There is a point somewhere during Lovely Runner where I realised the show had completely got me. I was no longer thinking about the time travel rules or trying to predict where the story was going next. I just desperately wanted Im Sol and Ryu Sun-jae to be happy. It sounds ridiculously simple, but getting an audience to care this much about two fictional people is incredibly difficult. Lovely Runner makes it look effortless.
The premise is immediately compelling. Im Sol is a devoted fan of superstar Ryu Sun-jae, whose music once gave her hope during the darkest period of her life. When Sun-jae suddenly dies, a devastated Sol somehow finds herself transported fifteen years into the past, back to when they were both teenagers. Given an impossible second chance, she decides she is going to save him. What initially seems like a fairly straightforward time travel romance quickly becomes something much more ambitious, constantly playing with fate, memory and the idea that some people might simply be destined to find one another.
What makes it work above everything else is the relationship between Sol and Sun-jae. Kim Hye-yoon and Byeon Woo-seok have ridiculous chemistry together, and the series understands that romance is often found in the smallest moments. The awkward glances, stupid misunderstandings, quiet acts of kindness and the sheer hopelessness of Sun-jae whenever Sol is around slowly accumulate until you become completely invested in them. Kim Hye-yoon is phenomenal, giving Sol an enormous amount of warmth and sincerity, while Byeon Woo-seok is equally wonderful as Sun-jae, particularly as we begin to understand just how different the reality of their relationship is from what Sol initially believed.
That is probably my favourite trick Lovely Runner pulls. Every time we think we understand Sol and Sun-jae’s story, another piece of information completely changes how we see everything that came before. Sol begins believing she is travelling into the past to save the man who once saved her, only for us to gradually realise their lives have been intertwined far more deeply than she ever knew. The time travel itself works so well because it is ultimately a way of exploring regret, sacrifice and the marks people leave on one another. Sometimes she remembers. Sometimes he remembers. Sometimes everything between them has seemingly been erased. Yet somehow, they continue finding their way back to each other.
It also helps that Lovely Runner is genuinely hilarious. For a series dealing with death, grief, disability and repeatedly losing someone you love, it somehow remains one of the funniest K-dramas I’ve watched. One minute Sol is desperately fighting against fate and the next Sun-jae is behaving like the world’s most hopeless teenage boy because the girl he likes looked at him. The plotting can occasionally become ridiculous, particularly with how many times the story finds a way to reset the board, but I honestly stopped caring. The emotional logic remains so strong that I was willing to follow these characters wherever the story wanted to take them.
Ultimately, Lovely Runner is an overwhelmingly sincere story about two people repeatedly saving each other. Beneath all the idol fantasy, murder mystery and time travel shenanigans is this beautiful idea that loving someone leaves a mark that even time itself struggles to erase. Kim Hye-yoon and Byeon Woo-seok give the series its heart, but it is the way everything gradually builds upon what came before that makes the eventual payoff so incredibly satisfying. By the end I wasn’t just hoping Sol and Sun-jae would get their happy ending. I felt like they had fought across time itself to earn it. Lovely Runner is funny, heartbreaking, ridiculously romantic and easily one of the most emotionally satisfying K-dramas I’ve watched. Sometimes a love story just gets you. This one absolutely got me.
You can stream the complete series of Lovely Runner on Netflix.
