This is a 2015 romantic comedy drama starring Afterschool UEE, Choi Woo Shik, 2AM Seulong and Lee Soo Kyung. The drama starts off with Kang Ho Gu (Choi Woo Shik) , a webtoon comic designer. Kang Ho Gu always ends up getting friendzoned with girls whom he likes, which means that he never had a “proper” girlfriend. Meanwhile, his twin sister Kang Ho Kyung (Lee Soo Kyung) is the opposite of him with a major in psychology and never had any dating issues unlike her twin brother. Do Do Hee (UEE) is a swimmer on the national Korean team. She is very competitive and her aim is to win a gold medal. But unfortunately, everytime she tries to win one, she ends up with a silver medal, which leaves her frustrated and greedy. One day, while Kang Ho Gu was taking photographs near the crosswalk. He saw someone familiar standing on the opposite road and that was no one other than… Do Do Hee. She was his first high school crush and he could never forget that. She was so popular and beautiful, that he wasn’t the only one who had a crush on her. Every guy drooled whenever she passed by and every guy’s heart beat faster when they heared her name. She was such a beauty that no guy could get close to! She was the reason that Kang Ho Gu went to school reunions every year for. And when he met her there once, he couldn’t believe his ears. That popular girl in high school still remembered him. From then on, he chases after her with all his dreams that one day she might become his. But he doesn’t know that Do Hee has a hidden secret, that she’s probably pregnant with her rumoured ex-boyfriend Byun Kang Chul (Seulong) , whom is a successful lawyer now. Would Ho Gu stop chasing his dreams after he finds out Do Hee’s dark secret or would he not?
i don’t typically watch heist movies - but the lineup was enough to sway me. park hae soo (who is here way hotter than i remembered him to be), lee jae hoon (that nose), ahn jae hong (indie film darling), choi woo shik (now of parasite fame), and park jung min. speak no more.
set in a dystopian korea that is socioeconomically torn apart, lee, choi, and ahn rob a mafia-run illegal gambling den in hopes of immigrating to kenting, where they dream of leading peaceful and ordinary lives. when their theft results in a bounty hunter being set upon them, they spend the rest of their lives being haunted (and we spend the remaining 90 minutes of the film breathless). and of course, many gunshots are fired and people died. oh, and the film sets itself up for a sequel as well.
the outstanding strength of the film was really its creation of this version of a dystopian korea. in time to hunt, korea is economically destroyed by strict IMF reforms, which had resulted in immense depreciation of the korean won and surging youth unemployment. for those unfamiliar, s korea took a loan from IMF after the 1997 asian financial crisis, and in return IMF implemented strict reforms that many had perceived as punitive and crippling to the efforts of a nation that was trying to repay its debts. the 1997 asian financial crisis & the IMF situation after did result in many locals losing their jobs, and significantly affected the national psyche so much so that ordinary folks pawned their gold items in order to help the nation repay its debts. so it was interesting to see a dystopian world spun off from this point in economic history.
the scenes of grimy streets and ample graffiti (which ironically are not in hanja) reminded me of the Bronx and some parts of Berlin. there was no youthful exuberance that typically exist in korean films; the men had dreadlocks, are decked in retro sports jackets, and groove to hiphop over cigarettes on rooftops. in some ways time to hunt did perform an offensive caricature on european poverty, but it was unique enough to see this in a korean setting that i could overlook this.
another interesting element of this setup is the futuristic state surveillance. sometimes the props of this state surveillance seem a little childish (maybe they could’ve hired better UX designers, because some of the “surveillance screens” resemble running man videos). but it is also slightly incongruous that in a nation so socioeconomically ravaged, that money was spent on fortifying state surveillance - unless that really is the point. i also didn’t get much background to park’s bounty hunter character, apart for the fact that he’s a really good sniper and has really good political connections. why? what made him this way? park fired at least 5 shots for every word he said, and it’d be far more interesting if park offered lee a job to join him as a bounty hunter.
this film was technically brilliant - suspense was sustained till the end, although some areas were overdone to achieve this suspense. the overpowering red (yes we get it, red is the colour of danger and the colour of sunsets), the all-consuming mist (yes this is a foreign world), the background thrum (this gets old at some point right?). what irked me the most was the rendering of dark colours, which seemed to have an effect that resembled comic book pop colouring. i also enjoyed the character development of the trio; perhaps because i really like these actors, i could relate to them and their depressing coming-of-age realism. although i wish it were bolder in concept and more moderate in execution, time to hunt pushes the boundaries of heist movies and is sufficiently star-powered. –7.5/10
This is an indeed comfort drama. They gave me a good laugh and joy. Choi Woong is that ideal guy we’re all wishing for. Yoon Soo is that clueless girl but not totally clueless HAHAHA. THIS CHEMISTRY IS AAAAHHH SO CUTE, WILL MAKE YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AND HAPPY ENDINGS.
