Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Review: Nine Times Time Travel


RECAPS: 12-34-89-1314-181920

Premise: Two timelines running in two separate years of 20-year interval: 1992 and 2012. Time travel occurs between the two timelines through the mythical ability of the incense sticks that is limited to nine pieces to complete the passage of time travel. It occurs to whoever has lighted the incense which has duration to take effect lasting for 30 minutes from the period it was burnt.

The Characters:

Sung Woo – He is a broadcast company’s news anchor driven to expose the dirt and anomalies of the alleged individuals suspected of the different scandals. Furthermore, he wanted to deliver news that is defined with clarity and truthfulness.

Min Young – She is a co-worker of Sung Woo that had expressed her love to him in their five years of working relationship. She has an upbeat personality that Sung Woo finds attractive of her despite of being a nagger and exaggerated most of the time.

Jung Woo – He is Sung Woo’s brother that died in the Himalayas from freezing to death because of the severe condition brought by the cold gust of snow.

Han Young Hoon – He is a physician and at the same time, the childhood friend of Sung Woo who has witnessed his misery in going after the incense stick’s ability to bring someone back to the previous circumstances of the past. He’s also given Sung Woo the moral support as well as the warnings he needed during his course.

Choi Jin Cheol – He’s the president of the hospital founded by Sung Woo’s father in the past and has been the primary suspect of Sung Woo for killing his father 20 years ago however, he has no evidence to prove his crime. Because of that, he has become the reason why Sung Woo wanted to become a reporter so that he could expose his anomalies to the public.

Commentaries:

The story is a compelling journey of a man, in search for an answer to a mysterious phenomenon brought about by time travel that occurred to him after his brother’s death. Without thinking the risks of his action following the incident, he tried to seek fulfillment to his brother’s life that was lost as a result of his mission, supposed as a voluntary sacrifice for a cause. Moreover, the regret of not paying attention to his brother’s whereabouts when he was still alive pushed him to gamble in the course-changing journey of a lifetime without having to worry about the things to lose along the way. A path that goes against a person’s fate and power to rationalize things; hence, delivering a magnetic pull of suspense and trill that catches one’s interest and attention. When the uncertainties come, this stirs a bewildering event. However in the end, one is at fault between the human will and existence, and the circumstances brought by the incense sticks as a tool to accomplish the passage of events.

The gamble: Sung Woo thought it will just be as easy as time travel without having to consider its consequences in belief that the incense stick will bring good fortune to everybody; for one, it is a blessing of opportunity to gather accounts in the essence to his brother’s life and the other one, as a proposal that was given by the Almighty as a blessing of chance to alter one’s life for the better. These grounds suggest that there’s nothing to fear with that kind of purpose because of too much optimism to the anticipated result even though it doesn’t warrant an affirmative ending to this.

The intention: On Sung Woo, it is to continue what he perceived is the purpose of his brother’s life in the retrieval of the incense sticks at the breezing Himalayas where his body was eventually found. Anyhow, the true reason that would justify his act will remain to be unidentified until revealed later on in the episodes of time travel.

On time travel: It’s a very complex event that is defined by an extraordinary incident yet an engrossing event that introduces new ideas and means entailing flexibility of the characters involved to adapt to the changing situation. Nonetheless, it was a worthwhile and progressive course of event.

Loopholes: I didn’t expect this drama to be perfect; hence I left it all up to how it would execute itself that will overall carry out the story. Since the drama is made of complexities, I anticipated that it is widely prone to inconsistency and somehow, the attempt to cover its shortcomings is difficult to attain. This is a fictional story after all and it is understandable that most of the things that happen don’t make any sense. Having said that, I think that the most evident portion of the drama wherein they missed to address an issue is the realization that there are at least five characters who could relate to each other in the course of time travel, whereas the other characters were left in a situation as if nothing has changed and it’s like a normal phase occurrence to them. The issue has caused me to misunderstand the series and I thought it would be more realistic and rational for the story if they inserted a reason to it, especially that they made an exception to the rule demanding of inconsistencies from the characters. Even though it doesn’t make sense at all, it could have been interesting to see how the characters would contradict each other, just for the reason of imposing challenge to everyone involved in the story.

Constructive points: Even though there were issues that were left unattended, I think that overall, the positive outcome of the drama is more palpable and clear. The whole story delivered through the process of time travel and its execution was truly engaging and entirely worth of praise because it was a well thought series both written and in execution. Furthermore, I realized that adding extra detail would rather complicate the story and would misguide it to where the objective of the series is going. Hence, I was impressed that the drama has accepted the challenge, and in the end, even though it wasn’t apparent at first; they actually had a focus at hand. Given those episodes, the gaps in the story were thoroughly forgiven.

Cinematography: Its cinematography is one of the best I’ve seen from a Korean drama that was translated by the scenes shot at the Himalayas; showing a massive effort and budget for the series. It was really commendable because of its ability to emphasize a view with character in the series to maintain that good start which has resulted to a satisfying finished product as a whole.

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