The thread is open.
According to GB, this 2013 kdrama may be viewed on these sites:
It looked like Disney+, Apple TV, Tubi (may need VPN), Amazon Prime (also regionally restricted), Reelgood with Roku Channel… may have it. I have limited access myself but I go to Dramanice. I cannot get into all those sites to really check if I can stream, since I’m outside the region and without a VPN, but those with a subscription could check.
The title is a bit confusing but I’m assuming that it means that time traveling will occur not once, not twice, but nine times. Then, within those nine transits through time, the protagonist(s) must accomplish certain missions to change the future. The screenwriter is Song JaeJung who also wrote “Queen & I”, “W”, “Memories of the Alhambra” and — interestingly enough — “Yumi’s Cells.” With “Yumi’s Cells”, she probably re-wrote and adapted the original cartoon for the tv series.
There are 20 episodes.
If you’re a lurker on the blog and would like to join @GB, @WEnchanteur, @feifei, @salteddust, and @monmor on these rewatches, please comment BEFORE Saturday so I can let you in.
I’m usually out and about on Saturdays and don’t monitor the incoming new posters.
Enjoy the rewatch!
Thanks so much @pkml3!! You’ve got us all set up nice and early. Yes, we welcome anyone who’d like to join in. Just post a comment here asap! 🙂
@pm3, the truth is you can cheat a bit, if you use half an incense stick.
So a bit more than 9 travels. 🙂
While rewatching before rewatching, I understood why the beginning is slow during 3-4 episodes: it really needs to set-up the sentimental relationship first, and a few other things.
I may not be able to join you tomorrow for the first episode. I will watch the show when I have time. And read your comments so I can be ready for next week. I am hoping I can make it but there’s good chance I won’t.
@Pm3
Please include me…am planning to join in or lurk on most of these episodes time permitting. Thx🤗
Hi @LL, not to worry. @pkml3 was only addressing those who have not ‘shown themselves’ ie those who only lurked and whose handles we do not know. They will be auto blocked if @pkml3 does not give the go ahead for them to join the blog in advance.
I hope to see you in 15+ hours time!!!
Hi Everyone, I’m here!! 15 minutes and counting.
Hi @GB, I am here!
Here and ready for the insane incense sticks story.
Hi GB, Hi SD.
Hi @GB, @SD, @WE.
HI FF !
Hi @WE and @FF!
3 min late now.
Time to go. GOO GOOOOO GOOOO !!!!
Show starts with the snowy mountains, man should not climb mountains alone. This man must be insane, or he is on a mission.
Very first scene is mountains (aerial view)
Then, the brother lost in the snow.
The actor is the FL father in Perfect Revenge Mariage. 😉
Good morning, all! Along for the drama ride today.
Here a mystery for the looooong run:
Someone walk close to him.
We won’t hear about that at least the next 16 episodes, maybe more.
Hi LL.
ML in the plane with a dizzyness not ordinary.
First, this first scene and indeed everything I have watched so far has such an old feel, like a much earlier drama. I am not sure if it is the location or the music or what. Second, I had forgotten the extra viewer, who is it (I assumed it was a man, and was going to write that, but we do not know!). Not only is the man climbing whom we later find out is the brother, foolish (high altitude, alone, ill-equipped), but someone leaves him there….
Can’t you believe it?
A kiss in < 5 minutes of the drama beginning. 😀
The mysterious 6 months mariage proposition to a girl he rejected during 5 years.
Somehow, she found a way to kiss him in the past. And she doesn’t call him by his name (NF bad translation) but by SUNBAE.
It is a lovely kiss though. One of greeting and love. The ML here was the handsome SL and spy in Spy Myungwol, one of the first kdramas I watched and still a beloved, go-to for me.
The drama is from 2013, but at this time, hair and fashion in SK looks like 70′-80′ of western world. ^^
The policeman here is the W’s prosecutor. 😉
The male lead proposed a marriage but not to register their marriage. We later know that he is terminally ill but I think it is wrong to suggest this to the girl he likes and not tell her his medical condition. I get the feeling that his excuse is he is trying to fulfil the girl’s wish, but I thought he is fulfilling his own wish so that he does not regret later.
@WE, the kiss scene does not evoke emotions.
Here he touchs his mouth. It’s a bit too apparent. But ofc, it will be useful later as a quick link to identify the younger version of himself.
@FF, yep. At this point of the story, he’s still not aware how he loves her.
@WE Yes, kiss surprised FL as much as we were. First 10 or 12 minutes and we have a proposal, a visit to police station, a previous meeting of two brothers in coffee shop and all that ensues …quite a busy Kdrama opening. I don’t remember from first watching that ML threw up after looking at family photo at coffe shop.
As he’s not really sad, we understand there was something wrong with his brother…
The brothers met up in the cafe but is the elder brother wearing the same parka as the one that he wore in the climb at the mountain?
@LL, first watching ep 1 – 4 were looking so slow for me. Even if some stuff happens.
But we are a bit blind where it goes and why we see that.
I like the opening dialogue between the two leads much more the second time through.
As we know it’s about a time travel story, what say the brother rings immediately like “I’ll find the way to travel back in time”.
+ what he said is repeated in a voice over. ^^
Started…. where are you at? I’m still at the beginning.
The FL is the actress in Parasite. How different she looks.
He’s quite rude with her. Now, or further scenes. It’s one of the most masochistic drama from SJJ. But MOTA too, the ML make suffer the girl a lot. 🙂
GB, we are at 24:30
@GB, we are at about 27 min.
@FF, woo! Impossible to recognize her.
I need to take a look at parasite now.
I kind of like the normality of this opening scene (except the location and the second person on the high Himalayan plateau). I was trying to think back on other bits of dialogue in the other dramas of SJJs that we had watched and realized she does do dialogue well even though it is not always what we have focused on in these conversations. I am thinking of the meet-cute in Memories of the Alhambra and the interplay between HJ and SK in Queen In Hyuns Man.
The colleagues have no shame. Always looking for love affair of other people.
My video playing app does not do well with this show. I’ll be back!
@WE, yes I find the ML so rude to the FL. In MOTA the ML is curt and egoistic, but I don’t find him rude. This male lead irritates me on rewatch, I remember finding him good looking and charming when I first watch the drama in 2013.
@SD, we can expect someone how worked on 800 x 30 minutes of sitcom episodes in her life to do some nice dialogues! 😀
Heheheh! Yes he’s soooo rude after asking her to get married just for 6 or 3 months.
Noisy, nosy colleagues are the worst!
First incident. The incense stick.
But put horizontaly, so it won’t burn in one go.
How convenient, hahahaha.
@SD, this OTP …it starts to become clear that he treats her somewhere in between as an older brother and as a lover… they’ve known each other for so long that the meet cute is both overly familiar and strange.
@FF, Yes he’s too much like a teasing older brother rather than a boyfriend… and very rude.
@GB, it’s quite relatable, without caring anything people say. Once you fall in love with someone, you meet situation like that, the guy (or the girl) you want is rude, you suffer but still continue to be in love no matters what.
He woke up with snow on his face! He did not realise yet that he had time travelled. Flash back again.
@FF He thought he was hallucinating or that his brain tumour was playing up.
Now we meet this old dude, eternal villain in countless historical dramas, or not historical ones by the way. ahah.
@WE, I remember really hating this villain. This actor is stuck in my mind as one of the most tiresome villains ever.
SJJ use the name “Muyngse” for the hospital. I think it’s a fictive name. She uses the same in W. I never found this hospital in Seoul. I don’t know if it really exist. I have doubt because in W, we see the building, and when I was looking at real images of hospital, the hospital had a different name.
To do it more meta: in the W webtoon, the hospital has another fake name.
@WE, does SJJ routinely use the same actors? It seems like we see so many of the same actors in her dramas. Thanks for the heads up on the policeman. I only thought I had seen him in another similar role, but had not yet bothered to look him up.
@WE, @GB, this old man leaves an impression on me because he always purses his lips unnecessarily.
@SD, there are some examples. Like, the ML of 9 is a main role in “three musketers”. Else, not so much.
The little laugh of the villain, straitgh out of an historical. Gnoo gnoo gnoo.
@FF, yes I noticed that pursing of lips too. I find it irritating.
Ah anchor suddenly adds more questions on air that no one has in their notes. He happily puts the old guy in a bad position on live TV.
I found the cafe scene really confusing the first time and now in the rewatch. Why does the brother leave? It still does not make sense to me. I don’t know if we ever find out (I am only a few episodes ahead in my first watch), or if it is left unresolved. I can provide a reason (he is crazily anxious to get back to his time travel), but it does not yet seem sufficient to me.
Also in later episodes the older brother does not actually seem that happy. So how is it a better time? Mysteries for the future.
@SD, the older brother’s behaviour always bothered me too. He should have stayed on to at least spend time with his younger brother but he cut and ran after getting the money. My only guess is that he didn’t want to have to answer questions yet. He didn’t want to reveal what he was doing or to give his brother false hope.
@SD, Minister Min An is acting as the ML’s superior at work.
Ofc, he doesn’t answer her question.
How paaaaaaainfuuuuuulll !!! 😀
His friend Young Hoon is the actor in MOTA as well.
@WE, @GB, villain blindsided by tv interview where ML accuses him of crimes of egg harvesting and unauthorized test on elderly. Resignation of ML follows. Contrast of mood, demeanor of ML to that of beginning of episode is extreme.
@GB, I find the elder brother weird too. He probably does not want to answer questions, or he thinks that no one could understand his thoughts and actions.
@LL true… such a change in behaviour and attitude at the end of the episode.
The TV station boss is one of the best I’ve come across. To think he was the hateful villain in ‘Queen and I’ LOL.
@FF, how could you say to someone :
“hey, I’ll travel back in time, thanks to incense sticks”. ahah.
@GB, I’m using the actor as a good people in my W2. He’s “doctor Choi”. 🙂
Did I see Park Hyung Shik at the end of the episode?
We get another split screen conversation. Min Young is getting suspicious about the time limit he’s setting for their dating or marriage. She finds out that the break-up is supposed to be imminent. Poor kid. She’s many years younger than Sun Woo.
Yup @FF, we get to see the young Park Hyun Shik. He’s Sun Woo as a teen.
@WE but the brother did leave a clue to the ML. He said he wants to go back in time to the time when they were a happy family. But the ML didn’t get what the brother meant.
@GB, at least he is honest when the FL question him about setting the time limits. He tells her that breakup is painful.
The time went by so fast! Didn’t feel like 45 minutes or an hour. SJJ gives such a good build up to the mystery of the incense stick, while also giving the foundation for the OTP… one of the reasons for the decisions that Sun Woo makes in the future episodes.
I find that first time travel confusing in retrospect. So far, in the episodes I am at ahead, he travels in time to the very same place, but in 1992. Here he seems to travel in space (as well as in time, we do not know) since he ends up much higher in the Himalayas, not in the ‘paradise’, but where there is snow and blizzards.
@FF, it’s true that SW didn’t lie and that he’s maybe truthful to a fault and sounds so rude as a result. Also it’s like she’s his little sister who’s been bugging him for something (to date her) and he’s just giving in to her demands. It’s all so strange and unromantic at this stage.
@SD, yes, the first time he time traveled it’s not clear that he is in the same location but 20 years earlier. Perhaps it was the same location without the town being built up all around it yet? He was in an open space with just snow.
@SD, yes. I never thinking about that, but now it is.
The “space” rule doesn’t apply here, for a weird reason.
– can be a plot hole for the sake of doing a better scene (in blizzard)
– can be a “linking-time”, the first time the stick is used, it’s linked to previous location.
@GB, oh yes, just that. Maybe this town wasn’t build 20 years ago.
By the way, later, the refuge where he wan’t to go doesn’t exist anymore (it’s under the snow in present time).
@GB, you are so right! They don’t behave like lovers. They seem more like brother and sister, that is why I find the kiss at the beginning so uncomfortable.
@WE yes, I watched the later episode where he goes to retrieve the 9 incense sticks in a place that no longer is there. That was an amazing idea of his…to go and retrieve it in just the 10 remaining minutes of the incense stick he had.
One of the benefits of a rewatch, especially a thinking rewatch is you notice the subtleties. I realized this time that the expressions on the ML just before the broadcast are not grief, but a type of rage. I thought he was upset at recalling his brother on the first watch. Also I had forgotten how good an actor the ML is.
@FF, Their relationship changes soon though… when girl finds out that he’s dying and when he tells her that he likes her being silly (and a bit dumb).
I got to, see you all next week!
@SD, I do wonder why Lee Jin Wook does not appear as much in dramas that I watch. Saw him in Bulgasal but I was not impressed there.
Time to go. Have a good week everybody!
Bye everyone! Thanks for the party and see you!
The ring tone music that @WE hates! I noticed the first watch too. 🙂
@SD, which minute do we hear the ring tone?
@GB, the ring tone is on the ML’s bosses phone. Right at the beginning of the conversation about the resignation. The boss takes the phone apart to stop the ringing (maybe the tone bothers him too, ha ha).
It’s interesting that in this drama as well as QIHM, phones and similar technology (the pager, the TV interview set up) are so important. Here it is not the time travel device (or at least not so far in my initial watch), but it is pervasive. I can see why SJJ is so interested in it — this ability to connect across time (saved messages) and space — from high in the Himalayas! When you think more deeply it is a fascinating concept. I am wondering now if other writing (science fiction stories) play with that concept; uniting across time and space…
@SD, I don’t see what you are talking about.
I never said I hate a ringtone in 9 ???!!
@WE I believe it is the same old-fashioned music used for the ringtone of HJ’s phone. see minute 43:15 ish of 9
I enjoyed reading the comments above even if I have not watched the first episode yet. I remember the villain being really, really good. And the scenes that come most easily to mind are those that he was in. I remember thinking the romance wasn’t very much. And I remember the connection between the male lead and his younger self. Because that seemed to defy some of my preconceived notions of time travel rules.
I agree with the above poster that the male lead is very attractive. I also first noticed him in “Spy Myungwol.” I had some second lead syndrome despite Eric being my first k drama love.
Ah, @MM, you and I were on the same page with respect to Spy Myungwol!
@SD. Oh I see know. But you are mistaken.
In QIHM, I was joking about a background music (joseon style), not a ringtone! 😉