Ramon makes his living by fixing clocks in Barcelona, Spain. His only pastime is to read cartoons featuring superheroes. He's a very shy guy who can't even bring himself to speak to a beautiful girl he meets at a public square every day. One day, at midnight, a time traveler appears out of the blue in the bedroom of this introverted geek and reveals to him unbelievable truths that sound more like tall tales: the world will come to its end in 92 hours and Ramon is the only man who can stop it! This lovely little piece of work, once a TV movie, was re-made into a film due to the rave receptions of viewers. It is still running in theaters all over the globe. The film unfolds around a pill exclusively used for short-term time travel. The name of the pill, Tempus Fugit, is a Latin proverb for “Time passes like an arrow.” In view of the plot, the pill functions as McGuffin. The drug causes unplanned troubles and Ramon’s supposedly “easy” mission starts to go wrong. Now enter a young soccer maniac living next door and the maniac’s dog. They create havoc and the whole situation gets tangled into one big mess. When compared to Hollywood time travel films, Tempus Fugit is a shade slower in tempo and very easy to understand. Maybe it’s because the story is centered on the petty everyday world the main character lives in and its values. This kind of earnestness, however, eventually proves to be the film’s greatest asset, not only with regard to plot development, but also regarding natural and realistic performances and the detailed description of everyday lives. Even the idea of time travel itself gets treated fairly, and is given unusually earnest consideration though not a narrative goal in and of itself. (KIM Sang-hoon)