rina

CUTIE

One of the best C-dramas I’ve watched, ever. Highly recommend to all drama lovers.

This show raised my standards for love. If I can’t have love as genuine, tender, timeless, patient and unconditional as Sang Yan’s, then I won’t have it at all.

the rating should be higher!!

Absolutely beautiful. There really is no other way to put it. This is a beautiful, beautiful show.

This show is absolutely unprecedented.

even an apocalypse can't stop her, our unstoppable queen

OH MY GOD SOMEONE PINCH ME

Me but with Im Shi-wan

I understand your frustrations. As a fan of Im Shi-wan, I really wanted his character to, well, not end up being a murderer. But I guess that's what the show is telling us—something about Jong-woo is inherently evil, and Moon-jo latched onto that and nurtured it, until the latter had successfully groomed the former, and by the end of the show, Jong-woo is a full-fledged murderer.

The happy ending, of course, would be for Jong-woo to not have gotten involved with Eden or at least yeeted himself out of there before shit hit the fan. Or even gone to therapy for the anger quietly simmering inside him. But then again, if that were the case, this story wouldn't exist haha. This show is a tragedy—one could argue it's really about the destruction and annihilation of the humanity in Jong-woo :(

That's great to hear! I'm glad to know I wasn't talking nonsense, haha. Sure thing!

As for why they needed to break the loop and mess with time, this is only what I understood - 2019 LZW mostly wanted to save the lives that were lost due to the loop. He wanted to save his best buds MJJ and CYR, to prevent the tragedies that would occur bc of the loop. They also had a clear antagonist, the psycho brother, who wreaked havoc in 1998 bc he, too, was able to time-travel. If they broke the loop, which they eventually did by breaking the time machine via MJJ burning the cassette, making time travel impossible, then the antagonist wouldn't be able to time-travel either. There wouldn't be an attempt on CYR's life, no need for MJJ to take the fall. LZW wouldn't get into a car accident. They wouldn't have to go through all that pain and suffering over and over again, bc the loop was finally broken.

I read a comment here that said they imagine HYX flying to Shanghai for a job offer in the reset timeline, and she meets LZW there, who got assigned as the designer for their project. And thus, their long-awaited romance would blossom. The special clip doesn't really support this, though, but it's okay bc the producers claimed that the special clip wasn't canon, just a small thank-you to the loyal viewers, and the Ep 13 ending is still the original ending.

(But if we're being honest, my favorite LZW is the 2019 LZW. That hairstyle-glasses combo was too much for my heart :P I wouldn't have minded it if 2019 LZW and HYX built their own happy life together during that time.)

I understand; I hate that scene so much, too, that I had to fast-forward through it bc I just couldn't bear to take it all in. But here's how I understood what may have been the creators' intention with the murder (apart from it being the tightest narrative): in 2019, HYX reunited with Old LZW, right? LZW told her that she has to go back to the past, but their attempt that night failed, bc she wasn't longing to see him anymore - since he was right there beside her. There wasn't anyone she was longing to see so desperately, since she's got LZW, her original LZW, right by her side. So the creators had to find a way to make HYX long to see LZW again (in order to time-travel and break the loop), and there's really only one way to do that: to kill off LZW.

There are many ways to do this - for example, it could be through a terminal illness or simply of old age. But the thing is, the creators also can't let HYX and LZW build their own life in 2019 together, bc if HYX and LZW have already lived a full life, there would no longer be that "longing," not to mention if they started a family and had kids, kids they'd have to look after.

Simply put, the creators can't let HYX build a happy life together with LZW in 2019, bc that would eradicate the desperate, painstaking, heart-wrenching "longing" that HYX must 100% have to be able to time-travel and break the causal loop.

My only gripe with this is they could've let them live together even for just a few months more and then, say, make LZW go through an accident where it's a quick death - instead of what they went with (them meeting for such a short period of time and then LZW getting murdered). But they probably chose that option bc it's faster and it's also tighter, in the sense that it directly connects LZW's death to the psycho killer, whose character rose to significant importance in the last quarter of the story.

If it's still not clear, I'm afraid this is as far as I can go - I've explained it as best as I could, haha. Either way, I didn't like how LZW died and would prefer my own version of him getting into a (quick death) accident instead. I also may have replayed their sweet scenes in Ep 10 and tried to pretend that the ending of that episode didn't happen lol

Yes, he was! What I meant to say was that the "time machine" is that one particular cassette, right? But listening to that time machine is not enough for you to time-travel (we saw this when HYX and Old LZW slept that night they reunited, listening to the cassette, but neither of them was able to travel). For you to be able to time-travel, you need that particular cassette that was LZW's and fall asleep as you listen to it, you need a doppelganger you can travel to, and you also need to have that longing to see someone (this third prerequisite was confirmed by the producers themselves - you can check the interview in the discussion thread on this page!) Hope this helps! :)

P.S. Here's the link: https://kisskh.at/discussions/some-day-or-one-day/46677-translated-very-long-has-spoilers-interview-and-other-infos

To make us feel better about it, I guess we could think of it as a necessary evil? The producers have said that one of the prerequisites to time travel is the longing to meet someone. If Old LZW hadn't been murdered, HYX wouldn't have had that longing that's required for her to travel to the past. But I guess it would've been better had it happened a bit later and due to an accident, not to murder. But it is what it is :(

Also, haha, yeah, it has its light, funny moments, but I definitely wouldn't classify/tag this as a comedy.

People say it's not tragic? How??? I don't understand how people can't see it's tragic - this show is so freaking sad. Sure, there was a reset, but even the premise of having all those memories disappear as if they never even existed is tragic in and of itself.

I'm just comforting myself with the fact that, while technically the entirety of the drama DIDN'T happen, it's for the better - because these characters are now living happier lives, without all the suffering and pain and loneliness and heartbreak. The burden of their erased memories and timelines is for us to bear, it seems :P

P.S. I really do love this show, though. May even be in my top dramas of all time!

I second this! You know what, let's just think of this as our personal ending <3

Sorry, can I vent a little? I haven't finished watching yet, but I just finished Ep 10. And yes, it was so hard to watch because of LZW's death! I just couldn't stand how, after all the heartbreak and pain and sadness and loneliness that Old Li Zi Wei had to go through, he just ended up getting murdered! He even hugged Huang Yu Xuan in the kitchen, in that cute little apron, telling her, "I'll never leave you again." Dude suffered for 16 years just to be with her again, and that bastard psycho brother just killed him! I'm so frustrated! LZW deserved so much better in that timeline. He didn't even get enough time with HYX when they reunited, and he'd gone through so much, and then he was just murdered!

*lets out a deep breath* Woo, okay, I've calmed down a little now? Don't get me wrong, I really, really LOVE this show (perhaps might even be in my top shows of all time!) but perpetually constipated psycho killer is just so *lets out a blood-curdling scream*

Is Yoo Ah-in playing the villain (assuming the church is pretty nefarious and he's the head of it)? I don't know the source material very well, so I'm not sure if his character is a hero, a villain, or an anti-hero haha

Yes, exactly - the video you linked said it wasn't available in my area. Thank you for sharing! It made me check it out on YouTube :)

Doesn't work for me. This one does: https://youtu.be/10O8BJMBhz8