The Time We Were Not In Love, 너를 사랑한 시간

TITLE

The Time We Were Not In Love, 너를 사랑한 시간

GENRE

Drama, romance, friendship

EPISODES

16

RELEASE DATE

June 27th, 2015

 

MAIN CAST

Ha Ji Won                  Lee Jin Wook                Yoon Gyun Sang               Choo Soo Hyun

as Oh Ha Na                  as Choi Won                  as Cha Seo Hoo               as Lee So Eun

 SHORT SYNOPSIS

Oh Ha Na and Choi Won known each other for a long time. They are neighbors and long life friends connected with a deep bond, even greater than just friendship.

Now both of them are in their thirties. Oh Ha Na, despite the well-paid job as a marketing team leader, feels the pressure of aging and the pressure of finding a partner, especially after finding out that her boyfriend cheated on her. But then, after 3 years, Oh Ha Na’s ex-boyfriend shows in front of her again, complicating all of her resolutions. On the other hand, although Choi Won is really popular among women, he is unable to have a proper relationship because of feelings he has toward Oh Ha Na. 

This drama shows that love means accepting all the unnerving tiny negative sides of a partner. And when it comes to Oh Ha Na, she has many of them. “The Time We Were Not In Love” tells a story about two people who have to realize and distinguish between friendship and love.

MY REFLECTION

“The Time We Were Not In Love” is a Korean remake of a Taiwanese drama “In Time With You”. To be honest I haven't seen the original version of this drama, but I plan to watch it. When I do, I'll dedicate a separate post to compare differences between both dramas.

Now to the drama. Apart from a few moments of main characters' irrational behavior I absolutely loved every bit of this drama. The drama is a mundane romantic comedy about love and friendship with no weird frills. It is a light and heartwarming story about normal people and their normal lives. There was also a perfect chemistry between Ha Ji Won and Lee Jin Wook. 

Main Characters 

Oh Ha Na is a successful 34 years old woman working as a Marketing Team Leader in a T&D Shoes. With a strong sense of her own self, she is assertive and confident. Despite her strong competitive personality, she has no problem accepting a defeat. She may be a little difficult to handle, but all in one she has a kind heart. As a Team Leader Oh Ha Na, she is strict and professional. But when it comes to her personal life, she just can’t seem to handle it. Especially when it comes to love. I came to really like her lovable character. She acts to be strong in front of other people, but in fact there's a lot going inside her heart. Sometimes she acts like a little kid, but it is bearable. You can easily like her and identify with her character.

When it comes to Choi Won, he is the perfect guy you want to have by your side. He works as a flight attendant in the airline industry. He has a soft look, which goes along with his good manners. When it comes to his work, he is professional and treats his customers with great attention and care. Among his coworkers he's popular, while on a daily basis he's critical and cynical, especially when it comes to Oh Ha Na. But in fact, he cares about her a lot. He's always there for her when she needs him. Won is a complete opposite to Oh Ha Na. He is unbelievably realistic and usually pessimistic. Despite that, Choi Won is an extremely caring person. His acting in this drama was also pretty good. Also, his expressions delivered all the emotions well.

I won't write whole recap of every episode, because it seems pointless for me, especially when there are many great blogs where you can read really good recaps. I am going to focus more on bringing you the best and less appealing moments of this drama (of course in my opinion).

Spoilers alert below!

FAVORITE MOMENTS

Flashbacks

First of all, during the drama there are several flashbacks from when the main characters were still teenagers. I really liked the idea. It helped to understand what was really between those two and why exactly they never ended up together. Especially because these scenes showed they had feelings for each other for a long time, but unfotunately their timing was awfully off. In their relationship, there have been a whole lot of misunderstandings and understatements from both sides.

Some circumstances made Choi Won tell Oh Ha Na that he will never love her. And because he made sure to deliver that to her for several times, she started to listen. That's why her thoughts of him never crossed the friendship zone. But to be honest I think his motives were nonsensical.

The drama also showed different perspectives on some of the scenes from their past. We could compare some events through Oh Ha Na's eyes, and also through Choi Won's eyes. The events that might have seemed insignificant to one of them, but for the other one were of great importance, thereby bringing out unexpected feelings.

We can see great chemistry between Oh Ha Na and Choi Won from the very beginning of their relationship, because in reality they were always something more than just friends. But they never revealed their feelings and as the time went by, Oh Ha Na learned to ignore any kind of feelings other than friendship, and Choi Won learned to love her from a distance.

 

Ki Sung Jae

This kid was an intern in Oh Ha Na's company. At first he seemed honest and innocent, he showed her attention and care. As you can see on the picture above, his gaze is really intense, almost hypnotizing. Also, watching them together, you could feel arousing tension between them.

I knew from the beginning that he is just a temporary character, because let's be honest - relationship between 34 year old woman with no luck to men whatsoever and 8 years younger kid with a strong male lead? Won't happen, at least not in this drama. But still, I quite liked this character. Although he proved to be another jerk in Oh Ha Na's life, he actually really admired her and felt bad for hurting her. If not for the fact that it is Choi Won who wins my heart in this drama, I would love to see this exact character as the main lead. I think it could have been an interesting story. 

Meeting your best friend's 'girlfriend'

I don't think I have too say anything about this look. It's clear Oh Ha Na's first impression of Lee So Eun wasn't too fond. All in all - our intern stewardess got drank and started asking Oh Ha Na's questions.

Here's the dialogue:

Lee So Eun: But Unni, you don't have a boyfriend, do you?

Oh Ha Na: What? Why?

Lee So Eun: With one glance, Unni looks like the type who likes work and friendship more than love.

Oh Ha Na: Do I look that way?

Lee So Eun: Yeah! And men find you the really difficult type, don't they? Am I right?

Choi Won: Don't know.

Oh Ha Na: Well, isn't it better than looking easy?

Those hidden feelings

When it comes to Oh Ha Na's bad luck, Choi Won is always there for her, whenever she needs him.  Just one phone call or a text message is enough for him to drop everything and go to her. And that's what a true friend is for.

- Love is usually yielding and sacrificing. Men probably don't know about this.
- You are the one who doesn't know. Love is liking the person just the way they are.
- Is that so? There is no one except you who accepts me as I am. But you don't see me as a woman.
- It's more like you don't see me as a man.
- Have you ever seen me as a woman?

I was satisfied to know that after this drunken talk Oh Ha Na finally gets frustrated and starts to notice Choi Won as a man, not as just a friend. Her insecurity didn't last for long, but it was fun to see her all frustrated because of one honest talk about their true feeling. If only they were honest with each other from the very beginning, overcoming the fear of what awaits them in the future.

These scenes show just how much Won loves her and how important she is to him. When she told him about her feelings for her ex-boyfriend are coming back, he decided to step back. He needed time apart from her, he needed to organize his own feelings shattered to pieces, and also he wanted Hana to see what it's like for her, when he's not around.

Hilarious moments

There were many hilarious scenes in this show. Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud, and sometimes crying. I liked pretty much all the side characters, beside those irritating ones of course. I especially liked Oh Ha Na's family, how they acted around Won and Hana, when they fought or when Hana had her 'hard times'. I also found amusing how Hana's brother knew and saw everything what was going on with our main characters.

THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK FOR ME

Too clingy, too desperate

There's always this one annoying chick that doesn't seem to know when to give up. Lee So Eun is a new intern stewardess working on the same flight crew as Choi Won. Because she's new to her job and as every new employee can't handle some situations, Choi Won every time comes to her rescue. She's that kind of girl, which falls for guy's kindness. To be honest I don't like her personality. She is too clingy and simply annoying. She doesn't know when to let go, even though she can perfectly see Choi Won's feeling for Oh Ha Na.

At first she seemed really innocent and pure, but when she came to know Oh Ha Na, she showed her true pushy, manipulative self. She was trying to make everything to get in between Oh Ha Na and Choi Won, while pretending to be sweet and simply dumb.

- So you're saying Unni Ha Na is a friend who is like family, and I'm your girlfriend, right?

Throughout the whole show, So Eun was making a lot of deliberate and manipulative comments about Oh Ha Na and Choi Won looking a lot like siblings and being just friends. What exactly she wanted to accomplish? Although it didn't work on Won, when it comes to Hana she let herself be unknowingly manipulated by So Eun.

The ex-boyfriend

Oh Ha Na's ex-boyfriend, Cha Seo Hoo, is a world-famous pianist. He comes back to Korea after 3 years and shows unexpectedly in front of Oh Ha Na. The story between those two is a bit complicated. They met when Oh Ha Na went to Paris. After they came back to Korea they were going to marry, but on that exact beautiful day he didn't show up, at least that's what Oh Ha Na thought In reality he came late and saw Oh Ha Na, as always with her best friend, while crying on Choi Won's shoulder. So he stepped back and disappeared for whole 3 years without any explanation.

He came back after all these years to stomp all over Oh Ha Na's heart again. With his persistent, clingy ways he ensures her he came back to win her heart over again, that he will do anything to get her back, that for those past 3 years he was always thinking about her and that he realized he can't live without him. 

Initially Oh Ha Na doesn't want to have anything to do with him, but after she's forced to work with him and gets to spend more time with him, all the good memories of their relationship come back to her. Tempted by all of his efforts to win her back, she decides to give him another chance.

Watching this drama I had very strong feelings of hate toward this character. Okay, it's true the introduction of this character added some kind of drama twist to this show and thanks to him Choi Won finally decided to take some action regarding his feelings for Oh Ha Na. Cha Seo Hoo was a selfish, clingy, immature, controlling and egoistic asshole, who heard only what he wanted to hear and acted like a stubborn and spoiled kid. I simply couldn't stand him. And I don't think I will be able to watch another drama with him, ever. But at least in the end he was able to let her go.

Overall I enjoyed this drama. It wasn't perfect, but it was fun to watch. I would recommend it to those, who want to watch something lighter, without excessive amount of misfortune and drama.

Few words not related to the review

This is my first review, so it may be a little all over the place, with some spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as stylistically incorrect (especially because English is not my mother language). I promise to work on it and get better in the future.

Also, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.