Lovely Runner’s Finale Makes It the Year’s Best K-Drama

kim hye yoon as im sol and byeon woo seok as ryu sun jae 1.jpg
kim hye yoon as im sol and byeon woo seok as ryu sun jae 1.jpg


Caution: This newsletter comprises spoilers for all ofBeautiful Runner.

We’re simplest midway via 2024, however any upcoming Korean drama this is having a look to thieve the name of 12 months’s highest from Beautiful Runner (선재 업고 튀어) goes to have to drag out the entire stops. This week, the time-travel romance wrapped up its 16-episode story on Viki, sticking its touchdown by way of prioritizing center over plot mechanics. In a 12 months that has noticed some less-than-stellar Ok-drama conclusions, Beautiful Runner defied the percentages. It’s now not that different Ok-dramas—from Queen of Tears to Candy House’s proceeding tale to Marry My Husband—haven’t been stress-free; it’s that Beautiful Runner has combined nostalgia, romance, a homicide subplot, and the emotional agonies of slipping backward and forward via time to grow to be one thing more than the sum of its tropes. So let’s speak about how the collection used acquainted genres to craft a thrillingly sudden, frequently transferring tale revel in, turning into one of the crucial spring’s maximum compelling streaming watches within the procedure.

What’s Beautiful Runner about?

Byeon Woo Seok as Ryu Solar JaeCourtesy of Viki

In the beginning look, Beautiful Runner turns out like a moderately easy fan-idol romance, albeit with a time-travel twist. Within the first episode, we meet Im Sol (Unusual You’s Kim Hye-yoon), a 34-year-old fan of Ok-pop megastar Ryu Solar-jae (twentieth Century Woman’s Byeon Woo-seok). The majority of Beautiful Runner’s first episodeis about in 2023, and follows Sol in her standard existence. A wheelchair consumer who aspires to make her personal movies, she has a gentle process and a supportive circle of relatives and is most commonly satisfied. On the other hand, when famous person Solar-jae hastily dies, reputedly by way of suicide, Sol is devastated. Solar-jae gave Sol private recommendation at a time when she didn’t need to pass on, and he or she has discovered immense convenience of their parasocial courting ever since. That very evening, Sol had even had the risk to satisfy Solar-jae, when he stopped his automotive on a snowy bridge to ensure she was once OK after her wheelchair ran out of energy.

In her melancholy and confusion, Sol falls into Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon Flow whilst dressed in Solar-jae’s previous watch, up to now bought in a fan public sale. When she presses one among its buttons, the virtual watch sends her again in time 15 years to the existence she was once dwelling as a 19-year-old highschool pupil in 2008. She vows to save lots of Solar-jae from his long run premature dying—no matter it takes.

The primary time-slip

The pair of their highschool daysCourtesy of Viki

This purpose would possibly appear unrealistic, however Sol has a head get started for the reason that as a teen, she came about to be neighbors with teenage swim megastar Solar-jae, a element she come what may by no means put in combination. By means of the top of Episode 2, it’s additional printed that, whilst Teenager Im Sol could have been unaware of Teenager Ryu Solar-jae’s life, Teenager Solar-jae has had a weigh down on Teenager Sol. He’s been betsotted since he first noticed Sol, yellow umbrella in hand, working during the rain. One in all his most well liked Ok-pop songs, “Surprising Bathe,” was once even impressed by way of the development.

This disclose recontextualizes their complete courting, previous and provide: This isn’t simply the tale of a fan who travels again in time to save lots of her bias; it’s the tale of 2 other folks tied in combination by way of destiny. “We are living our lives as we fail to notice many stuff,” muses Sol in Episode 5. “To me, Solar-jae was once like a celebrity within the sky, unreachable and a universe away … Most effective after I confronted my previous once more, did I understand what number of moments of connection I had overlooked.”

Sadly, Sol and Solar-jae’s unfurling future isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Unbeknownst to the Sol who first slipped again in time, Solar-jae was once the one that stored her from drowning within the twist of fate that left her paralyzed—an incident brought about by way of Kim Younger-soo (Heo Hyung-kyu), a taxi motive force with a penchant for serial kidnapping and homicide. Kim Younger-soo is knotted up in Sol and Solar-jae’s internet of destiny, bringing ordinary tragedy into their love tale.

After spending months as her teenage self, getting to grasp Solar-jae, and finding he has at all times had emotions for her, Sol travels again to 2023 in Episode 7, leaving Solar-jae at the back of together with her ignorant previous self. Upon Sol’s preliminary go back to 2023, she unearths issues reasonably modified. She has using her legs, having used her wisdom as a time traveler to flee Kim Younger-soo’s clutches, and is operating for a manufacturing corporate. When she reconnects with Solar-jae, who remains to be a celebrity on this revised timeline, they after all confess their mutual emotions for one some other. It sort of feels like a contented finishing, till Kim Younger-soo pops again up once more, stabbing Solar-jae and leaving him significantly injured within the sanatorium. Determined to save lots of the affection of her existence, Sol turns on Solar-jae’s watch—this time, with particular goal— and travels again to 2009, 10 days after she up to now left.

The second one time-slip

Sol and Solar-jae throughout their faculty yearsCourtesy of Viki

On this technology, Solar-jae and Sol are enrolled on the similar faculty. Regardless that Sol to begin with tries to steer clear of Solar-jae, satisfied that it’s their courting that places him in mortal threat, they sooner or later get in combination. “Forestall working clear of me. Simply pursue your emotions for me,” Solar-jae tells Sol, when he figures out the reality of her time journey. “If I finally end up demise to save lots of you, I’ll be wonderful with that. That doesn’t subject.” On the other hand, their satisfied finishing is as soon as once more thwarted by way of Kim Younger-soo, who comes after Sol. Whilst seeking to stay Sol protected, Solar-jae is stabbed and falls off a cliff into the sea underneath, demise.

The 3rd time-slip

Sol makes use of the look ahead to a 3rd and ultimate time to journey again to the primary day Solar-jae spotted her: yellow umbrella in hand, working during the rain. Sol avoids Solar-jae altogether, erasing her life from his existence totally.

When Sol travels again to 2023, she is a hardworking movie manufacturer; she is excited, but if she will get under the influence of alcohol, she nonetheless cries about having to let Solar-jae pass. However destiny as soon as once more brings Sol and Solar-jae in combination. Whilst Solar-jae has no reminiscence of the time they shared in combination within the different variations in their lives, he’s nonetheless interested in Sol. When he reads a script she has written, a fictionalized model in their love tale, he’s moved to tears, and desires to megastar within the movie.

Sol does the whole lot she will to stay it from taking place, however destiny helps to keep bringing them in combination in echoes of the misplaced previous. When the 2 get caught in a ferris wheel automotive, a metaphor for the reputedly inescapable cycle they’re caught in, Solar-jae wonders if they may be able to’t trade the finishing of Sol’s script: “By means of the best way, is that the way it actually ends? Is the person caught in existence with none reminiscences of the girl he beloved?”

Do Sol and Solar-jae have a contented finishing?

Kim Hye Yoon and Byeon Woo Seok as Sol and Solar-jaeCourtesy of Viki

Sol and Solar-jae get a contented finishing, warding off their tragic destiny as soon as and for throughout the facility of affection and the spectacular using abilities of Sol’s highschool buddy, Kim Tae-sung (Music Geon-hee). Tae-sung, who was once characterised as a little of a scoundrel within the preliminary timeline, has grow to be a detective like his father within the revised model of the timeline—probably, no less than in part, on account of Im Sol’s certain affect and beef up. When Kim Younger-soo will get out of prison and begins stalking teenage ladies once more, Tae-sung is in a position to monitor him down.

A high-speed chase throughout a snowy Seoul turns out poised to finish in tragedy for Solar-jaen. Solar-jae has begun to keep in mind his different lives with Sol, and stumbles out onto the road in entrance of Kim Younger-soo’s automotive in his misery and confusion. It sort of feels that Sol’s worst concern (that her presence at all times brings dying into Solar-jae’s existence) is ready to be discovered as soon as once more. On the other hand, Tae-sung manages to careen into Younger-soo’s automotive first, preventing him from hitting Solar-jae.

Tae-sung pursues Younger-soo on foot throughout Seoul, chasing him into a hectic freeway the place the tale’s villain is struck by way of a automotive and falls into the water underneath. It’s an echo of Im Sol’s unique destiny by the hands of Younger-soo. This time, on the other hand, Younger-soo dies, leaving Sol and Solar-jae to their satisfied finishing.

How did Sol’s grandmother finally end up with the watch?

When Solar-jae proposes to Sol they usually include beneath the falling cherry blossoms, they see a flash in their long run wedding ceremony.Courtesy of Viki

Some sticklers for standard time-travel plot mechanics would possibly in finding Sol and Solar-jae’s finishing unsatisfying. Solar-jae recovers his reminiscences of Sol, in spite of by no means having lived them on this timeline. The restoration is reasonably defined during the musings of Sol’s grandmother, Jung Mal-ja (Seong Byeong-sook), who resides with dementia in 2023. On account of her situation, she herself regularly does now not bear in mind who Sol is, however she has moments of readability about Sol’s time journey and her romance with Solar-jae that counsel she understands issues that different characters don’t. “Reminiscences don’t disappear,” she tells Sol in this kind of moments. “The place do you assume the entire numerous reminiscences of what you notice, pay attention, and really feel on your existence pass? They’re all seared onto my soul. Even though my mind forgot them, my soul hasn’t. It’s been holding each and every piece of it.”

Within the ultimate episode, Mal-ja could also be printed to have the watch that allowed Sol to journey via time. She throws it into Cheonggyecheon Flow, finishing the cycle of time journey and making sure that Sol will keep on this timeline, with Solar-jae. When Solar-jae proposes to Sol they usually include beneath the falling cherry blossoms, they each see a flash in their long run wedding ceremony, suggesting this can be a reminiscence that they have got now not but skilled. Nonetheless, like their more than one pasts, it is rather a lot actual.

Whilst the impetus of the time journey is rarely absolutely printed, it must be famous that, the primary time we see Solar-jae’s watch—prior to Solar-jae’s preliminary dying and prior toSol first travels again in time—she is on the lookout for Solar-jae’s watch so she will put on it to his live performance. It’s printed to be at the wrist of Mal-ja, who has stolen it from Sol’s issues whilst she was once drowsing. Did Mal-ja do one thing to begin the time-slips and, if that is so, how did she even know that they might be important? (This was once prior to Solar-jae’s first premature dying.) We would possibly by no means know, except author Lee Si Eun chooses to expose additional perception. For my part, I love to consider that Mal-ja had her personal studies as a time traveler in her adolescence, however this is only head canon.

Why the Beautiful Runner finishing (most commonly) works

In its finishing, Beautiful Runner prioritizes emotional common sense over plot common sense—an indicator of Korean romantic melodrama that has been integral to the good fortune of Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. Time-travel plots are notoriously arduous to drag off as a result of time journey doesn’t, , in fact exist. Imposing the load of “realism” upon time-travel studies is a idiot’s errand. On the other hand, like several studies, time-travel stories will have to have an inside common sense and consistency to paintings. For Beautiful Runner, that common sense got here within the central theme of a reputedly unavoidable destiny and the various sorts of love (self, familial, platonic, and romantic) that resulted in a defiance of it. The use of this common sense, Beautiful Runner was once in a position to provide audience a shockingly gratifying tale of affection that transcends now not simplest time, however destiny. Within the procedure, it was once in a position to make use of a style’s construction to provide us 3 mini-stories in a single—a highschool romance, a school romance, and a place of business romance—tied in combination by way of unbelievable central performances from Kim and Byeon.

It is usually noteworthy that Sol’s satisfied finishing got here now not simplest in her courting with Solar-jae, however within the alternative to pursue her dream of changing into a movie director. With the beef up of boyfriend Solar-jae, Sol writes and directs her first brief movie, which is apparently a model of her love tale with Solar-jae. For Solar-jae, who’s to begin with portrayed as an unsatisfied idol, the conclusion of his profession remains reasonably constant all through the timelines. Whilst he enjoys being on level, it’s moderately his love for Sol that in point of fact brings about his satisfied finishing, as he’s after all given the risk to totally love and beef up her. That is in line with the romantic Ok-drama structure’s prioritization of the feminine gaze: In Beautiful Runner, Sol is in point of fact about to “have all of it,” each professionally and in her home existence. In the meantime, Solar-jae is in a position to in finding achievement now not via skilled or interpersonal dominance, because the male gaze regularly dictates, however moderately by way of supporting the girl he loves.

One notable means wherein Beautiful Runnerfumbles its finishing, on the other hand, is available in its final depiction of incapacity as a disadvantage to be “conquer” or “cured” in pursuit of without equal satisfied finishing. In its first episode, Beautiful Runner does a just right process now not depicting Sol’s incapacity as a tragedy, however moderately as only one side of her persona. As a wheelchair consumer, she is impacted by way of ableist programs, however this is framed as society’s inadequacy, now not her personal. This certain illustration is undermined, on the other hand, by way of how temporarily the display drops this side of her persona once she travels again in time. It could were groundbreaking to look Sol’s satisfied finishing come with incapacity. 

Beautiful Runner’s (most commonly) gratifying finishing is additional tied to its good fortune as a chain. Inside of fan tradition, Beautiful Runner has been noticed as The Little Ok-Drama That May just: The manufacturing was once reportedly caught in construction hell for 3 years prior to being greenlit. In spite of having Lee Si Eun (True Good looks) on board as a author and being in keeping with a pre-existing internet novel/webtoon known as The next day to come’s Perfect, casting was once tough. For 32-year-old Byeon, who was once sooner or later solid as Ryu Solar-jae, it was once his first function as a Ok-drama lead. Moreover, the display streamed the world over on area of interest platform Viki moderately than world powerhouse Netflix. The good fortune of a display that was once by no means meant to be a large hit, and the eye it has introduced each Byeon and Kim, appears like one of those future. Satisfied endings don’t seem to be assured in the true international, however, if staring at 선재 업고 튀어has reminded us of the rest this spring, isn’t it pretty to now and again consider we’ve the facility to will them into life?



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