Korean romance Lovely Runner review: Sun Jae's deaths, Im Sol's grit & a Netflix show you should not binge watch

Kim Hye-yoon and Byeon Woo-seok star as Im Sol and Ryu Sun-jae, respectively, in tvN show 'Lovely Runner on Netflix. (Image via Instagram/tvN)

Korean drama 'Lovely Runner' starring Byeon Woo-seok as Ryu Sun-jae and Kim Hye-yoon as Im Sol is not a show you should binge-watch on Netflix. The reason: it's really four shows wrapped in one, tied together by a premise of time travel in such a way that before you can say "not again", the male lead, Ryu Sun-jae, is dead and resurrected again. The effect is of a show that you can't stop watching but wish you could. Because after a while, it is all iterations of one story that plays out over and over again with slight variations.

There are two ways to look at this. The less generous view is that perhaps the show makers couldn't choose between four different ways of making the show, and they decided to go with all of them. There's the campy college romance complete with trip to the countryside, the high-school couple who meet again as grownups, another high-school drama replete with cliches, and an 'all's well that ends well' finale. The more generous view would be to look at it as an experimental story about how tiny changes in our everyday lives can have a massive impact on how things turn out.

Whichever way you look at it, the 16-episode K-drama that dropped on Netflix on August 1 is too long and too convoluted to binge.

Korean actor Byeon Woo-seok in Lovely Runner. He has previously worked in shows like Strong Girl Nam-soon and Record of Youth. (Image via Instagram/tvN)

Lovely Runner Korean drama review

'Lovely Runner' is like so many other K-dramas you'll have seen - more accurately, it is like a mix of many K-dramas you might have seen before. There's time travel, school/college romance, life of a K-Pop star, fate, disability, big star falling in love with a commoner - each of these themes has launched successful shows. Lovely Runner makes use of all of them, all at once.

The result is mixed. You find yourself wanting to love the story, but it gets boring in bits. You want to rush the ending along, but you also want to linger on select sections.

Lovely Runner doesn't offer anything we haven't seen before. Previous shows like 'A Time Called You' (also on Netflix) have also banked on time travel to resolve an ill-fated love. Watch out for a music store front in the film that will remind you of the video store in Lovely Runner. There are many such resonances, and scenes that will trigger memories of other scenes in other dramas.

As to why the show is called Lovely Runner, one can conjecture that it has to do with the peculiar way Im Sol runs - arms almost-akimbo, moving furiously back and forth as she propels herself forward at unimpressive speeds towards mostly non-urgent tasks.

Based on the web novel 'Tomorrow's Best', the show released in Korea between April 8 and May 28. Next, it dropped on site like Viu and Viki and finally came to Netflix on August 1. On South Korea's tvN network, the show had middling viewership and reviews - reaching just over 5 percent of the country's population.

Kim Hye-yoon in Lovely Runner. She has previously worked in Korean dramas like SKY Castle and True Beauty. (Image via Instagram/tvN)

Lovely Runner plot

The story revolves around Ryu Sun-jae and Im Sol, two seemingly ill-fated lovers. They grow up in the same neighbourhood, and Sun-jae develops a crush on Im Sol. Their destinies become entangled with a murderous stalker who becomes obsessed with Im Sol. Ryu Sun-jae helps to rescue Sol and get the stalker arrested. Years later, this murderer-stalker will return to kill Sun-jae in some iterations of this story.

Here's how the iterations become possible: A digital watch that used to belong to Sun-jae becomes a portal to a different time. Im Sol, who knows that Sun-jae dies in 2023 (two out of four times), travels back in time to save him.

Each time, she tries to change destiny in multiple ways. Some work, others don't. In the end, an explanation is offered by Sol's grandmother: the body may forget, but memories live on in the soul. It's the safety pin that holds together the narrative. It allows the storytellers to say, yes, these people are destined to come together. Yes, they will remember each confession, each kiss, across timelines - because the soul remembers.

It's a lot - even for most avid K-drama viewers, and best sampled in bits (each episode is over an hour long).

Lovely Runner trailer

Netflix K-Content has been dropping long scenes and highlights from the show online. Here's one such segment to watch, for a sense of what the show is about and what to expect from Lovely Runner:

Lovely Runner performances

There is a lot of smiling in Lovely Runner. A lot. Both Byeon Woo-seok (who plays Ryu Sun-jae) and Kim Hye-yoon (Im Sol) have fairly deep dimples, and perhaps that explains the extra good cheer in what is essentially a story of many tragedies, as the hero dies over and over again despite the heroine's best efforts to change fate and save him.

While both Byeon Woo-seok and Kim Hye-soon put up fairly even performances in what is a pretty twisted narrative, there are moments that look terribly contrived and painful to watch. To this point, don't miss the giant-wheel scene towards the end of the series where Sol is supposed to put her head on Sun-jae's chest while also looking at him and while also looking sad and conflicted. Or the scene where Sun-jae is trying to hide a promotional cutout of a sexy video game character and can find no better place than under the covers of his bed!

The original songs in the series have a critical role, but they're not quite the earworms we got from shows like Nevertheless or Our Beloved Summer or Itaewon Class.

Lovely Runner direction and writing

Lovely Runner is based on a web novel, so the story is pretty much set. There are some issues with how it turns on itself constantly, till you find it hard to remember what happened in which iteration of the story. But in the end, the message is clear: it's a story about three people whose lives are inextricably linked: two lovers and a murderer.

Directed by Yoon Jong-ho who was on the crew of some massive hits like Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016–2017) and Flower of Evil (2020), Lovely Runner has some pretty moments but fails to be rousing as a whole. The dialogues are by Lee Shi-eun (True Beauty).

Lovely Runner: What worked, what did not

Lovely Runner was among the more anticipated Korean dramas of 2024, but it falls short on some parameters. One, it feels stretched. The wannabe serial-killer is adequately creepy, but after the first half, everything feels repetitive and prolonged.

There are bits where the action slows down. A pivotal piece of jewellery that connects the characters across time is just clunky and looks odd in a show that is trying to project the life of an uber-rich pop/movie star. Other odd bits stick out, too, like the search for stale humour in places like the toilet and labour room. An overdue rented copy of 'Basic Instinct' becomes a bone of contention between the hero's father and the heroine's mother. More gimmicks follow across timelines to pitch said mom and dad some in cringey attempts at humour. Case in point: A bagful of condoms is spilled and discussed by the families.

But worst of all, because the love story ends with the hero's death and restarts with his resurrection more than twice, it starts to get old before it draws to a close. The only antidote this reviewer could come up with is to avoid binging - watch it in bits, parsing it out in ways that don't test your patience as much.