Extraordinary You marked Kim Hye-yoon’s first K-drama as the lead character, and her latest K-drama, Lovely Runner, sees her maintain her leading lady status in a perfect follow-up to one of her break-out roles. Following her success as Kang Ye-seo in the record-breaking K-drama SKY Castle, Kim Hye-yoon returns to another high school K-drama as Eun Dan-oh in Extraordinary You. Dan-oh believes she is the main character in her own story, but is instead an extra in a comic book about someone else.
Extraordinary You is based on the web-toon July Found By Chance and boasts an all-star cast including Rowoon (Tomorrow), Lee Jang-wook (Alchemy of Souls), and Kim Young-dae (Penthouse), who all play different characters alongside Kim Hye-yoon in the comic book, Secret. Extraordinary You’s take on K-drama romance has cemented itself as a great K-drama for beginners, as it changes perspectives on a traditional K-drama formula. Similarly, one of 2024’s most exciting K-dramas, which also stars Kim Hye-yoon, has also shaken up the K-drama format in a high school K-drama with a twist.
Fate is the core element that ties Kim Hye-yoon’s first leading role to her latest, as both of her leading characters do anything they can to change it. In Extraordinary You, Eun Dan-oh initially becomes dissatisfied with her role as an extra and tries to become a leading character, hoping it would stop her impending death. On the other hand, Lovely Runner’s Im Sol (Kim Hye-yoon) travels back in time to save her favorite K-pop idol Ryu Sun-jae (Byeon Woo-seok) from an untimely death, with the hopes she can stop the accident that left her paralyzed in the process.
Both the premise for Lovely Runner and Extraordinary You are seemingly shallow, with Lovely Runner struggling to be made due to many believing it was simply a K-pop fan-fiction. However, Lovely Runner and Extraordinary You are anything but. Extraordinary You is a meta take on the K-drama genre that embraces clichés while also poking fun at them through the heartwarming relationship between Haru (Rowoon) and Dan-oh. Meanwhile, Lovely Runner is a sincere tale about first loves doing anything to protect one another, with a time-slip twist that proves it is much more than it seems.
As K-dramas based on webtoons, Lovely Runner and Extraordinary You are also connected in another way. Extraordinary You is confirmed to take place in the same universe as high school romance K-drama True Beauty, thanks to a cameo by Kim Hye-yoon and Lee Jae-wook in episode 4, which sees them reprise their roles as Eun Dan-oh and Baek Gyeong. True Beauty, which is also based on a web-toon, also happens to be written by the same writer as Lovely Runner, which could suggest that the characters of Extraordinary You and True Beauty exist in Lovely Runner‘s universe, too.
Though Extraordinary You and Lovely Runner share a lot of similarities as fantasy romance K-dramas, the first scene of each K-drama sets their respective tones perfectly. In Extraordinary You, Dan-oh is given the perfect main character setup as she explains a heroine’s role to the audience before realizing she is anything but. This opening sequence is a lighthearted homage to the cliché of romantic K-dramas before Eun Dan-oh’s self-awareness takes Extraordinary You firmly away from a traditional narrative. Conversely, Lovely Runner takes a much more dramatic tone, which sets it far apart from Extraordinary You.
Lovely Runner’s opening sequence focuses on the hopes of the newly debuted boy group, Eclipse, and the eclipse seen throughout South Korea. However, the tone of Lovely Runner quickly shifts as newly paralyzed Im Sol yells at Eclipse member Ryu Sun-jae through a phone interview, clearly distraught about her current circumstances. The soured and tense atmosphere shifts once again after Sun-jae thanks Sol for living, and to just live for each day at a time. Compared to Extraordinary You, Lovely Runner’s opening sequence is intense, but holds a lot more emotional maturity than its predecessor.
Another key difference between Lovely Runner and Extraordinary You is how Im Sol and Eun Dan-oh evoke change in their respective timelines. Lovely Runner is a time travel K-drama at heart, with Sol using Sun-jae’s watch to allow her to travel back in time and change significant moments in her lifetime, which affects her present adult life. Extraordinary You‘s Eun Dan-oh, on the other hand, is bound by “scenes” that cannot be changed, yet giving the extra character Ha-ru a name and reminding others of his existence is the catalyst that sees Extraordinary You’s timeline begin to change.
Though Lovely Runner and Extraordinary You exist on the same playing field as light-hearted comfort K-dramas, Lovely Runner takes the charm of Extraordinary You and builds on it through emotional depth and maturity. Lovely Runner’s deep undertones feel like a natural progression from Extraordinary You, which instead focuses on making fun of traditional romantic K-dramas while fully leaning into their clichés. Extraordinary You’s charm is playful and meta and matched Kim Hye-yoon’s youthful energy. Now five years later, Lovely Runner’s sentimentality matches the growth of Kim Hye-yoon’s career, making it the perfect follow-up to her prior success.