This is a very touching and innovative series despite some serious flaws in the story. Whenever you are dealing a “time travel” movie or series, careful attention to detail is necessary, otherwise, when you pull one thread that doesn’t quite work, the whole thing can come apart like a house of cards. Einstein once said, “Nothing happens until something moves.” This was his reference regarding time and space, which he scientifically proved, do not exist because it’s all relative.

The series is about love, time travel, and a chilling murderer, and how all three are intertwined and what can be done about it. Of course, some suspension of disbelief is necessary, but in many cases with this series, even that isn’t enough. This is a case where the series might have worked better had it extended the story another four episodes to give the characters time to be more grounded and realistic.

A big flaw in the series is how quickly everyone accepts the time traveling component. I’d wager that if someone approached you with this explanation, you’d laugh in their face with disbelief. Even if the person seems to have “changed,” time travel would likely be the very last thing you’d accept as a plausible explanation. Something else was needed to try and convince others about time traveling being the cause of a personality change.

In 1998, Kwon Min Ju is a lonely, shy high school student who walks around, staring at the ground and never really looking at anyone. She meets Nam Si Heon and his friend, Jung In Kyu, and she seems to come to life a bit, especially when the tall, handsome Nam Si Heon is around. However, he has absolutely no interest in her.

In 2023, Han Jun Hee is suffering from the loss of her boyfriend, who has died in a plane crash. She looks like Min Ju, except that she is outgoing, vivacious, and spirited. In short, she’s full of life, whereas Min Ju is a girl suffering from extremely low self-esteem. A mysterious tape player with a tape is sent to Han Jun Hee, and upon listening to it, she finds herself transported back to 1998 and in the body of Min Ju. However, it’s Han Jun Hee’s personality, and everything she is, inhabiting the body of Min Ju, who can only sit and watch from within Jun Hee’s mind.

Like many time traveling stories, this one is about attempting to prevent the events of the past in order to change the future. On the one hand, Jun Hee is trying to find a way to get her boyfriend back. However, a cold, serial killer is on the loose, and Jun Hee is also trying to prevent the murder of Min Ju.

For the most part, the story actually works, largely due to the performances of the two leads in Jeon Yeo Been (Min Ju/Jun Hee) and Ahn Hyo Seop (Si Heon/Yeon Jun). You might feel like you need to keep a notebook handy in order to keep track of all of the time movements and who is embodying whom! Jeon Yeo Been just an exceptional job of playing the dual role, so much so that it took me an episode to realize that she was playing Min Ju and Jun Hee!

Another big problem is the character of Oh Chan Yeong, the serial killer. Now, by the end of the series, Jun Hee is able to prevent him from inhabiting his brother’s body and going to 1998 to kill Min Ju. However, Chan Yeong is still alive in 1998, and very likely, he will still become a killer, and yet nothing is mentioned about this, and it’s something that should have been addressed.

The suicidal aspect of Min Ju doesn’t entirely work either. Someone who is that determined to commit suicide, even to the point allowing someone to murder them, is someone with severe problems. Min Ju’s issue with being “too hopeful” or having “too many expectations” are laughingly bad. Her issue has to do with incredibly low self-esteem and not feeling worthy of anyone or anything. If you deal only with the symptoms rather than the cause, then you aren’t doing anyone any favors, and Jun Hee is hardly a therapist who can easily diagnose Min Ju. A person with such a low self-esteem is highly likely going to attempt suicide again, especially when something bad happens in their life.

I also didn’t think that Si Heon would so blindly accept Min Ju’s explanation about “making up Jun Hee” when the handwriting is still the most solid evidence against such a whimsical attempt to explain her.

Also, the emotional depth could have been much deeper than it was. I was disappointed in the scene when Jun Hee finds Si Heon at the morgue, having just been murdered by Chan Yeong. She lost of the love of her life, then briefly got him back only to lose him yet again. She should have been far more distraught than what we’re shown. Anyone else in that situation would have been completely devastated. Now, it’s all right for her regain her resolve to try and set things right, but in that immediate moment, I was waiting for a deeper and much more realistic reaction. I just didn’t feel it all from the usually sound performance of Jeon Yeo Been. I think that part of the problem is that there simply wasn’t great chemistry between the two leads. It was good, but not great, and you can always easily tell when chemistry exists. There are a number of youtube videos from actors/actresses who speak to this. I’ve seen Jeon Yeo Been and Ahn Hyo Seop in a couple of series now, and their acting chops in this one is very good. I was just hoping for more.


The series starts out strong, but by the end, it felt a little rushed and a bit contrived as well. It also needed more heartfelt moments which could have served the overall story even better. While this is actually a very good series, it felt like a missed opportunity to be even better. I haven’t seen the original series from Taiwan, but it made me wonder if that version filled in many of the gaps that this version left. A good series, but in the end, it also felt like a letdown, a missed opportunity.