Lovely Runner – A Gem Overshadowed by Queen of Tears

For the past few months, people have been hyping Queen of Tears more than the K-Drama’s competitor, Lovely Runner. It can’t be helped, that Queen of Tears can be streamed online on Netflix whilst Lovely Runner can be streamed online only on Viu.

It’s a given that Netflix has more subscribers than Viu since the first offers more content than the latter. Even though Lovely Runner managed to achieve its highest rating on the last episode, Queen of Tears still dominates the viewership ranking at #1, followed by Lovely Runner at #2.

In my opinion as a viewer who watches K-Drama from every aspect, I would say I prefer Lovely Runner more. I will not list down the comparison between both series as I already posted an article on Queen of Tears previously right after it ended. However, please read below my opinion on Lovely Runner – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

DISCLAIMER: This post is meant to be read by those who have watched Lovely Runner since I will be writing without minding the spoilers.

THE GOOD

Generally: The series managed to capture, indubitably, other viewers and myself as well from its first episode. From the soundtrack, the cinematography, the colourings, the plot, the natural actings, relatable scenes, the eye-candy male lead, and the list goes on. Each episode’s ending left viewers wanting more of it.

Sonagi: The shocking part is when the main actor – Byeon Woo Seok (Ryu Sun Jae), debuts as a model but sings the soundtrack of the drama himself. Marvelously, at that. The soundtrack said is called Sonagi. Directly translated, Sonagi means ‘Rain Shower’ or ‘Sudden Shower’, but being an overthinker (and a delulu) I would like to think that its meaning is also doubled as Sun-agi – ‘Sun’ being the name of the male lead, Sun Jae, and ‘Agi’ being the Korean word for ‘baby’ or an endearment term for a lover. Hence, the song Sonagi is for Sun Jae’s agi. Hehe.

Plot Transitions: What do we love? – Connected plot transitions. For instance, when Im Sol went back to the past on her second time travelling, she would arrive a few days/weeks/months after she left the past. This means the timeline is running as usual even though she kept going back and forth from the present (2023) to the past, making what happened after she time-travelled make sense i.e. why this thing changed in the present time and why that thing didn’t.

Mystery Element: Remember how time would stop if she tried to tell the past Sun Jae what would happen to them in the future? This eliminates the cliché push-and-pull dilemma of similar time-travelling genre movies/dramas which often leave viewers frustrated with the never-ending trivial dilemma. At least she had a reason why she couldn’t tell him about the future and needed to keep being creative in preventing the tragedies. It also keeps the mystery going on for us and also for Sun Jae.

THE BAD

Unanswered Mystery: Some of you might noticed that Im Sol’s grandmother who suffers from dementia in the present time seems to know everything about the time-traveling. Was it a mere coincidence? I don’t think so, because it didn’t happen once, but if I’m not mistaken, the grandmother made a shocking remark 3 to 4 times throughout the drama. She was also the reason Im Sol got her hand on Sun Jae’s digital watch in the present right on the day of Sun Jae’s death. As if shadowing the grandmother is the key to the time-traveling. A lot of theories have been made. Some people said that the grandmother might be Im Sol in the far future, and some also said that the grandmother is the first one to time-travelled to save her family and decided to pass the ability to Im Sol after watching her suffer so much. Don’t get me started on the 3 red dots theories. It is never-ending.

Third Time Travel: Everything was going SO well until episode 9 and then everything went down haphazardly. I remember I was so mad at Im Sol’s third time going back to the past. Her reason was Sun Jae wasn’t supposed to die after the second time travel. If someone should die, she was the one who was supposed to die. Girl, originally, he was the one who was supposed to be dead as well. Nothing changed there. You changed nothing except the cause of his death. Also, at that point, when she was ready to go back to the past for the third time, I’d had enough. I got tired. Like, STAHHPP! Just accept your fate.

To add on, in the third time travel, she was suddenly able to tell Sun Jae what would happen in 2023. Even though not directly, she affirmed Sun Jae’s guesses about the 2023 tragedies. I thought she couldn’t say or confirm ANYTHING about what would happen??

THE UGLY

Fourth Time Travel: In the good section, I mentioned that I like how every time she went back to the past, she would be continuing the timeline after she had left, right? How the hell did she go back to the past right before their first meeting on her fourth time travelling?

If you said it was because it was a different watch this time – NOPE. It was the same watch. Instead of having 2 different time-travel ‘machines’ she just has 2 same watches now, giving her a total of 6 chances to travel back to the past. Why did I say so? Because if it was a different watch, it would belong to the wearer – Sun Jae. If it belonged to Sun Jae, he would be the one who travelled back to the past, not Im Sol.

You might also refute that she travelled back to the past from within the past itself, that’s why. Then how did she manage to pinpoint exactly when she wanted to travel back to when she never had the ability in the first place? She decided to reset everything and make Sun Jae never meet her at all. And if she travelled from within the past itself, wasn’t she supposed to return to the middle past? But she returned to the present time which was in 2023. Got it? Make it make sense.

Anyway, at that moment, I gave up. It was exhausting to start watching the love line from the start. You do realize how long we needed to wait for them to reciprocate each other’s feelings, right? – after the 3^rd time travel. We waited for 9 episodes for their love line to develop. And they decided to reset and we need to start over (typing furiously while remembering). Alas, I still need to watch the drama until the last episode before writing this article, at the same time, hoping it will turn out well again. HA! HA! JOKES ON ME!

CONCLUSION

Before I wrote this article, I shared my view with my sisters who are also avid fans of K-Drama and they told me; “You always try to find the flaws in the drama”; “Even when people say that the K-Drama is superb, you always criticize”. I know some of you might be thinking the same thing. Why don’t I just enjoy the drama? Why don’t I just agree with the majority? Why do I always have something bad to say in my review?

The answer is that I watch to review. I review objectively. Even when people hail a drama to its glory, a drama is – realistically, almost always never perfect. The difference between a reviewer and a casual viewer is that the reviewer processes the information and writes them down whilst the latter would be able to forget everything after one’s end like a passing breeze.

A drama could be a fantasy or a supernatural genre. Alas, the consistency and connection of each plot is vital. I am not alone. There are a lot of other reviewers who would always judge a film or drama objectively and rationally despite its genre.

Of course, I could be wrong or biased. I am open to other’s opinions as well. Anyway, I ended my post this time with the rating for Lovely Runner – 7.5/10.