# Kairos (2020)

> A driven executive from the future reaches back a month to a struggling college student in order to prevent his daughter's kidnapping.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/93501

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 32
- Episode runtime: 68 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: science fiction, thriller, drama
- Network: MBC
- Cast: Shin Sung-rok, Lee Se-young, Ahn Bo-hyun, Nam Gyu-ri, Kang Seung-yoon, Hwang Jeong-min, Shin Gu, Cho Dong-in
- TMDB rating: 7.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12874950/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, urgent, emotional, melancholic, suspenseful

## Synopsis

Kairos (2020) is a South Korean time travel thriller series created for MBC, a single season of thirty two episodes with roughly sixty eight minute runs. Shin Sung-rok plays Kim Seo-Jin, a driven young executive whose perfect life with violinist wife Kang Hyun-Chae (Nam Gyu-ri) collapses when his daughter is kidnapped. Desperate to undo the loss, he reaches back about a month into the past to contact Han Ae-Ri (Lee Se-young), a college student working a part time job to pay for her sick mother's operation. Her own despair deepens when her mother suddenly disappears, and the two must work across time to change the outcome. The engine of the show is a race against the clock, with each episode built from messages across timelines, strained decisions, and shifting attempts to alter the past. Its tone is tense and emotionally charged, with thriller pacing and a strong focus on family loss and desperate hope. Set in contemporary South Korea, it has the feel of a serialized Korean thriller. Fans of Dark, Kingdom and Looper will find resonance in its layered timelines, urgent stakes, and moral pressure.

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