Lee Sang-yoon (Whisper) has signed on to be Lee Sung-kyung’s (Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-ju) leading man for the upcoming fantasy-romance drama About Time (full title is now A Moment I Want to Stop: About Time), which is a pairing I can see working. The tvN series is about a woman with an “unfortunate fate” who can see the lifespan clocks for people, and the love story that unfolds when she meets a man who can somehow stop her time.
Lee Sung-kyung’s character is a musical actor specializing in ensemble work and is named Choi Michaela. Michaela has accepted her unhappy lot in life, but when she meets a man who can stop her lifespan clock, she decides to pour all her efforts into somehow hanging on to him.
He is Lee Do-ha, the chief director of a cultural foundation owned by a chaebol family. Seemingly perfect on the outside, he carries an air of coolness about him. He stops Michaela’s clock unintentionally but ends up being harassed because of it, since she approaches him with threats, seduction, and “a cute obsession.”
I’m still not quite clear on the purpose or function of these clocks—is it just that she is haunted by knowing everyone’s lifespans, or is there more to them?—but I find the premise pretty intriguing. (It vaguely reminds of the quirky romance movie Timer, where people can enable a timer that tells them when they’ll meet their soulmate and features a heroine whose soulmate hasn’t yet turned his clock on.) If anything, I imagine it’s pretty grim knowing exactly when you’re scheduled to die, so it makes sense that discovering the ability to stop that time would turn your life upside-down.
Most of all, I love Lee Sung-kyung being oddball and cute and was charmed by her last role in Weightlifting Fairy, so I’m looking forward to seeing her next drama. And Lee Sang-yoon is always welcome in my book, but more so when he’s being a romantic lead rather than a villain.
About Time comes from PD Kim Hyung-shik of Twenty Again, Sign, and Ghost, and will air on tvN in May.