Lovely Runner

Let me just say...

I'll be honest, I think the reason people love this show is because of Byeon Woo-Seok's portrayal of Sun-jae. The fact that he's very attractive, tall, and is generally likeable makes this show nice to watch, lol. The love story itself is interesting, but there's a few things I think the show did a poor job at.
1. I WISH that we got a richer back story on all the characters
2. I wish more things tied the ML and FL together besides the FL's ability to go back in time. Maybe if they had known each other since childhood rather than high school? Idk. I just feel like the relationship itself sort of lacked depth.
3. It would have been nice if the themes of class or poverty or something substantial were highlighted. Casting such attractive characters is great but I wish the producers/writers also put more thought into adding more complexity to this plot.
4. The person who was trying to hurt Im Sol -- wish we had background on him? Like if the reason he wanted to hurt was for revenge idk I just feel like it was a weird plot twist that made no sense to me. I wanted MORE! 😭

I like the relationship between the leads, I think the love story itself is nice, Sun-jae is a good bf, etc etc. But I just wanted more. There's 1000s of romantic storylines, but very few are able to have substance and unfortunately, as adorable the couple is, thats kind of the extent of what makes this show memorable. Their on-screen chemistry made me want to continue watching and it got me hooked on the show for a bit, but that's about it sadly.
Great songs though, 10/10.

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Typical kdrama with a typical story

I don’t know which lovely runner everyone else is watching because the one I am watching is just a mid and typical kdrama story. I don’t understand what was soo good about the show !!
First episode showed a lot of potential which went down the drain just after a few episodes because there was nothing much to look forward to..
Time travel become a game( try try again) and sun jae died soo many times it wasn’t even serious anymore 😭 made me laugh the third time he died and that scene was in slow motion like wtf. Totally killed the serious vibe.
The female lead got on my last nerves, she was soo annoying ( forced attempt to be cute). Not to mention her dumb explanations, she was in her 30s and time traveled to her 18 year old self but acted like 15 year old. Soo much could’ve been done with the time travel plot but we got soo little. And the character development was nil.

Kdramas at this point have become soo repetitive with the same plots and storylines. Its hard to keep watching after few episodes. And the story gets too predictable just as with lovely runner.

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Overrated for sure

I didn't know until now that the writer of True Beauty also wrote this drama. It suddenly made sense why there were so many similarities, even down to the sequence of certain events. The love triangle, the "bad boy" second male lead, the male lead constantly saving the female lead it all felt very familiar. My point is the overall vibe is very similar

The comedy was another major letdown. Some scenes were so cheap that I genuinely couldn't understand how they were supposed to be funny. The scene where the male lead doesn't hold the bathroom door, leaving a guy exposed in front of everyone, or the female lead's friend pooping her pants... seriously? Instead of making me laugh, they just made me cringe. I don't understand why supporting characters have to be humiliated for comedy.

The female lead was probably my biggest issue with the drama. She spent most of the series confused, making frustratingly dumb decisions that created problems out of nowhere. There were several moments where I stopped rooting for her altogether and just wanted the male lead to run away. She also behaved less like a fan and more like she was already his girlfriend from the very beginning. What fan acts like that?

The male lead started off as the drama's strongest character. He was attractive, driven, and had goals beyond romance. Unfortunately, as the story progressed, it felt like his entire personality became "being in love with the female lead." Once that happened, he lost much of what made him interesting.

The drama completely lost me after Episode 9. The constant time travel became repetitive, and watching the male lead die over and over again stopped being emotional—it was just exhausting. Instead of raising the stakes, the story kept repeating itself until it became predictable and boring.

The soundtrack was genuinely excellent, and the chemistry between the leads had plenty of sweet moments. Those were the main reasons I kept watching. But even the romance eventually crossed the line from cute to overly cheesy.

In the end, nothing about the story surprised me. Every twist felt predictable, and despite all the praise this drama receives, I never understood the hype.

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if you don't want some draggy confusing drama plot with cliché leads, don't watch

the ost and acting for this drama is actually a banger. all of these actors really doing great with their characters. but im so sad the plot didn't doing great

i think there's just too much unnecessary plot. there's a lot of plot hole where watchers didn't get much proper explanation of the story. like when im sol jumping from one to another timeline, there must be some explanation where im sol got every memories from each timeline. when im sol time traveling for the last time, why suddenly im sol traveling using sunjae's watch instead of the one in her hand, and why she can traveling in traveling time mode(?) when she's not even ended her time travel era first before traveling again??? and it seems like there's no end to her last traveling era? is she living in the past?? and by calculation im sol's soul's age must be around 47 years old by the time she met sunjae again?? isn't it weird?? idk there's just too much weird things and didn't make sense even if you called this fantasy genre.

and there's scenes where it repeated heavily, draggy, and the female lead character getting more annoying as the time goes by (no hate to kim hyeyoon. ik she's just doing amazing acting, im criticizing the writer).

maybe if the writer cut some unnecessary plot and make this drama into 10 or 12 episodes only, the drama would be less draggy and less depressing.

overall i just want to take back all the time I've spent watching this drama... im here just for byeon wooseok 😒😒

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Very cheesy drama with plotholes

Started off as one of my fav drama but after ep 12 the story felt dragging and many points were missing from the drama like the story of the taxi driver , the grandmother, how the watch helped Sol to travel back in the past and why did she get another chance to save Sun jae and I felt that there wasn't any personality of Sun Jae other than being a loser for Sol..I wish that it was a drama where Sun Jae actually committed suicide without the taxi driver plot and in the end Sol had to become disable as it is an inevitable fate like they did in Twinkling watermelon and Sol and Sunjae would help each other to overcome their depression...I thought that the drama will be like this but then I was like no it's again that same serial killer plot...my fav character is Tae Sung ...he had the most significant role in the drama because without him Sunjae and Sol wouldn't have a happy ending

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Jekyll & Hyde show that is doing my head in

To say that I'm torn about this show is an understatement. I have seldom seen a series that managed to succeed in one key area and yet screw up another. Please allow me to explain.

This series is built on two drama staples. Swoon worthy romance and the time traveling do-overs.

It nails the first with aplomb. Our leads' chemistry is undeniable and when it works, it is meltingly good. Time and again, when I start to suffer, the writer-nim would bring on the amore and we are floating on a pink cloud. . . until we crash back to earth due to the ham-fisted way the show handles the timey-wimey stuff.

The problem is not that the show tripped up on some high temporal concept but rather simple plot management. To wit, the show used weaponised time travel like a blunt instrument. Internal logic and intersecting plots be damned.

It worked ok the first go around but after each do-over, the narrative got more convoluted. It basically tied itself in knots. Did events change? Did time correct itself? Does someone know or cares?! I'm sure the writer doesn't. Forget about time traveling taboos, it was a road kill right from the start.

Another contributor to this mess is the serial killer/kidnapper subplot. How I wish k-dramas would stop using this trope, but I digress. As before, his first couple of appearances was impactful and fits within the context of the central premise. However, one of the fundamental purposes of a do-over is to change the timeline so that history does not repeat itself. In this case, the plot around the killer is more like a rubber band. It is a millstone.

It doesn't help when the antagonist is a "faceless" bogeyman. I get that he is obsessed with the FL, but the rationale is lost in the mist of plot disarray. He has a name but no backstory, no motivation for any of his actions. They shouldn't have met, or he should be in jail as each timeline changes. Then what happened to him in the 15 years since he may or may not have kidnapped the FL? Did he killed more girls or just looked for the FL all those years. What are the police doing? Watching reruns of Dr. Who?!

The antagonist finally got his just deserts in the last EP but how I wish it happened 6 eps earlier. The last EP is total fan service on steroids! It speed-run through a stack of dating tropes and it is total guilty pleasure. It compensates for some of the mid show confusions.

There is a decent amount of skinship throughout the run and they felt right. Not the most passionate I have seen but swoon-y nevertheless.

In terms of acting, it is the same split personality. I love the leads to bits, but the support cast is all over the place. The grandma is sweet. The mum is bearable. The ML's dad is a buffoon who goes for the cheap laughs. The FL's bestie and her brother are so cringy. Their roles get more and more exaggerated as the show progresses. Are they 13 or 30? I groan during some of their scenes.

The kidnapper deserves his own paragraph. He is so one dimensional. Basically, a cardboard cutout. He shows up, does the Death Stare with bonus grimace and retires to a dark corner to await his next money shot. So little effort yet so pivotal a role.

In the end, if they do a director's cut of our leads’ romantic journey, it would be 10/10. I would be a happy couch potato watching it on repeat. The rest gets a 6/10. In view of balance, the show gets an 8/10.

I can totally understand the hype and attention surrounding the show but I also get why some would defer as well. I need therapy.

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A Green Forest Kdrama

This is undoubtedly my favorite kdrama of all time!

I had started this unexpectedly because the plot was something which is not everyone's cup of tea and I really liked KHY and BWS as actors so gave it a go. And ngl I was seated from 1st ep to the 16th one with rewatching each ep after it aired. It was also surprising to see a drama do well with next to zero promotional activities.

This drama had all tropes like time travel, love at first sight, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, comedy, bromance and what not. It was hard to bring all these together, but the director and the writer did a fabulous job portray it wonderfully. Even the 3 timelines shown were also beautifully put together. The acting was top notch from everyone and this drama had one of the green flag SML. The OST's are also so good that I listen to it almost everyday.

The chemistry here is one of the best I've ever seen. The way KHY and BWS portrayed sol and sunjae I don't think any other actor could have done it like them. They made me laugh, cry, gave me so many butterflies and made me stuck with them in this joyful ride together. For me they've become the best on screen couples of all time.

This drama had everything in it that captivated the viewers hearts from the beginning. It made my 2 months so wholesome that it'll forever remain in my heart. It'll be hard to get over this masterpiece but till then I'm gonna just rewatch the eps or else I'll miss each monday and tuesday from now on.

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Started Strong but Lost Its Direction

Another drama where we get to the halfway point and it completely shifts into something else. I really liked the beginning because it had an intense mystery element that kept me engaged and wanting to know what would happen next. The early episodes balanced suspense, emotion, and time travel in a way that actually felt exciting. There was tension, there were stakes, and it felt like the story was building toward something meaningful.

But somewhere along the way, the drama lost focus. Instead of developing the plot and its themes further, it became almost entirely centered around Ryu Seon Jae and Im Sol being in love with each other. The problem is that both characters seem to have no identity outside of that relationship. If you remove the romance from their personalities, there's barely anything left. They don't really feel like fully realized individuals with their own ambitions, struggles, or inner worlds. Both characters seem to exist solely for the purpose of loving and protecting each other, and after a while that became repetitive and emotionally shallow to me.

For people saying this is one of the best dramas out there, I honestly don't get it. The story goes in all sorts of directions and feels increasingly inconsistent as it progresses. The tone shifts constantly, plot points get dragged out or repeated, and some developments feel more convenient than well written. I understand that the drama was trying to sell this destined love story, and to be fair, both actors did a good job portraying longing, devotion, and emotional attachment. Their chemistry carried a lot of scenes, and I can see why many viewers became emotionally invested in them as a couple. Maybe that's ultimately what people connected with the most. But strong chemistry alone isn't enough for me to call something a great drama. What started as a compelling mystery with emotional depth slowly turned into a repetitive cycle of sacrifice, separation, and reunion. Instead of building momentum, it felt like the drama kept resetting itself emotionally and narratively.

I wanted more from the characters individually and more coherence from the story overall. The drama had a strong premise and a genuinely engaging start, but for me it couldn't maintain that same level of quality all the way through. In the end, it felt like the romance overshadowed everything else, and once the mystery and tension faded, there wasn't enough substance left to keep me fully invested.

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i don't like this one

most of the actors are overacting all the time, too many filler, too many "coincidental" scenes between main characters (falling into each other,...). Additionally, there are many details that are given only once and are not repeated or developed or explained (the first time the male lead dies of depression - why is he depressed?, the scene where the female lead discovers that
her mom hides her illness - has their relationship changed?, the female lead can escape the fate of being crippled but find it difficult to save the male lead?). In particular, what annoys me the most is the pair of supporting characters (the female lead's brother and best friend). They're too loud and don't really contribute to the main story line

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The drama missed an opportunity

I enjoyed Lovely Runner, especially because it raised deeper questions than a typical romantic comedy. The performances, the emotional moments, and the chemistry between the leads were excellent. However, after finishing the series, I felt that its most interesting philosophical question was never fully explored.

Throughout the story, Im Sol repeatedly tries to change events in order to save Sun-jae. She changes circumstances, prevents accidents, and constantly fights against fate itself. But what fascinated me was a different question:

What if the real problem was not the events, but the mindset behind them?

Sun-jae repeatedly demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice himself for the people he loves. His behavior suggests a deep-rooted belief that protecting others is more important than protecting himself. Yet the story rarely explores whether this belief can change.

Instead of asking, “How can we prevent this tragedy?” I found myself asking, “Can a person fundamentally change the way they face destiny?”

This is where I felt the drama missed an opportunity. Sol spends so much energy trying to alter external events, but she rarely attempts to challenge Sun-jae’s internal worldview. If fate keeps repeating itself through the same patterns, perhaps changing the pattern is more important than changing the circumstances.

For me, the most compelling version of this story would not have been about defeating fate, but about transforming the characters themselves.

Can love help someone develop a healthier relationship with sacrifice?

Can people outgrow destructive patterns?

Can destiny change when a person changes?

These questions felt more profound than the time-travel mechanics themselves.

In the end, Lovely Runner chose an emotional and satisfying romantic conclusion, which many viewers loved. However, I was hoping for a deeper exploration of character growth, personal transformation, and the relationship between fate and human psychology.

Despite this criticism, I appreciated that the drama inspired these questions in the first place. Any story that leaves viewers thinking about destiny, choice, and personal change long after it ends has already achieved something meaningful.

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Time Loop Romance That Struggles to Carry Emotional Weight

Lovely Runner (2024) is slightly overrated for me. When you look closely at its emotional core, the story feels far less effective than it initially appears.

Across every timeline, the ML is portrayed as endlessly devoted to the FL, to the point where it feels unrealistic and emotionally flat. His character comes across as artificial, as it is hard to believe anyone would sustain unrequited love for over a decade without growth or change. The FL, meanwhile, is often slow to catch on and repeatedly makes poor decisions. Much of the conflict could have been avoided if the characters acted more thoughtfully, which became increasingly frustrating.

A major issue lies in how the show handles time. Lovely Runner functions more as a time loop than true time travel, which limits its emotional weight. Because events repeatedly reset, character growth feels stalled rather than earned. This puts it at a disadvantage compared to time travel dramas like Twinkling Watermelon (2023), where each shift in time carries lasting emotional consequences and meaningful development.

What also bothered me was how the timelines treated Sol. The younger, more immature version of her does all the hard work. She studies through high school and college, graduates, and struggles to build a life, only for the 2023 version to enjoy the results. The 2023 Sol, aside from her period of paralysis in the first timeline, feels like she has not truly lived through the experiences that shaped her success.

Timeline 2 is easily the strongest and most engaging. This is where the characters feel most alive and actively involved in the story. It is also the timeline we spend the most time in, largely due to the watch being used twice. However, the repeated failure of the police to apprehend an obviously clumsy killer strains credibility. Aside from Kim Tae Sung, who resolves the case in the final timeline, law enforcement is portrayed as consistently incompetent. The killer feels more like a plot device than a character, created solely to add tension. Without a meaningful backstory, his presence becomes repetitive and tiring, especially when compared to better-written villains like the one in I Can Hear Your Voice (2013).

Timeline 3 shifts to the college years but offers little that is new. It mostly feels like filler until the countryside arc, where the ML finally gains insight into his backstory. Timeline 4 attempts to wrap things up with a happy ending, but it feels rushed and somewhat forced. While I am not against a happy conclusion, the resolution feels familiar, reminiscent of W: Two Worlds (2016).

In the end, Lovely Runner had an interesting premise and strong moments, but its time loop structure, inconsistent character writing, and repetitive conflicts prevented it from reaching its emotional potential.

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tropey writing makes one dimensional characters

there was immense hype around this drama when this was airing. i finally got to watch this, and unfortunately i do not see what the hype is about. I feel like this drama is like those trope books which restrict the characters to one dimensional attribute and do not allow them to grow from their initial role. I cannot even begin to think/elaborate how frustrating the time-travel was - just too many plotholes, like i get that it's fiction, but even fictional stories are bound by their own rules of magic and world-building. For instance, Sol gets 3 opportunities to go back in time to save Sun-jae, then somehow there is a fourth try too with Sun-jae's watch after he was stabbed/drowns. I liked the way Twinkling Watermelon handled the timetravel shift . Sol's character had limited expressions - shocked, tearful, scared and annoyed - her role as a 16 year old girl and 34 year old woman were exactly the same lol, one would think a 34 year old woman would know better to use her brain and not cry at the smallest inconvenience. The only feel-good aspect to their romance is them saving each other's lives at multiple instances and the angst to override/change their fate by maintaining Sol-imposed distance. I wanted to know why were ML/SML head over heels over Sol despite her rejecting them at various instances and being mean/rude to them. So many elements of this drama was uneplored like why was that killer behind Im-Sol, time-travel rules. Sol had so many resources - SEEING GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE - being one of them, yet she failed to use them in her favour. Sun-jae's own journey with his music/acting was left unexplored. I do not think the acting was bad but imo the actors didnt have a lot of room for expression and which is why i felt they were cringe and immature. Nevertheless, just because this drama live up to the hype doesnt mean i didnt enjoy it. The ending of ep 4 will forever be iconic. I will be enjoying sappy edits of Sol-Sunjae,

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