Someday or One Day () is a Taiwanese TV drama released in 2019 directed by Huang Tien-jen (黃天仁), and stars Alice Ko, Greg Han, Patrick Shih and Kenny Yen. It was produced by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, Hualien Media International, and Three Phoenixes Production Co. Ltd. (三鳳製作), and received NT$22 million in subsidy from the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development.
The drama aired on CTV every Sunday at 10:00pm, from November 17, 2019, to February 16, 2020. After its finale, Someday or One Day was screened on Star Chinese Channel every other Saturday, with behind-the-scenes footage titled "想見你 不見不散" (lit. 'Wanting to see you - don't leave until we see each other') following each episode.
A theatrical version of the series (which serves as a semi-continuation and adaptation) was released in 2022.
Premise After the death of her boyfriend, Wang Chuan-sheng (Greg Hsu), Huang Yu-hsuan (Ko Chia-yen) misses and longs to see her deceased boyfriend. Out of grief, Yu-hsuan frequently sends him text messages, hoping that he will somehow receive them.
One day, Yu-hsuan receives a parcel containing an old-school Walkman portable cassette player and a cassette tape of Wu Bai's album The End of Love. While listening to the tape on a bus, she falls asleep. Upon awaking, she discovers she has been transported to 1998, and has taken over the body of a high school girl named Chen Yun-ru. The night before, Chen Yun-ru had been hit by a car. When Yu-hsuan regains consciousness in Yun-ru's body, she sees a boy beside her hospital bed, who looks exactly the same as her late boyfriend. At first, Yu-hsuan believes she has been reunited with Chuan-sheng, but she learns things are not how they appear.
Trapped in living another person's life, Yu-hsuan tries to rewrite Yun-ru's fate. As she plays with destiny, Yu-hsuan learns about Yun-ru's "mysterious traffic accident".
Cast
Main cast Ko Chia-yen (柯佳嬿) as Huang Yu-hsuan (黃雨萱) / Chen Yun-ru (陳韻如) Greg Hsu (許光漢) as Wang Chuan-sheng (王詮勝) / Li Zi-wei (李子維) Patrick Shih (施柏宇) as Mo Jun-jie (莫俊傑) Yen Yu-lin (顏毓麟) as Hsieh Chih-chi (謝芝齊) / Hsieh Tsung-ju (謝宗儒)
Other cast Yen Yi-wen (嚴藝文) as Wu Ying-chan (吳瑛嬋) Da-her Lin (林鶴軒) as Chen Si-yuan (陳思源) Chang Han (張翰) as Wu Wen-lei (吳文磊) Da-Wen (大文) as Kun-Bu (昆布) Da-Fei (大飛) as A-Tsai (陳財裕 / 阿財) Zhang Kuang-chen (章廣辰) as A-Tuo (阿脫) Lin Zi-shan (林子珊) as Hsiao Dai (小黛)
Special appearance Chan Jia-huei (張家慧) as Madam Na (娜姐) Joanne Tseng as Ms. Sunny (Sunny老師) Dewi Chien as Vicky Prince Chiu as Yan Li-zheng (顏力正) Bokeh Kosang as Instructor Erato Liang (梁洳瑄) as Tsai Wen-jou (蔡雯柔) Scott Yang (楊翹碩) as Chang Chi-en (張奇恩) A-Han (阿翰) as Lin-Yue (澟月) Ma Hui-zhen (馬惠珍) as Grandma Mo (莫奶奶) Any.C (Any安偉) as A-Nan (阿南) Zhu Zhi-ying (朱芷瑩) as Yang Bi-yun (楊碧雲) Simon Lian as A-Zhe (阿哲) Alien Huang as Du Chi-min (杜齊閔)
Production Background and creation Screenwriters Chien Chi-feng and Lin Hsin-hui were nominated for "Best Writing for a Television Series" in the Golden Bell Awards for the series Ex-Boyfriend and Marry Me, or Not?. They reunited with the director, Huang Tien-jen, after working with him on What Is Love and Attention, Love! During the series' preview, Chien revealed the creative origins of Someday Or One Day and how one of the producers, Ma Yi-ting, wanted to create a "drama that would make people cry without knowing it". Chien derived inspiration from a dream: "In my dream, I was writing in a hurry; writing about the love story of a male and a female protagonist who have been together for 13 years. The drama used flashbacks extensively, taking them from age 29 back to their high school days, showing their mutual love." He told Lin about his dream and they wrote the story together. The result was described as "[a] script written with God guiding the screenwriter's hands".
Ma has stated that preparations were the most difficult part of the drama. Since the leading actors needed to play two separate characters in the series, the production staff needed to recruit skilled actors, but they also wanted to find a fresh combination of leads. Another challenge was posed by the two time periods portrayed in the drama: 1998 and 2019. This made it necessary to recreate the atmosphere of 1998 in some scenes, but in a way that was not too abrupt.
The screenwriters expressed in an interview that they like to challenge themselves with topics that others dare not write about. Although Someday Or One Day contains elements of romance, time travel, and mystery, the real subject is adolescent identity. Lin said that each of the three young protagonists has some special trait, but they are unable to take their traits seriously. She stated that the troubles of adolescents are easily overlooked by others who think they are too young to have real worries, but that the problem is very serious in reality. The importance of feelings and self-expression inspired the choices throughout the series. One notable episode illustrates the toll of grief and the writers state "If you can't understand that kind of sadness as a screenwriter, you will never write a good script."
Chien said he took names from people he knew as inspiration: Wang Quan-Sheng was Chien's classmate in elementary school, Mo Jun-Jie was a middle school classmate, and Li Zi-Wei and Chen Yun-Ru were his classmates in high school.
The drama was originally titled Read But Ignored (), but was subsequently changed to Love, Read but Ignored (). "Want to see you" () was originally the subtitle of the script, but it became the main title. As the protagonists were able to travel through time and space because of their determination to see each other, the English version was retitled Someday or One Day, which represents "There is a possibility that one day when the future is the past, and the past is also the future?", and "This matter of wanting to see you, is not just on a certain day, it is from the past to the future, and from the future to the past".
Filming
Filming for Someday Or One Day began officially on December 27, 2018, and concluded on May 10, 2019. After the script was completed, the crew discussed filming locations. As the drama is set in two separate time periods, the number of required locations doubled. The crew spent three months surveying hundreds of houses before finding one that was suitable for Chen Yun-ru's home. Director Huang Tien-jen sealed some corridors and made compartments to make it look smaller for convenience. Likewise, a long time was spent scouting the record store, but ultimately, Huang decided on the final location as soon as he saw the place. They remodeled and changed the interior furnishings to resemble a record store in the 90s. Huang wanted the props to be moved between scenes, as he felt it would be unrealistic, for example, if the shoes were always placed in the same spot, or for the calendar always stayed on the same page.
The design of the atrium that represents Yun-ru's mind had several proposals made by the art director, while Huang proposed building an atrium with a Möbius ring to symbolize the endlessness and the circulation of thoughts and resurfacing memories. He stated that the design was not finalized until one month before filming. The atrium scenes were filmed during the last three days of principal photography because it required a lot of material, and the static images on the walls of the atrium needed to be filmed earlier so that they could be included. Ma said that she decided to build a house with white curtains combined with the static images and dynamic projection and found a team of concept artists to orchestrate the scene. She emphasized that if the images projected on the walls were rendered by post-processing, the visual would be easily distorted, and Ko would have to rely on her imagination when acting out the scenes. She thought that if she went ahead with the decision to process the images later, she would be sacrificing a realistic performance from the actress.
The drama was filmed in various cities and towns in Taiwan. The scenes of Huang Yu-Xuan as an office worker were mainly filmed in Taipei, while the characters’ campus life in 1998 was filmed in Tainan. During the press conference at the premiere, the actors revealed that in order to film the scenes from 1998, Ko, Hsu, Shih, and Yen lived together in Tainan for two months, which allowed them to continue to interact with each other every day after filming finished. Hsu said that while in Tainan the rapport and affection between the actors grew a lot. Ko said that she often felt weary while reading the script during that time, and she would walk around the neighborhood to relax and separate herself from Li and Mo, so it was a surprise to see them again when she opened the door. Shih described how everyone really became a family during the time they spent together filming in Tainan. After the drama was broadcast, Ko, Hsu, Shih and the crew members returned to Tainan to visit the filming locations. The scenes in the drama attracted many fans to also visit the filming locations.
Actors and roles Ko Chia-yen, who won the Golden Bell Award for Best Actress in the 51st Golden Bell Awards for the drama Marry Me, or Not?, played both Huang Yu-xuan and Chen Yun-ru. Ma talked about the auditions conducted for the selection of the cast, and said that Ko's eyes were very clear and were not polluted by the environment even after working in the industry for so many years, which was needed for portraying the role of Chen in the drama. The screenwriters said that Ko was the archetype that they had in mind at the time of writing the script because she has the traits of both characters, as they are different from one another: Yu-xuan is lively and confident, while Yun-ru is introverted and quiet. Ko resonated with Chen's role because of her own experience: she said that she used to be very introverted during her school days, and always felt out of place, but interacted with people during work and turning to acting as an outlet for self-expression. She considered Someday Or One Day to be one of the hardest film projects she has worked on. After studying the role, she found herself in a melancholic state for a long time while filming. At home she was unable to prepare for her scenes, as she would cry once she read the script. She said that she did not have a sense of reality on the last day of filming but thought she could continue. Ko said it was rare to encounter a story and like it so much that she could completely devote herself to the performance.
Greg Hsu, nominated for the Golden Bell Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 52nd Golden Bell Awards for the drama Have You Ever Fallen in Love, Miss Jiang? (姜老師，妳談過戀愛嗎？), also played a dual role in the drama as both Wang Quan-sheng and Li Zi-wei. Ma said that she had seen him many years ago, just before he acted in Qseries (植劇場), and she thought that he had a special temperament that other actors do not have. Screenwriter Jian said Hsu was chosen because he said that he had felt Hsu's charm after working with him previously, and praised his portrayals of both roles. Because Hsu joined the project immediately after he filmed A Sun and Nowhere Man, he did not have a much time to prepare for the role. However, Jian thought that the most important thing was to conform to the mentality and state of the character. Hsu interpreted Wang's character as more feminine and delicate than compared to Li's bright and clear character. He referenced the movies he had watched as the template to build Wang's character, and said that Wang would treat himself as a girl, and therefore, his pace of walking would be slower and his manners would be more gentle.