Mark your calendars! The next kdrama to be rewatched is “While You Were Sleeping” starring Suzy and Lee JongSuk. The screenwriter is Park HyeRyun. Here’s what @GB has to say about the drama.
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We’ve chosen to continue with Writer Park Hye Ryun who really knows how to write good dramas.
She has her plot well planned with a proper set-up. She offers the pre-figuring of important aspects so it’s great to see the elements re-emerge later to augment the story. Several of her shows offer an interesting supernatural element that is well used to move the plot and character development along. I like that she incorporates humour in the midst of tension. Builds warm relationships and compelling twists. The only thing she does not really bother to do is to make her villain(s) rounder. But we get to know their backstory.
We plan to continue immediately after ‘I Hear Your Voice’ ends. Here’s the schedule for the 16 episodes (I’m stunned that I thought we just started the year but the next 16 episodes will take us into November!!!). Much thanks in advance!!!
While You Were Sleeping (2017) by Writer Park Hye Ryun
Episode 1 – 26 July 2025
Episode 2 – 2 August 2025
Episode 3 – 9 August 2025
Episode 4 – 16 August 2025
Episode 5 – 23 August 2025
Episode 6 – 30 August 2025
Episode 7 – 6 September 2025
Episode 8 – 13 September 2025
Episode 9 – 20 September 2025
Episode 10 – 27 September 2025
Episode 11 – 4 October 2025
Episode 12 – 11 October 2025
Episode 13 – 18 October 2025
Episode 14 – 25 October 2025
Episode 15 – 1 November 2025
Episode 16 – 8 November 2025
Enjoy the show!
Thanks so much @pkml3!!!
I was so engaged with Coroner’s Diary that I forgot to come here to thank you! This show is going to be another great rewatch, with interesting points about drama making to highlight, plus lots of nice, relationship moments to mull over. 🙂
You’re welcome, @GB. I’m reposting this so you’ll see it better.
Remind me please to open more threads next week as I’ll be away in August. Thanks!
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Hi @pkml3! Great to have this thread up at the top!! Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
I’m not sure if you want to open yet another thread for the Rewatch (that’s happening today for me, tomorrow for you) as we can just use this thread for the Episode 1 Rewatch Party. The title of the thread might need to be changed though to reflect that it’s mainly for Episode 1.
Either way is fine with us. 😄😊😇
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Okay. Will just rename this thread. 👍
Thanks Pm3.
I recap the hour of rewatch, in case of newcomers : “14:00 pm GMT”.
I hope I’m not wrong, it’s what gave me a website.
Hi @WE, yes GMT is now almost 1.00pm (13:00 hours) and our Rewatch is at 2.00pm or 14:00 hours. See you in an hour’s time!!
7 minutes to go?
Hi @ibisfeather, or can we call you @ib for short? I’m glad to see you here!!! Welcome to our first thread for this new Rewatch Party.
I usually shorten our names/handles because some of us type while watching at the same time, and may not pause the show. However some of us take our time to write and read and respond. It’s up to you though, whichever way you feel comfortable.
We will start in about 9 minutes time on the hour. 🙂
Hi @ib and Everyone… the Party Starts NOW!!!
The snow that defies gravity tells us that we are likely not in real time or in the real world.
I believe that this is what is called a cold open to the show. No music or opening credits before we are being launched into the story.
Hi @GB, let’s go.
Hi @FF, glad to see you!! Yes, I’m into it already. 🙂
Hi GB and IF.
It starts with snow going back in time.
And to do a good thing with that, a flashforward.
And this flashforward create one of the biggest emotion ever seen in a drama, when we reach the end.
Viki there are opening credits or at least the animation and music?
Hi, FF.
We have a dirty FL living a piggy life. 😀
Hong Joo is shocked at herself hugging a strange man LOL.
I find it strange that she has chicken bones together with uneaten chicken in the fridge ewww! But I know why, because I rewatched.
Unusual opening, snow with two leads with blood on face and the scene re-winds. FL suddenly wakes up from a dream.
Hi MM.
Mother does a bit of “as you know” as expo “your dreams always become reality”. ahah!
LJS just come, the guy she dreamed of.
Aaaand… shit, I didn’t read the names of characters.
@MM you did have opening credits? I didn’t.
LOL poor Lee Jong Suk is going to smile sweetly into a camera and get rejected.
I had not noticed the reverse snow. Yes indicative of fantasy, in this case a dream.
Hi @WE@MM, the guy in her dream appeared knocking at her door. He did not know that she dreamt of him before they even met!
Hi @WE, we always get flashbacks but this show gives us flash forwards!!
So we get to be prophets with Hong Joo (and others).
I am not sure she stays true to being the type to not throw herself at a man.
@MM, Yes I notice that snow in this show seems to signal something ‘not right’ to put it mildly.
First time I enjoyed Suzy in a drama.
@GB yes opening animation and music
We have now a concrete case about “her dreams always become true”. It’s an absolute fatality! No way to change what will happens!!
Now we wait for the guy to die by combution…
@FF, that makes this Meet-cute so cute… they did not get to see each other face-to-face until at the bus-stop but already they’d met over the intercom and she was so rude although he’d smiled so sweetly. But that’s because she’d already met him in her dream!!!
So to him the meet-cute was later.
After this we get the meet-cute with the office secretary, Hyang Mi… another ‘disaster’ LOL.
@FF, yes me too…. I usually don’t care for Suzy.
In a spectacular way. BOOOM!!! The whole station explodes. and…
TITLE !
We have the main problem of this girl now. Drama begins.
@WE, Writer-nim poses the question…. are we obliged to warn people when we know in advance what will happen to them. To what extent can we be responsible since as HJ says it’s their choice and life.
Then ominously it starts to snow.
Prosecutor Lee. An actor we all love. Can play good guys or bad guys. Good guy in Eve or Jang Ok Jung. But bad guy here!!
Her thoughts at the busstop about how conceit leads to embarrassment are borne out when she says she is not interested in him.
@WE we get the voiceover too so that we hear what HJ thinks and how fatalistic she is, with good reason.
Yes now we get the title and now we meet the 3 secretaries who start by admiring the handsome Jung Jae Chan. But bad Lee Yoo Beom starts to throw shade on JC once he starts talking to the girls.
She feels that she cannot change the future despite, having advance knowledge.
@GB, oh I find LJS so cute in this drama. Haha Hyang Mi and gang saw him taking selfie.
Me too. Suzy is not a favourite.
@WE, Yes Lee Sang Yeob can play a slimey villain well.
JC looks like a buffoon taking photos of himself. YB already makes him sound dumb so he does not even get the cake that Hyang Mi had bought. LOL
This is the other meet-cute.
Lee Sang Yeob is a serial killer in Signal.
@FF JC made a fool of himself and it took a long time before anyone took him seriously. Such a bad first impression.
I can’t stand the way Lee YB crumples up bits of paper and leaves a mess on any table.
Hong Joo writes with a fountain pen! She keeps a log of her dreams.
Oh gosh. I was drawn in a flashback and didn’t realize. The death of the guy at the station. So it’s why she cut her hair, because of a dream of her mother dying when she has long hair.
She’s really bad at hair cutting and look like hell after.
We now see an upsetting dream of the future. HJ’s mum is going to die and somehow it’s HJ’s fault!!!
Her mum is very sharp… at one glance she can tell HJ has been crying.
@FF That is right! now that you remind me.
@GB, Lee YB is a love/hate character here. Hong Joo snips her hair after watching the news about the explosion at the petrol kiosk but she actually looks good in messy hair.
@WE, yes, I was about to say the same thing about her hair… as if cutting it could prevent the future. At least it won’t happen while her hair is short and badly styled LOL.
The 3 meets near the car.
We don’t know it yet, but we are in a dream. 😉
Familiar office characters
@FF she looks okay in short hair. I think I mostly see her in long hair.
I wonder what happened to @ibisfeather. She wanted to join us today.
Chae Chan caught by YB taking selfie again.
I really enjoyed the investigator character actor in this drama
@WE, the whole 2nd half of this episode is a very, very looooong dream. But we don’t know who is dreaming.
There is misdirection all around.
@ibisfeather is probably caught in unexpected events.
The young Chae Chan is good looking, he acted in Goblin too I think.
@MM yes there are some shows where I don’t like the characters Kim Won Hae plays, but in this one, I like him very much.
@FF, Yes Nam Da Reum is very handsome from so young already. He did act in Goblin.
Why does YB throw the bouquet of flowers on the floor?
The enorous guilt she carries is highlighted when she sees the news report of the gas station explosion.
@GB, a long coma is for sure a good reason to get long hair. LOL!
@FF, poor flowers, they are just discarded too easily. I try to save all flowers if I can!
Misdirection. We are worried for mum who looks to be stalked.
With a both eerie and dreamful music, she wakes up.
My goal today like all the days we do a rewatch is to not fall too far behind.
@WE are you watching at double speed? How come you’re at the end already?
I’m just at the accident.
Not only the guilt but the fear her dream about her mother will come true
@MM, I think @WE has skipped very far ahead!!!
Is this episode very short? Only 33 minutes long?
@GB, nope, I’m middle, when she learns her mother is dead.
I don’t think hair can grow so long in 10 months. 1 month hair grows about 1 -2 cm.
+ another guy was dead in the accident (quite important)
@MM the set up is good. We see that she cannot divert the course of events that she predicts in her dreams, which means she can’t stop her mum from dying.
If you don’t have a white truck, just make someone fall in the stairs. Agh. -_-
@MM, take your time don’t worry about catching up. We will still read you.
@WE the guy who died is the one who followed her mum home and returned the phone to her. So he should have died according to this dream.
Hong Joo would like it’s a dream…
+ INJUSTICE, accused of the accident.
FLASH a middle, because at this time, kdramas had 30 minutes episodes.
I do wonder how others watch. I have tried watching ahead which has its drawbacks. I FF and miss the detail. I cannot figure out how to watch on doubl speed on Viki!
I am now at 20 minutes and we are 36 min into the drama as a grouo, having started at10.
Or I waste time with posts like this when I can be watching.
@WE, I’m confused by the length of the episode I have. I’ve to get another source for this episode so that it does not end at 33 minutes.
so we see YB is a vile liar who frames HJ.
@MM I rewatched this morning so now I’m only glancing at the show while reading comments and responding. If I have time I make notes but I don’t really have time to go back to my notes now.
@MM, I also fall behind a little when I post comments. Sometimes I pause the drama when commenting but sometimes I don’t.
@WE, such a long, sad interlude in a show that began quite light and funny. At this stage a first-time viewer won’t know if this is a dream or not. It is so detailed and so long…
The scene when she falls off the roof is epic.
Kind of awesome scene any writer’s dreamin’ to write.
With the right slow motion !!!
@GB more irony I will take care of you and your mother just before he sets her up as the driver of the accident.
So now we know Chae Chan dreams too.
@WE Is this his dream then?
@WE, I liked the way the fall was shot. The way the hair and clothes moved when she fell backward.
Now we find out that it’s JC’s dream. It was given to him because he’s needed to save a few lives.
@GB, yeah, and to be sure we can’t guess it’s a dream, there are also flashbacks during this time.
Some months ago I made an analys of the structure of last scenes, and how we get the awesome moment at the end, and there are lot of flashbacks, very complicated montage to get the effect.
@FF so now we wonder what is it about these 2 people that they have the same dream of the future tragedy.
@WE, she fell from the roof with Chae Chan touching her hand but failing to grap her.
@MM yes, YB is such a louse.
He can sweet talk and lie with a sweet expression on his face.
And not just flashbacks, the way the characters move in the place, because at the end we needs her walking toward him, and it’s complicated after this accident.
@FF, later on JC tries to warn HJ but she gives him the same treatment that the guy who got burnt when he lit a cigarette gave her. What irony.
Now we enter into the reality of 14 Feb. It starts playing out exactly as in the dream.
Snow is ominous.
Remember the snow at the start? Playing now an important role, because it was not supposed to snow. 🙂
This is a good first episode. So much is told and barely any of it in words.
Flashback to a dream in another dream!
@WE, yes, there’s foreshadowing with the snow in this episode. It keeps snowing when it isn’t supposed to snow.
So now we see the reality is Han Woo Tak looking for HJ’s mum to give her the phone while YB drives off with HJ. JC sees that she had told the truth in his dream.
@MM, in my list of best first episode ever.
@MM, we get so much backstory and flashbacks so we know a lot about JC and YB’s relationship.
50:20, it’s now when it’s complicated. Accident changed, LJS caused it to avoid a bigger one.
@WE, yes, some things change and some stay the same as the dream. There had to be an accident but there didn’t have to be the death.
@WE and then we get a flashback of the accident within this scene to know what JC did.
Yeah, it’s only now we get the result of the moto accident, when Lee betrays LJS. (hum JC)
YB is bad since young.
So, the tension for the final emotion grows as she her JC words.
@FF YB is so crooked himself that the first thing he suspects is that JC hit his car on purpose to get money for accident fraud.
We hear his warped reasoning as a teenager that they should tell the story that’s the most believable when it’s a lie. He gets out of trouble by framing JC before. He also abandons the younger boy to face the music by himself.
And NOW, a shot of the snow.
Super-music.
JC voice-over “no one could believe me”.
The setting is ready for the walk and hug.
OOOhhh SHiiiiiitttt !!!!!!!!!!
She says, in his dream. how nice it would be if this is his dream.
@GB, YB is evil so he thinks that other are evil like him too.
Now we rewatch the first scene of the episode again.
He asks what dream is this vivid. So this is the first time he has a premonition dream?
“I believe in you, because it’s me”. 🙂
@WE, HJ finally listens properly to JC’s words and realises that he’s speaking as if he knew all the future in detail just like she did.
JC’s thoughts are in voiceover, but it’s as if she heard him because she walks towards him to tell him that she believes him, because it’s her ie because she has been in the same position and no one believed her.
What’s the genre? asks the brother. She dies.
@MM, yes, JC only started getting these dreams after he met HJ.
@MM haha the brother calls the dream a thriller.
@WE such an epic ending because we began with a cold open to this scene. Yes I like the music. It swells to add stress to the end where they both believe.
@MM I really like the brother, Seung Won. He’s such a sweetie but JC keeps roughing him up.
So he dreamed it even before he met her at the busstop! So well done writernim.
@GB, to be honest, I don’t like the ending song and couldn’t listen to it on my mp3, BUT, it’s effective in the drama, so I’m ok.
What’s awesome in the episode is several steps, many steps. But the most awesome is how it link the start to the end and produce a BLAST of emotion !!
@MM yes, he dreamed it first so he could verify with her if she knew LYB. Since she did, the dream was likely to come true. However it was not supposed to snow that day, while it snowed in the dream.
He warns her just as she warned the smoker. She asks te driver if it will snow and then dismisses his warning on the basis he is a stalker.
@WE, Writer-nim would have written everything out in sequence first and then plucked out the ending to place at the start. But the many flashbacks within the dream and flash forwards are amazing.
@GB, Yep, in short: she have the events of the episode, then wonders: how I do it so I get the maximum impact? Then comes the enginnering of screenwriting and structure.
Let’s stop being so mindful and just go he says to his brother outside the restaurant. I as ondering hy he was thinkinghis dream could be real but I guess he is the conscientious.
So it is the snow that further convinces him.
There is n way he could have jusdgedd the force of the crash and the possibility of injury but this is fantasy
I am not familiar with the engineering of screenwriting but I am drawn to
the drama because of the way the story unfolds. I like the music too, if @SD is here she will be picking up the music parts.
@MM I thought that he should have turned the car more at impact. He should also have been quite badly injured.
@MM, snow has a critical role in this episode.
We end with their dreams intersecting. No need to get to learn about each other by dating. Not quite at the kissing stage though!
@FF, mostly have ideas on top of previous ones, enhances the best scenes, and wonder what could be the best scene order. Makes sure transitions are perfects. And in case of best ones like writer Park, guess how to create the biggest emotion out of this.
@MM, it’s insane, not even a kiss but the bond is already 200x stronger.
Ah. I’ve to go now. Wish you all a good week.
Bye @WE! See you next week.
My anticipation is high for this series rewatch!
I remember enough about the outline of the series and can pay attention to more detail..I will try to rewatch each episode beforehand and control my compulsion to keep watching future episodes because that becomes too confusing to me. There seems to be a sweet spot where I am familiar enough with the drama but do not remember too much.
@MM, I’m ‘blest’ with a short memory LOL. I remember some things and forget a lot of other details, hence my rewatches are almost without spoilers!!!
I do 1 rewatch early on and then another one close to the party time so that I hardly have to watch the episode at all. The party, to me, is to read and reply to our comments, with the show going on, on the side.
HI everyone — I must have done something wrong on my end, but your comments did not show up until i closed the website and reopened it two hours later.
I did rewatch after a bit and am reading yr comments.
now
Try again next week. Probably bec I had the site open on phone and laptop at the same time for no good reason.
Hi @ibisfeather, if you keep refreshing the site, the new comments will keep showing up.
I had to do that the time I had no computer and only used my phone. Or with the laptop you can have the show playing one one side and the blog or emails open on the other side concurrently. Just keep refreshing to see the new comments.
@GB I rewatched about the first six or eight episodes a few weeks ago. So today’s episode was familiar And with everyone’s input I was in awe of the way it was structured which I had not really noticed a few weeks ago.
@GB I can identify with your Thought about being blessed with a short memory.
Sometimes I wish time would pass faster(not really) so I could rewatch a drama I particularly enjoyed and have it be fresh.
@ibisfeather
I watch on my computer At my desk so I can have my tablet in front of me for making comments.
I have my phone open so I can hear if notifications come in. That did not work quite right toDay And sometimes the notifications are slow or repeated.
So whenever I post and the website refreshes I check for new posts.
Hence GB and I Made the same comment today without realizing it Or at least
I did not realize it initially.
@FF Yes sometimes I stop sometimes I don’t when I comment. Being fluent in korean would certainly help!
Ok. Read thru the conversation, had to check back even tho I did the rewatch, so I think I will follow the GB/MM path.
I must have been in a daze when I first watched this. IT is so complicated my brain is breaking..
Here is my question. Her dreams must come true in the details but she may misunderstand them? She dreams of the aftermath of accident #2 (Jaechan in the snow) and then, subsequently of herself in the hospital after accident #1 (reading her mom’s will).
#1 reality stream.
She dreams her mom has died and she has long hair.
She cuts her hair. Busstop scene #1, date scene #1 where JaeChan is accidentally present, accident #1, coma for a year. Her dream about her mom dying comes true.
JaeChan dreams about interrogating her for the trial, etc. The dream follows naturally after the awakening in the hospital. But when did he have it?
At that point (JaeChan’s dream) JaeChan must not have previously started to try to change events. However, restarting at the bustop scene #2 we are in the reality stream #2. So as MM said, JaeChan dreamed it the night after he moved in? Later he tells his brother he had met Yu Beom recently so is there some intervening time which is not just manufactured in our heads?
For a first watch I never get hung up in this stuff, happily floating/wallowing along in happy innocence and trust that somebody in the drama will explain it, either well or poorly…. The text(plot/dialogue)is part of the texture of sight and sound — if it all works well together my brain doesnt separate it out until after ‘the party is over’.
@ib, yes @MM is correct.
Dream of Hong Joo likely on 11th Feb: she hugs a strange man.
On the morning of 12th Feb she sees that he’s her neighbour and disses him rudely, much to his resentment. Then she thinks he’s trying to be funny when he sits close to her at the bus stop. He recognises her voice as that of the rude girl on the intercom.
Dream of Hong Joo on 12th Feb: her mum dies and HJ is in hospital.
On the morning of 13th Feb HJ cuts her hair in tears. Mum believes in HJ’s dream…. she writes her ‘will’. The calendar on the wall tells us it is the 13th Feb.
Dream of Jae Chan on night of 13th Feb: JC dreams the same dream that HJ had dreamt the previous night. He sees that Woo Tak dies in the accident, that he did not believe HJ when he questioned her in hospital, and that HJ dies.
Reality: On the morning of Valentine’s Day, 14th Feb JC tells Seung Won about his dream. He sees HJ at the bus stop and finds out that she knows Yoo Beom. She ignores his warnings (he’s a stalker and weirdo who is obsessed with her!!) and runs off in a cab.
JC picks up his new car in the evening, waits for his brother near a restaurant, and finds out that of all people HJ is dating Yoo Beom. Remembering his dream, he tries to prevent their date but fails. He waits in the car for them to exit the restaurant. It starts to snow.
It is not supposed to snow, but the roads get slippery. He sees that HJ passes the car key to YB… ie that she had told the truth in his dream but he had not believed her. JC chooses to ram his brand new car into HJ’s mum’s car to prevent Woo Tak from being killed.
HJ hears his reasons for causing the accident, she sees Woo Tak standing stunned where he would have been killed by YB. What JC says sounds like what she’d been trying to tell would-be victims in her dreams. She believes him, and more than that, she’s grateful that he has ‘saved’ her mother’s life, Woo Tak’s and her own.
But on top of that, his ability to redirect the ending of her dream now gives her hope that she (or they) can change the tragic endings that she sees in her dreams. I don’t think at this stage that she is certain yet that he’s getting the same dreams but she is guessing he is. She hugs him.
So now it’s her turn to ‘stalk’ him and look weird. But she passes it off as him being crazy in love with her!!!
Oh GB thanks! I see now that I didnt realize that the first time we see the valentines day date it is in jaechan’s dream, so it hasnt happened in RL just in the dreamtime.