Series / Someday or One Day

Main characters from bottom to top: Chen Yun Ru, Li Zi Wei, Mo Jun Jie

Someday or One Day (Original title: 想見你, translation: Want to See You) is a 2019 Taiwanese Time-Travel Romance mystery series directed by Huang Tian Ren and starring Alice Ke, Greg Hsu, and Patrick Shih.

In 2019, young professional Huang Yu Xuan (Alice Ke) is in mourning for her boyfriend, Wang Quan Sheng (Greg Hsu) who is presumed dead when his flight crashed. One day, she drifts off to sleep while listening to music on an old Sony Walkman, thinking of seeing her boyfriend again.

In 1998, Chen Yun Ru is a shy high school student crushing on Li Zi Wei, while Zi Wei's best friend Mo Jun Jie (Patrick Shih) nurses his own feelings for her. One night, while walking during a bad day, the last thing she sees is a car heading towards her...

Yu Xuan wakes up in the hospital, overjoyed to see her boyfriend again, but is shocked to discover that he is not Wang Quan Sheng, but Li Zi Wei, and that he calls her Chen Yun Ru, not Huang Yu Xuan. She must learn to navigate her new life, while figuring out why she traveled back in time, the mystery of Quan Sheng and Zi Wei's identical appearances, and what really landed Yun Ru in the hospital to begin with.

Korean and Mainland Chinese remakes were announced. A film adaptation (that brings back the actors for the main trio) is also in production.

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This show provides examples of:

• Age-Gap Romance: Without getting into the time travel shenanigans, Zi Wei and Yu Xuan have a 12 year age difference.
• Agent Scully: Jun Jie only pretends to believe Yu Xuan's claims that she is a person from the future, thinking that Yun Ru made the entire thing up and changed her personality just to make Zi Wei like her. He changes his views halfway through the final episode.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Cai Wen Rou is jealous of Yu Xuan/Yun Ru since Zi Wei likes her. To humiliate her, she plasters pictures of Yun Ru changing for gym class on the school bulletin board. However, her death at Zhong Ru's hands is played for all its terrifying potential.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Jun Jie, in a distressed state from seeing Yun Ru about to commit suicide confesses his feelings for her in his attempt of Talking Down the Suicidal, when she is convinced no one cares about the real Yun Ru, only Yu Xuan.
• Attention Whore: Yun Ru has never gone through with suicide since everyone would think her pitiful and forget her. But after she sees how popular she became when Yu Xuan controlled her and Zi Wei fall in love with Yu Xuan, she decides to go through with it, assured at that point that more people would react differently. Note that the character in question is still treated sympathetically.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Zhi Qi's mom mentions that he killed a cat when talking to Zhong Ru about his brother's disturbing lack of remorse when being punished.
• Big Bad: Psycho Psychologist Xie Zhi Qi is the only major antagonist, directly responsible for murdering Cai Wen Rou and Li Zi Wei, attacking Yun Ru with intent to kill, and being (one of) the causes of the Stable Time Loop.
• Bittersweet Ending: By breaking the casette of Wu Bai's "The End of Love" in the past, this means that Zhi Qi is unable to go back in time, therefore preventing Yun Ru, Jun Jie, Zi Wei, and presumably Wen Rou's deaths. However, this means that no Mental Time Travel happens, and Quan Sheng and Yu Xuan never meet (and Quan Sheng may have actually died). Everyone loses all their memories of the story's events and the Yu Xuan and Zi Wei that engaged in time traveling are Ret-Gone. However, there is the possibility of Yu Xuan the little girl and Zi Wei the student meeting each other after growing up.
• Bowdlerise: The Mainland Chinese broadcast excised all scenes related to sexuality such as the real Quan Sheng's entire backstory and a scene where a character masturbates. They also censored elements that showed Taiwan as an independent country (like flags and identification documents).
• Chekhov's Gunman: Xie Zhi Qi shows up once in an early episode and appears to be a bit part. Then much later it's revealed he's related to the guy who is unhealthily obsessed with Yun Ru and may have murdered her. And then he turns out to be the Big Bad.
• Cool Uncle: Chen Yun Ru's uncle encourages her, acts concerned for her welfare, and takes the reveal of Yu Xuan possessing her well, to the point where he acts like a better father figure to her than her actual father.
• Darkest Hour: In the last few episodes, Zhi Qi is intent on killing Yun Ru, has killed the present Zi Wei, and smashes the Walkman. Yun Ru has an Identity Breakdown, and the repaired-but-barely-working Walkman runs out of its final play as Yu Xuan fails to change or prevent anything.
• Dead-Hand Shot: After Li Zi Wei's car accident, the camera shows his hand dangling out of the car before panning to the Walkman on the ground. However, it turns out he isn't actually dead.
• Death of Personality: Unlike Yun Ru, whose soul is explicitly shown as stuck inside her body, and Zhong Ru, who is Fighting from the Inside, the absence of any such scenes for Quan Sheng may mean that the real one is effectively dead once Zi Wei takes over.
• Disappeared Dad: Yun Ru's father shows up only once after she is released from the hospital. Even after the divorce proceedings, he never shows up in the narrative again even during situations when it would make sense like visiting her grave, which her mom and brother do.
• Driven to Madness: Being unable to control a body while someone else is controlling it does quite a number to Zhong Ru's sanity. Later he has a full-on Freak Out when he sees Yu Xuan's face while she is interrogating him.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • After his release from prison, Mo Jun Jie commits suicide at the scene of Chen Yun Ru's death out of guilt.
  • Yun Ru had suicidal feelings for a long time. It's not until she sees how everyone liked Yu Xuan and ensuing Identity Breakdown that she goes through with it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Huang Yu Xuan's flashbacks with her boyfriend show her smiling and laughing with long hair. In the present time, her hair is short to signify her Stepford Smiler status.
• Familial Body Snatcher: Xie Zhi Qi's mind travels to and from his brother Zhong Ru's body from 2019 to 1998.
• Fat Best Friend: Kun Bu, Yu Xuan's best friend (who is also the only overweight character in the series) is an outgoing Genki Girl who gives Yu Xuan some leads early on in investigating Zi Wei during the present time, but is largely non-essential to the plot.
• Fighting from the Inside:
  • Zhong Ru attempts to resist Zhi Qi (who is inhabiting his body) from murdering Yun Ru, which stuns him for a moment.
  • When Yun Ru regains control of her body and shuts Yu Xuan out, the latter attempts this by questioning her about her motives and pointing out that what she is doing won't prevent the deaths of herself and the people she knew in the future. It doesn't work.
• Gayngst: The real Wang Quan Sheng faced homophobic bullying from his peers and his crush when confessing his feelings goes wrong.
• Gayngst-Induced Suicide: The real Quan Sheng walks into the sea after his crush rejected and bullied him, though his body survives but gets taken over by Zi Wei.
• Identical Stranger: Wang Quan Sheng and Li Zi Wei look the exact same despite the age difference. Slightly downplayed with Chen Yun Ru and Huang Yu Xuan as they style their hair differently though their identical appearances are remarked on in-universe.
• Interrupted Suicide: Jun Jie attempts to stop Yun Ru from committing suicide. In the first iterations of the time loop he fails. However, in Yu Xuan's last ditch effort to travel back in time, he pulls her back.
• It's All My Fault: In the last episode, Yu Xuan blames herself for going back in time, as she believes her entering Yun Ru's life ended up being the catalyst for her death.
• Knight of Cerebus: Xie Zhong Ru is set up as Chen Yun Ru's potential murderer and after his appearance the tone of future episodes gets darker and darker.
• Love Triangle: Mo Jun Jie likes Chen Yun Ru, who likes Li Zi Wei. When Huang Yu Xuan is in her body, it turns into a Two-Person Love Triangle as Li Zi Wei falls for her and Mo Jun Jie is slowly turned off.
• Maybe Ever After: The ending takes Li Zi Wei out of the equation in the Chen Yun Ru - Mo Jun Jie - Li Zi Wei Love Triangle and makes the remaining two people friendlier though doesn't definitively confirm any romantic feelings on Chen Yun Ru's part.
• Mental Time Travel: By listening to an old Walkman that plays Wu Bai's "Last Dance," Huang Yu Xuan's consciousness goes from 2019 to 1998, and lands her in Chen Yun Ru's body. Li Zi Wei's consciousness goes from 2003 to 2010 and lands him in Wang Quan Sheng's body in the same manner, and he travels from 2017 back to 2003 in the plane accident. Time still passes in the 'base' times and the bodies left behind are left in a vegetative state. Though when Xie Zhi Qi uses the Walkman to travel to his brother's body, he is able to be woken up by outside stimulus.
  • In the final episode: Yu Xuan takes the cassette out of the broken Walkman and puts it in the car player while thinking of Zi Wei, traveling back to Yun Ru's body by accident.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Jun Jie goes to prison for Yun Ru's murder (which was really a suicide).
• My Future Self and Me: The Older and Wiser, grizzled time traveler Zi Wei and Li Zi Wei in Quan Sheng's body meet before the plane flight that will kill Quan Sheng and lead Zi Wei to travel back in time.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: Zhi Qi, in Zhong Ru's body, talks to his younger self and encourages his unstable tendencies, which lead him to grow up, go back in time to his brother's body, murder people, and encourage his younger self, and so on...
• Phony Psychic: Zig-Zagged with the fortune teller that Yu Xuan and her friends visit to search for a lost dog. Her advice is quite unhelpful but the aura she gets from Yu Xuan that 32 is important isn't wrong.
• Product Placement: Aside from the Walkman's role in the plot, the majority of the characters own Samsung phones.
• Psycho Psychologist: Zhi Qi is Yu Xuan's psychiatrist and the one behind the murder attempt on Yun Ru.
• Psychotic Smirk: The first hint that Xie Zhong Ru who is really Xie Zhi Qi is off are his sinister smiles when looking at and hearing about Chen Yun Ru. Later on it turns into outright Slasher Smile territory when he's attacking with intent to kill.
• Reading Lips: Jun Jie reads Yun Ru's lips in the final episode when observing, from a fair distance away, Yun Ru talking to herself (really talking to Yu Xuan trapped in her body). He manages to accurately understand the entire conversation.
• Ret-Gone: The time travelers Li Zi Wei and Huang Yu Xuan disappear in the ending, though Li Zi Wei the high schooler and Huang Yu Xuan the six year old girl remain.
• The Reveal:
  • In episode 6, Li Zi Wei (and by extension, the audience) learns who a seemingly minor character really is:
  Little Girl: Big brother! I'm called Huang Yu Xuan! You can't forget me, okay?
  • Xie Zhi Qi is more malevolent than he appears to be, and is the one behind Zhong Ru's actions.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The time travelers retain their memories of what happened in the loop. Though by the ending, this is no longer the case due to Victory-Guided Amnesia.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Yu Xuan's goal in 1998 turns to preventing her host's murder in 1999.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: After Zhong Ru's appearance, Yu Xuan's colleagues steadily make fewer appearances and eventually stop appearing in the plot.
• Skyward Scream: Jun Jie screams up to the heavens when holding Yun Ru's corpse.
• Split-Personality Makeover:
  • Yun Ru's forehead is covered due to her bangs. When Yu Xuan is in control, she combs them back, exposing her forehead.
  • The real Quan Sheng has a bowlcut. When Zi Wei takes over, he styles his hair to look exactly like that of his original body.
• Stable Time Loop: It's not until multiple loops of trying to change the past but failing and Zi Wei saying what will happen to his past self in Quan Sheng's body that he realizes he's repeating the same words that were said to him when he was in that position, and the reply he gets confirms as such.
  Wang Quan Sheng (Li Zi Wei): If I don't get on this flight, how will you stand here in front of me right now? And Huang Yu Xuan won't go back to the past because of me. Then no one will go back to the past to help Mo Jun Jie, Chen Yun Ru, and us two.
  • Furthermore, Zhi Qi in Zhong Ru's body influences the Zhi Qi of the past by encouraging his budding sociopathic tendencies by having him witness Wen Rou's murder. Then, when he grows up, he travels back in time and does it again.
• Stalker with a Crush: Zhong Ru/Zhi Qi is unhealthily obsessed with Yun Ru, acquiring photos of her, masturbating to them, following her at night, and fantasizing about Yun Ru saying she wants him.
• Stepford Smiler: Yu Xuan has a friendly demeanor but it's clear to her boss and her best friend that she is still depressed over her boyfriend's death.
• Suicide by Cop: Yun Ru in her Identity Breakdown doesn't try to avoid Zhi Qi following her and offers no resistance when he tries to murder her. When Zhi Qi is interrupted by the police capturing his body in 2019, she tries to get Zhong Ru and later Jun Jie to kill her. When they refuse, she takes matters into her own hands.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Jun Jie and Yu Xuan trapped in Yun Ru's body attempt to calm Yun Ru down. They fail.
• Technically a Smile: The real Yun Ru has a creepy, obviously fake smile when she regains control of her body, her Identity Breakdown imminent.
• Thematic Theme Tune: The opening and ending themes, while not to the level of Expository Theme Tune, describe the story quite well.
• Time-Passage Beard: After Jun Jie is released from prison in 2008, we see him with a mustache and goatee.
• Time Skip: Discounting the time travel related ones, in the final episode, time passes from 2019 to 2020 after the Walkman breaks.
• Title Theme Tune:
  • The opening song and the official English series title translation are both called "Someday or One Day." The lyrics themselves almost name drop it, give or take a word.
    Impossible to stay
    You'll be back to me someday
    One day
  • The ending song drops a "想見你" a couple of times:
    Want to see you, just want to see you
    Future and past, I just want to see you
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Over time, Li Zi Wei gets closer to Huang Yu Xuan in Chen Yun Ru's body, though Yu Xuan initially doesn't want to start anything so not to mess up Yun Ru's relationships.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Xie Zhong Ru and Xie Zhi Qi (who are both played by the same actor) are brothers (with a 6 year age difference), though they look similar enough that one is mistaken for the other.
• Uncertain Doom: Quan Sheng attempts suicide, but thanks to Zi Wei's consciousness entering his body, his body survives but no mention is made of his soul remaining trapped in the body unlike the explicit scenes of Yun Ru stuck inside and Zhong Ru's voice interrupting Zhi Qi. In the final episode when Zhi Qi's wrongdoing is undone, preventing Yun Ru and Zi Wei's deaths, no mention is made of what happened to Quan Sheng.
• Victory-Guided Amnesia: The steps Zi Wei, Yu Xuan, and Jun Jie take to Set Right What Once Went Wrong involve preventing the circumstances that lead to a Stable Time Loop, therefore eliminating all memories of the series' events from everyone involved in the story.
• Villainous Crush: Major antagonist Zhong Ru/Zhi Qi is sexually obsessed with Yun Ru, and it isn't portrayed positively at all.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: Quan Sheng's plan to propose to Yu Xuan involved him pretending his car broke down and pulling over, a traffic officer coming in and giving her a fake ticket that says "Yu Xuan, marry him," and several of their friends cheering before he kneels down and presents the ring.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 7. Things get darker as a student gets murdered, and we get confirmation that the Wang Quan Sheng that Huang Yu Xuan knows really is Li Zi Wei.
  • Episode 10 reunites the older Li Zi Wei and Huang Yu Xuan, reveals that the nature of time travel is a Stable Time Loop, brings back the psychologist Xie Zhi Qi, who reveals that Xie Zhong Ru is his older brother, and later has Zhi Qi attack Yu Xuan in her home. Zhi Qi travels back in time, ending up in Zhong Ru's body, from which we see him attempt to murder Yun Ru and kill the Zi Wei in the present time.
• Wistful Amnesia: In the final episode, the 17 year old Zi Wei gets the feeling he has forgotten someone important to him.

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