it’s magic as one or maybe both of them remember the promise to find each other. True timeline restored.
Final Thoughts
Baaahhh. I’m so happy/sad at this point. Happy because everyone is saved. Sad because the love and life that Jun-hee and Si-heon once had is gone. I choose to believe that now they are reconnected, they will enjoy a new, even more beautiful life together.
My only outstanding question is about Yeon-jun and Tae-he. Yeon-jun finally gets to live his own life, but does the accident that killed Tae-ha still happen? Will the other changes to the timeline somehow change Tae-ha’s fate? I hope that they do, and that Tae-he lives on in the restored timeline.
A Time Called You is an intriguing, well-told story that is worth every moment spent watching it. I may just have to take in a second viewing soon. Or did I already in a different timeline? Hm….
A Time Called You Soundtrack
A Time Called You has a great soundtrack starting with the song, Between Love and Friendship by Hong Dae Kwang. I also like Already One Year (Lim Kim) and Never Ending Story, sung by Kim Min-seok, but my favorite song is Baek A’s Melody —when I call you then you are – will you hold me in your arms?
