‘A Time Called You’ director says the show “naturally deviated” from its source material

nme.com:

A Time Called You director Kim Jin-won has spoken about the changes of the new Netflix K-drama, as compared to its source material, the 2019 Taiwanese series Someday or One Day.In a new interview with The Korea Times, Kim opened up about how it felt like working on A Time Called You, which is a remake of the popular 2019 Taiwanese series, Someday or One Day.The director shared that because he is a “big fan” of the original series, a huge “difficulty” when it came to A Time Called You was “finding the balance between staying true to the original and carving out new identity”.“If it’s too similar, there comes a question on our series’ identity and on why we are making this series,” he said, later noting that he and screenwriter Choi Hyo-bi “didn’t deliberately try to make huge changes”.“As we go with the flow, we know it will have certain aspects of the characters that will naturally deviate,” Kim added. “There have been a lot of changes to the characters, rather than in the overall story.”Kim singled out changes to the character of Nam Si-heon, played by Ahn Hyo-seop of A Business Proposal fame, as the one that really affected the “overall tone of the series”.“I believed that creating Si-heon as more adult and mature would help to develop the story more smoothly,” the A Time Called You director added.

Though, as The Korea Time pointed out in its story, that change was met was a mixed reception from fans of the original series.Still, Kim stands behind his choice, saying that “it needed to show the depth of his pain”.