Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

When Time Stopped
(시간이 멈추는 그 때 / Sigani Meomchuneun Geuttae)
MyDramaList rating: 6.0/10

Hello hello, it’s time for a new review! I wanted to upload this within January but I was actually floored by one of the many circulating flu viruses in my country right now, which left me with a fever and all the accompanying symptoms for an entire week. I still wanted to finish this show and write this review though, since I honestly didn’t think it would take that long. Props to my Wheel of Fortune app for picking out another underdog drama that I don’t even remember putting on my list, or that I would’ve been able to get to any time soon otherwise. It had some very impactful and touching elements and I thought the premise of the story was quite interesting. Having said that, I also have a lot of criticisms about this show and it was definitely not one of the best I’ve ever watched. Some parts still confuse me, even after finishing it, so hopefully I can untangle those in this review.

When Time Stopped is a KBS K-Drama with twelve episodes of about 55 minutes each. I watched it on Viki, just like my last watch, because I couldn’t really find another website with good enough quality.
The story starts with Kim Seon Ah (played by Ahn Ji Hyun), a bright and hard-working young woman who nonetheless leads quite a miserable life. Ever since her father passed away, she has refused to hand over his apartment building to the loan sharks he owed money to, and in exchange for keeping the building she’s been working about five part-time jobs to slowly pay back her dad’s debt. Or rather, her uncle’s debt that her father took on and which has now become Seon Ah’s burden. There’s really no escaping the situation for Seon Ah, since the loan shark keeping an eye on her, Park Soo Kwang (played by Kim Yang Woo) lives in her building as well and torments her daily about all the money she still owes him. Even when she manages to pay a part back, he always just tops it up with more interest because it takes her too long.
In-between the pressure of the crippling debts and daily intimidations she receives from the loan shark, Seon Ah still manages to find time to invest in her real dream: writing. She’s always taken joy in escaping inside stories and aims to write a fantasy novel one day, but for now her more short-term goal is to submit a story to a fantasy writing contest. She knows she won’t be able to indulge in full-time writing until after she pays off all her debts, so she really tries everything she can to bring in money from anywhere, even her own building. However, being a landlady amidst everything she’s going through also isn’t easy for her – her tenants keep skipping on their maintenance fees and she doesn’t exactly exude the kind of authority to pressure them, so she’s not even able to earn all the money from her building that she has a right to. The only room left in her building is the basement, and so she sets out to find someone to rent it so that she can start from scratch and demand the proper fees for it.
Then there is Moon Joon Woo (played by Kim Hyun Joong), a mysterious young man who has a very special gift: he can stop time with one flick of his fingers. When time stops, he is able to walk around freely and change anything he likes before setting time in motion again. In particular, he uses his gift to steal traditional Korean art pieces back from being exported or otherwise taken out of their original habitat. He spends a lot of time at an antiquary shop where he restores the art pieces to their former glory. The shop owner (played by Im Ha Ryong) doesn’t seem to know about Joon Woo’s ability, although he does sometimes wonder how he manages to get his hands on all these exquisite works. In any case, Joon Woo decides to look for a place of his own where he can do restoration work, preferably a room without too much sunlight. As such, he ends up living at the basement of Seon Ah’s apartment building.
After witnessing Seon Ah’s misfortunes for a while, Joon Woo ends up saving her life one time – only to find out that Seon Ah can also move within his stopped time.
The story basically follows Seon Ah and Joon Woo as they get closer. On the side, we get to know some supporting characters like the other tenants in Seon Ah’s building, more people with special abilities and a mysterious Grim Reaper squad that’s out to get these enhanced people. One Grim Reaper called Myeong Woon (played by In Gyo Jin) is highlighted as being the squad’s ace, and we also find out how he is tied to the main characters.

To get straight to the point, I think that my most general feedback on this drama is that it deals with some parts really well, and with others very vaguely. Some backstories and details are established clearly from the start whereas others are never really fleshed out or wrapped up. For the main part of my analysis, I would like to give some examples for each of these. I know I usually do a character analysis part, but after some careful contemplation on how to structure this review I think this is the most fitting approach to discuss this particular show.

I’ll start with the parts that I thought were interesting and well-established. First of all, Seon Ah herself. As befitting the female lead, we learn about her backstory in the very first episodes, and this immediately establishes her character very well. We learn about her history with her dad, how she used to criticize him for being too soft on his tenants and basically everyone else, and how her life was completely turned upside down after he got into an accident and all his debts ended up falling onto her plate. I thought it was kind of crazy that it wasn’t even her or her dad’s debt but her uncle’s, who basically begged her father to help him out and of course didn’t show a shred of compassion or support towards his niece when she literally had to give up her education to try and pay it all off by herself. He was just happy to be rid of the burden. I got flashbacks of that shady cousin from Perfect and Casual who scammed the FL out of all her money and then still expected her to help him out when loan sharks came after him – I can’t believe there are actually people like this out there who’d do this to their own family members. In any case, Seon Ah quit high school when she was about 18 (I think?) to start working so she could keep her father’s building. Throughout, she’s only ever received true support from her two closest friends and former classmates, Soo Kyung (played by Shin Min Kyung) and Choi In Seop (played by Lee Shi Hoo). In the present time, Seon Ah also works part-time at Soo Kyung’s fried chicken shop. Besides being her boss, Soo Kyung is a truly supportive friend who understands what Seon Ah is going through and is always considerate whenever Seon Ah needs to leave early or has some sort of emergency back at her building. In Seop has been Seon Ah’s friend since even before high school, as he also grew up in Seon Ah’s father’s building and they met when they were little kids. He used to have a crush on Seon Ah in high school, but Seon Ah only ever saw him as a friend and he’s made peace with that. In Seop gets his own arc within the story so he’s getting his own coverage later on, but I just wanted to introduce him as Seon Ah’s friend first. All in all, you could say that Seon Ah has a very small social circle because she doesn’t have time to play around – she’s really just running all over the place all the time trying to make ends meet whilst nothing is working out in her favor.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like living like that, but I bet I wouldn’t be able to keep it up the way Seon Ah did. Especially when the loan shark literally started sabotaging her work efforts by randomly having her kidnapped just so he could yell at her later and raise the interest again. Honestly, that was pretty childish. It just made me feel like he was making the whole debt up just to spite her, or that no amount of money was ever going to be enough. Rather than intimidating, it just got annoying at some point. On the other hand, I also thought it was really weird for Seon Ah to have such lacking skills as a landladly. She must’ve been in charge of the building for a while already, and still she couldn’t even get a single word in to her tenants when they literally HAD to pay their fees. Like, come on, you actually have a rule to abide by here! This lack of authority on Seon Ah’s side was actually kind of ironic seeing how she used to judge her dad for being too soft in the past – turns out the softness actually ran in their DNA.
I liked that Seon Ah got established from the get-go with a clear backstory and motive, and that they even fleshed out her character with characteristics like her tendency to get delusional over the smallest romantic gestures and her secret passion for writing. She wasn’t a perfect person, and she didn’t have a lot, but she still worked very hard for what was important to her and did her best not to get discouraged. Honestly, as a female lead, I thought she was written pretty well.

Apart from Seon Ah, we also get an elaborate introduction to Seon Ah’s other tenants, including a man named Wan Ho (played by Kim Han Jong) and a middle-aged lady (played by Cha Yoo Kyung) and her reclusive daughter Soo Na (played by Baek Sang Hee). I actually really liked these arcs, I thought they were very meaningful as little stories with their own value. I thought it was also nice that they all ended up getting saved by Joon Woo’s ability, which caused them to become allies to Seon Ah as well, even though they didn’t make life easy for her in the beginning.
To start with Wan Ho, he’s initially introduced as kind of a stoic loner man who for some reason has a collection of plush toys, which causes Seon Ah to be a bit wary of him. However, from his perspective we find out that Wan Ho was originally a gangster before something happened that made him want to change his life for the better. Now, he works at the local church and helps out at the nearby orphanage – that’s why he collects toys, to donate them to kids in need. Throughout his arc, we find out in more detail what made him change his ways, and this is quite the touching story. Back in his gangster days, one man he once put under pressure unalived himself, and after hearing that the man’s young daughter was getting treatment at the hospital, he went to check it out for himself. Seeing the little girl in the hospital, Wan Ho started feeling bad for taking her father away from her, and acted as her guardian until the day she still inevitably passed away. He started collecting the toys after this happened, because he was never able to give her one while she was still alive.
Honestly, I really liked Wan Ho. I thought his backstory was really good and it helped build his character a lot. His was the first story that made me go, oh wow, if they’re going to start introducing and establishing their characters like this, I’m excited for what’s in store. After being helped out by Joon Woo at the end of his arc, Wan Ho becomes an ally to him and Seon Ah – in the end, he’s actually the person to get rid of Soo Kwang once and for all. The balance between the intimidation and the kindness he could bring was really interesting, in my opinion. I actually thought he was one of the most interesting side characters of the show.
Besides Wan Ho, there was also the middle-aged lady and her reclusive daughter Soo Na. I will be calling this lady Ahjumma because that’s what Seon Ah calls her and I honestly don’t remember her name ever being mentioned – I will make a more general note about the omission of names and credits later on. The first few times Ahjumma appears in the show, she’s consistently making up excuses not to have to pay the maintenance fee. She keeps using her reclusive daughter and her situation with her as an excuse. From the get-go, she doesn’t appear to be a very kind person, specifically to Seon Ah. I have to admit, even after learning about what happened to her daughter, I still didn’t think she was very nice, because she didn’t exactly treat her daughter differently from everyone else in her time of need, but she did learn her lesson and she became nicer throughout the show, so I’ll give her that. Ahjumma’s daughter Soo Na used to be a promising arts university student – until she got SA’d by her professor. Rather than standing up for her or helping her find her voice as a victim, all her classmates just turned on her and started spreading rumors that she and the professor were already a couple and that she was just “sleeping her way up to a scholarship”. I’m not gonna lie, this arc brought me right back to Shards of Her, down to the fact that even her mother started scolding her for wearing a short skirt in the first place. After that, Soo Na shut down completely and didn’t leave her room for SIX YEARS. She ultimately comes out after Ahjumma genuinely apologizes to her and attempts to finally speak up now that more of the professor’s past victims are starting to do so, but even after all this time, she still finds that there are people – people who weren’t even around at the time – refusing to hear her story. I really couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that those reporters just told Soo Na to her face that there wasn’t enough evidence of the fact that she wasn’t in a relationship with that professor at the time. Like, as if THEY had all the information even though Soo Na was literally the one going through the whole ordeal! In any case, Ahjumma and Soo Na manage to reconcile and Soo Na starts to heal with the help of the other neighbors, including Wan Ho, who falls head over heels for her at first sight.
I thought this was a very impactful little story arc to introduce Ahjumma and Soo Na and establish their characters for the rest of the show. They too get rescued by Joon Woo’s time-stopping magic, and after that they basically become supporting characters who help him and Soo Na out on different occasions.

Another character that’s established quite well, especially towards the end, is In Seop. We initially see him in flashbacks from when he was Seon Ah’s classmate in high school and had a crush on her, but as her neighbor he seems just as evasive as the other tenants in having to pay fees and stuff. It isn’t until a little later that we find out that In Seop is actually an enhanced person as well, and he has the ability to teleport through any door – which is very handy if you’re trying to run away from your landlady, or Grim Reapers for that matter. At some point I became so scared for In Seop to get caught that I lost focus for everything else, lol, they built that up pretty well. Especially because most of the enhanced people didn’t actually know that they were being hunted, and if they did, they didn’t exactly know what the Grim Reapers would do to them. At some point, the beforementioned “ace” Grim Reaper Myeong Woon manages to get a hold of him, which is where one of the major plot twists of the story is revealed: Myeong Woon is actually In Seop’s father. Honestly, I liked this twist a lot and I thought they also timed the reveal of it pretty well. Myeong Woon had been a very enigmatic character so far and it was about time that his real identity was revealed, so that all tied in nicely together. And then we got the whole flashback about Myeong Woon and In Seop’s past, which was quite interesting and touching. I liked getting some insight in In Seop’s childhood and how he developed the same ability as his dad and was also dragged into shady stuff by a nasty uncle (seriously, what was this guy thinking asking his four-year old nephew to help them break into a museum 🙄). The way In Seop lost his father at such a young age made me sympathize with him a lot. All in all, I’m glad they made him more than just the second male lead who was left pouting because the FL fell for another guy. In hindsight, I wonder if In Seop actually remembered Joon Woo’s face from when he caught his dad and maybe that’s why he seemed so apprehensive the first time he saw him, but I’m actually still not sure how the whole memory thing worked.

By the way, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet but I really didn’t like how Seon Ah treated In Seop. When they first met as kids, she just kept nagging him on how poor his family was that his dad couldn’t even buy him toys. Like, instead of seeing a kid her age have it worse than her and offering to share her toys with him or something, she just kept judging him, which I thought was very nasty of her, no matter how young she was. Then, in high school, I actually couldn’t believe that she took his love letter and READ IT OUT LOUD to the entire class. Like, that wasn’t funny. Even if she kept him anonymous, HE still knew and had to hear how everyone laughed at his love confession. She literally treated his feelings like a joke, whether she actually had ill intentions or not. And then, years later, she still made jokes about him not being over her. Honestly, I’m glad In Seop eventually got over her without too much trouble, because he deserved to be treated so much better than that. No matter how much Seon Ah was redeemed as a character in other aspects, this was a part of her that I really didn’t appreciate.

Another (smaller) story arc I liked was the one about Hwa Sook (Kim Shi Eun) and Seong Joon (Lee Do Hyung), the two siblings at the orphanage that Wan Ho occasionally helped out at. Joon Woo notices the two because he can hear Hwa Sook’s voice even though she’s communicating in sign language. Turns out, Hwa Sook is another enhanced person who is capable of telepathy, and in extreme cases also of mind control, which comes out when she’s cornered by a group of bullies. I’m actually not sure whether Seong Joon also had this power, but he was able to hear his sister’s telepathic voice and it seemed like their parents both used to have this gift and were hunted down because of it, so it must have been in their genes. In the end, sadly, the two siblings still get caught and Hwa Sook is evaporated while Seong Joon is knocked unconscious. Hwa Sook ultimately returns as a Grim Reaper in the final episode, but we never find out what happened to Seong Joon.

Now that I’ve covered all the story arcs and characters that I thought were interesting and well-established, I’d like to get on with the characters and parts that I thought received significantly less attention in that aspect, and this part will tie in directly with my main criticisms of the show.
First of all, as I briefly mentioned before, I want to make a note of the lack of names and credits in and for this series. This is the first time for as long as I can remember where some characters weren’t even properly introduced by name or even seemed to have been given one at all.
The first and foremost example: Joon Woo. The thing is, I only knew he was called Moon Joon Woo because I’d read the summary on MDL beforehand, but his name actually isn’t mentioned until episode TEN. Up until then, he’s just called “Basement” by everyone, which, if you think about it, is kind of rude. Maybe it’s common in Korea to call your tenants and neighbors by their apartment numbers, but I found it pretty odd. Especially in Seon Ah’s case, because she kept calling him “Basement” even when she was developing a crush on him. And then, in episode ten, she suddenly casually switched to “Joon Woo-ssi” which made me go, Oh so you knew his name all this time?! Like, all of a sudden she decided to call him by his name even though it had never been mentioned anywhere else before, so it was a really weird reveal in my opinion. I get that there was an element of mystery to his character, but to keep his name hidden for so long without a reason, only to casually reveal it like that didn’t really make sense to me.
Secondly, apart from Ahjumma, the antiquary shop owner’s name was also never revealed. I’m not sure if that was on purpose, because it’s later revealed that he’s actually a retired god, but the lack of proper names in this show kind of threw me off. A name is an identity, and by leaving so many important characters without a (full) name, it somehow felt harder to relate to them.
Besides the names of the characters, when I started browsing my drama source websites to prepare for writing this review, I also found out there’s a lot of information missing with regards to the casting of this show. I couldn’t find the lady who played Ahjumma, and only got her name after personally deciphering it from the ending credits in an episode. I’m not sure if this has to do with the fact that this drama is not very mainstream and people just haven’t bothered gathering the entire cast list, but some of these people actually had a significant role in this series, so I find it kind of disrespectful that they’re left out. How hard could it be to find out who this or that actor is? I don’t know, sloppiness in this regard always bums me out. As if it wasn’t enough that their character didn’t even have a clear name in the show, the actor isn’t even credited either. I really wish I could’ve had a bit more to go on.

My second point of criticism lies with the fact that several things were never fully explained until the end. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually expect there to be such a heavy fantastical theme to this show. I thought it was just going to be about Joon Woo and his special power, and how he would figure out the reason why Seon Ah was unaffected by it, kind of like in About Time. When they introduced the Grim Reaper squad, I was pretty intrigued. The inclusion of a squad that targeted enhanced people for the “sinful possession” of a special power was quite interesting and definitely added some suspense. However, I just wish that there could’ve been a bit more clarity in the whole system surrounding it.
Honestly, when the “god” character (played by Joo Seok Tae) was introduced, I had no idea who he was. He acted like the boss of the Grim Reaper squad but he was also acting very casually and humoristically, so I didn’t really take him seriously. Just like with Joon Woo’s name reveal, he’s only referred to as “God” somewhere in the middle, super casually. Was it supposed to click with me earlier that this guy was a god when he never even introduced himself as such up to that point? I can only imagine he was “a” god and not “the” god because he was just in charge of this tiny Grim Reaper squad and it was also a successive position, apparently, but really, what was up with this guy? Who was he, really?
Also, until the very end I never understood what the deal was with the tea they kept drinking that made their skin glow. Was that just a booster to keep their memories locked with every enhanced person they captured or something? I feel like the god guy tried to explain it in the beginning but then it was made into a joke because no one understood his explanation. I have no idea, but I definitely didn’t understand how it worked, and they never bothered to explain it in more detail after that.
In hindsight I feel like this interesting side plot ended up being underused bigtime. The idea had a lot of potential, as I said, and I would’ve found it worthwhile if it hadn’t been kept so vague throughout the story. The only thing I understood in the end was that the Grim Reapers used to be enhanced people themselves, who were punished to hunt other enhanced people for having an ability they shouldn’t have had in the first place. Then again, it didn’t seem like any of the enhanced people asked for their abilities, they were just born with it. So, basically, they are being hunted for having something they have no control over, which is kind of messed up. Anyways, that was as far as I got and that made sense. But then they kept adding variations to this system that continued to confuse me after each and every episode. First there were multiple gods, then suddenly Joon Woo used to be a Grim Reaper who went back to being a human, which was the opposite of how it supposedly worked? Honestly, I couldn’t keep up.
In hindsight, I don’t actually like what they did with the whole Grim Reaper plot. The final half of the show was just filled with discussions between the current and previous gods about what they should do about the Grim Reapers, and that kind of took the fun out of it for me. They just kept yapping about the problem without actually coming up with a concrete solution. I’m not even entirely sure what the actual problem was – it’s not like Seon Ah and Joon Woo were a threat, so why couldn’t they just leave them alone?
All in all, I feel like they introduced an interesting side plot with the Grim Reapers, but then lost sight of what they wanted to keep using them for throughout the story.

Another thing that I want to comment on is the romance build-up between Seon Ah and Joon Woo, because honestly, I didn’t really feel it. It didn’t actually feel like Seon Ah was developing feelings for Joon Woo until In Seop asked her about it, and even then the only thing she could say was that she agreed he was good-looking. After that it seemed like she just got a little crush on her handsome neighbor, and her feelings for him were strengthened when he also started treating her more nicely – he was initially quite cold to her. In my opinion, it was quite a sudden transition when Joon Woo suddenly started smiling to himself when thinking of the most random encounters he’d had with her. If I had to explain it, I’d say that even though it felt like they were going to build it up gradually at first, at some point they just decided that they weren’t going to bother with the build-up and suddenly they just both liked each other, and this felt kind of unnatural to me. It reminded me of how I felt about the main couple in Road to Rebirth, who suddenly started announcing their love for each other while I felt like they were still just getting closer as friends. Also, with regards to the destiny element linking the two, I found it kind of weird that they only chose to reveal that in the final couple of episodes. Whereas the reveal of backstories and information about the characters had been balanced out so well in the beginning, I feel like they actually went the wrong way with trying to build up the storyline of Seon Ah and Joon Woo, which should’ve been the main storyline. How come they took three full episodes to establish Seon Ah’s character, but by the time they finally got to how she and Joon Woo were connected there suddenly wasn’t time to dive into that anymore? Where a show like My Demon did too much in establishing the destiny connection between its two leads, When Time Stopped did too little. It felt like they waited too long with adding the information that had been necessary to support their relationship from the start, and that caused it to have way less impact than the writers probably intended. If they’d revealed some of that information of how they were separated in their past life and how Seon Ah used to be the one with the time-stopping ability earlier, the fact that history was repeating itself would’ve made a much bigger impact. Now they just went after Seon Ah for no reason and Joon Woo was acting all dramatic even though their relationship hadn’t even fully blossomed yet (I’m not acknowledging those sorry excuses for kissing scenes), and the information that they actually loved each other and had been separated before in a past life was added like an afterthought.

Another instance of an anticlimactic information reveal was when Myeong Woon was defeated. He went through this whole fight with all his junior Grim Reapers to protect In Seop and was just evaporated like that, and they only revealed the thing about him absorbing In Seop’s powers and how that was against the Grim Reaper’s rules afterwards, when he was already gone. He’d been such a mysterious character and I actually felt like they stripped his final death of the impact it could’ve had if they’d revealed that information before. Like how in My Demon they established from the start that the ML would die if he brought someone back to life, and so when that finally happened, the viewer was like NOOO HE CAN’T DO THAT!! If they’d explained in advance that Grim Reapers weren’t allowed to absorb someone’s powers, it would’ve been way more meaningful to see Myeong Woon save his son like that, sacrificing himself in the process. They kept missing the mark with events that could’ve been very dramatic and heartbreaking by deciding to reveal certain pieces of information afterwards, when it didn’t even matter anymore.

I also felt like they were very inconsistent with the element of memory in the story. From what I gathered, whenever an enhanced person was evaporated by a Grim Reaper, they would also disappear from the memories of all the people who knew them. This is how Seon Ah forgot about Hwa Sook and Seong Joon, for example. But then it seemed like there were some exceptions were someone would remember the person, like the way In Seop remembered his dad. For the Grim Reapers, they have to drink a special tea to forget their memories of their human lives before they can start training, so it’s not normal for them to remember people from their previous lives either. But how exactly did Seon Ah retain all her memories as a Grim Reaper, then? And how exactly did In Seop remember Seon Ah, when not even Joon Woo did? They never really explained this and while I guess there could just be some loopholes in the system, in the grand scheme of things where so many things were already vague and inconsistent, this was just the umpteenth thing that felt like the writers couldn’t be bothered to explain.
Apart from that, some characters also just disappeared without a clear wrap-up of what happened to them, like Seong Joon, Soo Kyung, and even Park Soo Kwang. The ending in which Seon Ah as a Grim Reaper meets up with Joon Woo, who doesn’t remember her but feels like she’s familiar enough to hear her out, is also quite vague.
It really feels as if, at some point, the writers just lost sight of what they started out with. I remember watching the final episode and thinking back on a couple of storylines from the beginning, feeling like that had been a completely different series. All the things that shaped Seon Ah’s life, like her history with the loan shark and her writing dream suddenly felt so far away, to the point where I wondered what the point had been in introducing those things if they were just going to completely forget about them in the end. If they could’ve retained the way they started out and managed to structure the story more effectively, I think this would’ve been a much more positive review.

My final main criticism has to do with the pacing of the story as a whole. Besides the fact that they started out structuring the story pretty well in the beginning, I did think that in general, the show was quite slow-paced. Every scene kind of had the same pace and I felt like every conversation had a sort of lull in it. Whether it was the pauses between sentences or the response time of the characters, it was quite slow and this tempo also made it hard for the story to really pick up and get exciting. I honestly got a bit annoyed by Joon Woo’s slow movements, like did he have to do everything in slow motion? Even in stopped time, he took his sweet time to move around and he also talked with a lot of pauses in-between sentences. I’m all for silent acting and taking in the emotional response of the characters, but if it’s overused, it tends to get tedious and even slightly boring to watch at times. I felt like they could’ve made certain conversations and events a bit more exciting by adding more urgency to them, and also to the way the characters acted. It just stayed the same pace throughout, even in the more suspenseful parts, and that was a shame.

I think I’ve summed up my main issues with this show well enough now, so let’s move on to the cast comments. I was actually surprised by how few actors I knew in this series. It doesn’t happen often that I only recognize one or two people in a K-Drama, so that was a surprise.

I understand that this was Kim Hyun Joong’s comeback drama after dealing with his scandals. Of course I know him from his classic roles in Boys Before Flowers and the Korean remake of Itazura na Kiss. I see on MDL that after this series he’s done one Japanese short drama last year, so I guess he’s still active somewhere. All in all, I have to say I didn’t really like his acting in this series. He just kept switching between his poker face and token smile, and only showed some dramatic expressions towards the end, but for the reasons I’ve mentioned in my analysis, those didn’t really have the effect on me that was probably intended. I felt like he remained stiff throughout the series and I also didn’t really feel any chemistry between him and the female lead actress. It’s a bummer, because I was curious to see him appear in something after such a long time and I wondered if he was going to show a side to his acting that I hadn’t seen before, but alas. I am curious to see the Japanese short drama he did more recently, and if he’s continuing as an actor I will probably still check out his stuff, but he really didn’t do it for me in this unfortunately.

Apparently, Ahn Ji Hyun did appear in a couple of shows that I’ve seen like School 2013 and Goblin, but I’ve never seen her in a main lead before, or in a role that made me remember her. I feel like, even as one of the more well-established characters in this series, she just wasn’t all that memorable to me. It was kind of strange how at some point her character just seemed to deflate completely even though she’d been so bright and bubbly at the start. In the final dramatic scenes, she was often just standing there without any emotion, even though it would’ve been more realistic to at least keep up the energy in her movements, even when she couldn’t do anything about the situation. I never like it when a lively character suddenly just becomes a faded version of herself, especially when there’s no actual need or reason for that. Apparently she hasn’t appeared in any dramas since this one in 2018, so I wonder what she’s up to now. I hope she’ll get more chances to improve her acting and deliver more varying roles, I’d be curious to see that!

I think this might have been the first role of In Gyo Jin I’ve seen where he wasn’t a bad guy or a comic relief character (or a mix of the two). I’ve seen him in Birth of a Beauty, Sassy Go Go, Fight For My Way, Jugglers and Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. It’s kind of funny to see that he did this drama right after Jugglers, where he played the boss from hell, while here he played such a calm and collected mysterious character. I actually liked his performance in this series, all the more because I hadn’t seen this side of him before. I think he did a really good job at slowly but surely peeling off the layers to Myeong Woon’s real identity, and his reunion with In Seop was really touching. The way he switched from the Grim Reaper’s stoic and enigmatic behavior to how he acted as In Seop’s dad in the flashbacks of when he was still alive was really nice, he really seemed to be a very loving and concerned father and he had great chemistry with little Lee Kyung Hoon, who played In Seop as a child. I’m glad that this drama still managed to positively surprise me in some ways, and In Gyo Jin’s performance was definitely one of those things.

I kept thinking Lee Shi Hoo looked so familiar, but looking at his MDL listing, I really don’t know where I could’ve possibly seen him before that I would remember. In any case, his performance as In Seop was one of the more memorable ones in this series. I actually got so taken with him at some point that I just started fearing for his life whenever the Grim Reapers started chasing him, I was really scared that he was going to get evaporated. As I mentioned in my review, I’m glad he didn’t just become the token jealous second male lead, and I loved that Myeong Woon was actually tied to his character, enabling such an interesting backstory between them. I really liked In Seop as a character, he was a really nice guy and a good ally to Seon Ah. That time when he used his ability to literally teleport Soo Kwang and his gang to a police interrogation room cracked me up – now THAT was an efficient way of getting rid of people, much more efficient than Joon Woo who physically had to move people elsewhere in his stopped time 😂😂. I really hope I get to see more roles of him in the future.

I just want to mention Shin Min Kyung here, who played Seon Ah’s friend Soo Kyung. She was only a minor side character who completely disappeared in the final episodes, but I actually really liked her. I don’t remember seeing her before, even though she also appeared in Jugglers, apparently. I thought she brought a really nice, bright energy to her scenes and I also liked that she was able to command those girls bullying Hwa Sook, that was a nice extra twist they gave to her character. I thought she deserved a shoutout for being one of the only characters who was kept completely out of the whole magical abilities/Grim Reapers truth who needed no fantastical reason to always support and stand by her friend. I hope I’ll get to see her appear in more things, she deserves more coverage!

Same as with Lee Shi Hoo, I really thought I recognized Kim Yang Woo from something else, but it turns out that he really hasn’t appeared in that much, and he hasn’t done any dramas since this one either. I think his character would’ve probably made a bigger impact on me if he’d actually been established as more intimidating than annoying. I did like that they gave him a boss figure as well to show that he was also being pressured, but the ways in which he kept pestering Seon Ah, even after she got him all the money she owed him was kind of petty. I also thought it was weird that he was just sent away like that when her money problems were over, like that was just it for his character. They could’ve kept him in and gotten him involved in the fantastical stuff more as well, for example. He was made out to be the main antagonist at first but then just disappeared, and I personally thought his character had more potential than that.

I really loved Kim Han Jong in this drama. It’s nice to see that he’s been making a lot of appearances in dramas since this one – I personally don’t remember seeing him before. I thought Wan Ho was a really endearing character and I’m glad he got the coverage that he did in this show. He was the first character that really stood out to me and made an impression for his ability to transform on screen. He was a nice supporting character who actually kept contributing to the story after his arc was done, and it was nice that they at least kept utilizing him for the plot instead of just discarding him after introducing him. Kim Han Jong did a really good job at portraying the different layers of Wan Ho’s character, and the transition of him being a stoic gangster to a sensitive guy expressing emotion to the lives he influenced in a negative way was very touching. I think he did a really good job!

As I said before, Cha Yoo Kyung, who played Ahjumma, isn’t credited on any of my drama source websites and I had to decipher her name myself from the ending credits of an episode. She doesn’t even have her own page on MDL or DramaWiki, which is curious to me. In any case, I can’t look up what she’s done before but she was also a new face to me. I didn’t really like her at first because she used the fact that she had a reclusive daughter to get out of paying fees, but I did really like her character development. I think that, within the entire story, she changed the most as a person from how she was in the first couple of episodes after realizing the true impact of her daughter’s trauma. I thought the concept of a mother just talking out loud to herself whilst doing her daily chores in the house to keep communicating with her reclusive daughter was quite powerful. The story arc of her and her daughter was probably the most intense one, but I’m really glad they went through the trouble of elaborating on her situation.

Baek Sang Hee is also an actress that has appeared in some shows that I’ve seen before as very minor roles, but this is the first one where she’s really made an impression on me. I liked that, while she was initially just referred to by name, they actually wrote her into the story and covered her intense backstory the way they did. As I said, my mind went straight back to Shards of Her, for better of for worse. I think she portrayed Soo Na very strikingly, finding a strength in the calm elegance of her demeanor. It was very touching to see how she managed to come out of her shell after six years of isolation and fear to speak up about what happened to her. Even though she didn’t really end up doing as much with regards to the whole fantastical plot, it was nice to have a solid supporting character like her in the background, she brought a nice, calming energy to the little group of tenants. I also thought it was kind of cute how she warmed up to Wan Ho, I could actually see them end up as partners, lol.

I just realized that I recognize Joo Seok Tae from his role in Alchemy of Souls as the father who was looking for a random replacement of his missing daughter. He also appeared in Duel and My Demon, and there are a few dramas with him still on my list, so I know I’ll get to see more of him. As I already mentioned in my analysis, I wasn’t really sure what to make of his character in this series. I guess that he was of a god-like status, but somehow he just remained a random guy in a white suit to me and I couldn’t take him very seriously. I would’ve liked to get a bit more elaboration on his character, especially in contrast to the other side characters that did get a backstory. He ended up being the biggest antagonist, so I would’ve liked to have a better image of what exactly we were dealing with here. He also switched between casual and serious quite a lot, which made it a bit hard to gauge what kind of person he was. I think that, in his case, while the lack of elaboration is probably to blame on the writing team, the way he portrayed the character didn’t actually make things clearer. It felt like he was kind of bluffing his way through it without fully understanding the character himself, which made it even more confusing. So yeah, I do hope that I’ll get to see him in more well-established roles in the future, because he didn’t really do it for me here.

I’ve seen Im Ha Ryong in a couple of shows, like Me Too, Flower!, Valid Love, Another Oh Hae Young, Gyeryong Fairytale and Backstreet Rookie. I still find it unnatural that his character didn’t get a name, because even when you retire from being a god and become an antiquary owner, you would at least need a name to start your business, right? Even if you want your characters to have some anonymity, at least make it make sense. Anyways, as much confusion I had with regards to his character I did like the plot twist that he was actually in on Joon Woo’s powers from the start and just walked into that Grim Reaper’s HQ for a drink like he owned the place (which he used to do, I guess). He was a nice casting choice for his character, I’ll give him that. I just wish there would’ve been a bit more to go on in terms of his own backstory. Also, the fact that Joon Woo lingered around him even after he forgot all his memories of being a Grim Reaper and the fact that this man was actually responsible for separating him from his great love would suggest that they shared quite a deep connection, but this was also not established very clearly. Still, his acting was good, I suppose.

I just want to make one final note about the title. Needless to say, When Time Stopped refers to Joon Woo’s ability to stop time, but in hindsight, I wonder what it actually means. It seems to indicate a specific moment when time stopped, so the time in which Seon Ah and Joon Woo were the only ones able to move freely. Or does it mean, more figuratively, the moment when time stopped for them, the moment they were separated? It seems like such a straightforward title, and yet I can’t quite put my finger on it. To put it practically, Joon Woo mainly uses his power in the first couple of episodes, and even when he and Seon Ah start cooperating, they usually aren’t even in the same space when he stops time. So yeah, as much as it has a nice ring to it as a title, I do actually wonder what it refers to within the story. Yet another unanswered question, I suppose.

It’s taken me some time to try and structure my confusions with this show, but I’ve finally reached the end of this review. I hope it at least makes more sense to whoever reads it than the series did to me when I was about halfway through it, lol. I still gave it a + rating because there were some parts and storylines I liked and I think they started out pretty strong, but it just went downhill after that. I didn’t particularly like the writing or the acting all that much, apart from some individuals. There were also a couple of epilogues that I completely misinterpreted, like the one where the antiquary shop owner gave the bracelet to the other shop owner – I thought that was happening right after Joon Woo brought in the bracelet and the shop owner returned it, but it turned out to be a flashback of the shop owner giving that bracelet to that other shop on purpose to take it away from Joon Woo, as it held the memories that linked him to his past life with Seon Ah. Little things like that were sometimes not explained very clearly, which was very confusing. At some point, every episode ended with a twist that made me more and more confused instead of excited. I really think they could’ve gone a long way if they’d kept up the way they started out, because the premise itself was promising and interesting.

I’m very curious to see what’s next on my list, and hopefully it won’t take me as long to finish my review next time.

Until then, bye-bee! x