Series Review: Lost Track of Time (Cdrama, 2022)

What happens when you combine a rebirth drama with a female lead bent on revenge, a sweet puppy of a male lead and a vicious yet somehow compelling second male lead? You get Lost Track of Time!

Check out the review written by our lovely AVV community member, Trinity. There is also a goody inside! I promise you won’t regret it!

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Lost Track of Time Review by Trinity

We start our drama by following the innocent yet intelligent Lu An Ran (played by Xing Fei), the newly appointed master of her father’s successful shipping enterprise.

She meets a dashing bodyguard named Mu Ze (played by Jing Chao) and falls desperately in love with him, which leads to them planning to marry each other.

During this time, she also meets the sweet and free-spirited Mu Chuan (played by Zhai Zi Lu), the close brother of Mu Ze.

On her engagement day, she learns Mu Ze is actually a prince. Life is tranquil and happy, yet tragedy after tragedy soon hits An Ran’s life. She eventually learns the tragedies she suffered were caused by some of her closest loved ones, which ends with her death. However, that’s not the end for An Ran.

She soon wakes up, as if from a dream, to see she is back to the beginning before everything happened. She is now bitter, focused and determined to take down all those who have hurt her and her loved ones.

I quite enjoyed this drama despite its flaws. I have read plenty of rebirth novels and have watched many drama adaptions based on rebirth novels, but so far, I think this drama has done the best job of presenting a rebirth story in a drama adaption. Due to censorship, most dramas completely wipe out the rebirth aspect of the drama or come up with fancy things to try and make it work. However, with Lost Track of Time, the drama was able to retain the rebirth trope by simply presenting her previous life as being a dream (yet we all know differently).

Where the drama really shined were the characters.


An Ran starts out innocent and easily fooled, but she becomes a force to be reckoned with, who will do everything in her power to protect those she loves. It was great watching her journey towards her ultimate revenge. I was originally worried with Xing Fei in this role as all the previous dramas I saw her in, she felt the same in each role. However, I was pleasantly surprised and felt she did a really good job showing both the light-hearted and the serious sides of Lu An Ran. Hopefully, she can start moving away from her type-cast bubbly roles and get more serious roles like this.


Our hero, Mu Chuan, is sweet and caring and always there for An Ran despite not knowing her plans or thoughts. I had read comments that his character was boring, but I personally loved him and feel we need more male leads like him in dramas. He wasn’t ambitious, he simply wanted to love An Ran while creating new rice varieties for the people. But I can understand why other viewers would see him as boring. Especially when you compare him to the driven Mu Ze. I have only ever seen Zhai Zi Lu in The King’s Avatar where he had a small role, so he was pretty new to me here, yet he did a fabulous job as Mu Chuan. He made you root for his character to not fall into his brother’s machinations and to also get the girl.

Our final character is Mu Ze who is horrible and does some truly awful things for his ambitions. I wanted him to go down in the most gruesome way, but as the drama progressed, his character became very compelling and interesting. He always remained a horrible character, but there were many moments that his character made me forget how terrible he is. This juxtaposition made him a very captivating character and I think it is largely thanks to Jing Chao’s charisma and superb acting. In the hands of a less skilled actor, Mu Ze would have just been a hateful character. And as a result, this may have been an issue for some. Some viewers were rooting for Mu Ze, who we all knew from the very start wouldn’t have a good outcome. Nevertheless, I am incredibly impressed with Jing Chao.

The first half of the drama was quite well written and well-paced. However, the drama starts showing its flaws in the second half and I feel like the drama could have cut down on the episodes. Even though the drama had a lot happening, it still felt like it went on for too long and became messy plot-wise. I was ready for it to end, but the drama kept throwing out new confusing plots and storylines that it started to lose its way. I also didn’t like when the drama played with the idea that fate can’t be changed. I feel like the writers were trying to give more tension, that no matter what An Ran did, the same results would happen. The drama was still enjoyable, but it definitely shined the most in the first half and had my full attention, while in the second half, my attention started to wane.

The ending of all our villains were well deserved, but I wasn’t happy with how our couple ended. The last episode left with them going their separate ways, leaving the viewers to question if they ever do end up together. Luckily, the drama released a special episode to, hopefully, give us the closure we want. Unluckily, I don’t speak or understand Chinese, so I have to rely on subtitles. When I learned the real ending was in the special episode, I was very disappointed because I knew special episodes don’t typically get subbed, or if they do, they are subbed months later. I did end up watching the special episode raw (ie without subtitles) and for fun, I came up with my own version of the story as I didn’t understand what was really happening (you can view transcripts of my live watch below).

TRINITY’S FANFIC – LOST TRACK OF TIME SPECIAL EPISODE

Glossary:
MC – Mu Chuan
AR – An Ran
MZ – Mu Ze
Holly – Dong Qing [An Ran’s maidservant]





Good news! The lovely ladies at AVV (Kappy, Lin and Maymay) are amazing and have subbed the special episode for all who want it! See below for the link to download the special episode subbed. No more wondering why Mu Chuan is fondling grapes!

Overall, the drama had its flaws and weaknesses, but I still enjoyed this drama. I enjoyed seeing An Ran’s path of revenge and finding the happiness she finally deserves. I would suggest Lost Track of Time to anyone who enjoys costume dramas or rebirth stories.

Rating: 8/10

Thanks so much for reading!

– Trinity

Lost Track of Time Special
[DOWNLOAD] [STREAM]

  1. 7 thoughts on “Series Review: Lost Track of Time (Cdrama, 2022)

    Thanks trin! I don’t have to watch this anymore hehe. Frozen grapes ✅

  2. 7 thoughts on “Series Review: Lost Track of Time (Cdrama, 2022)

    Thank you Trin, great review! \o/* After reading your review, I realized I started watching Lost Track of Time earlier, than forgot to continue xD

  3. 7 thoughts on “Series Review: Lost Track of Time (Cdrama, 2022)

    what a grape fanfic! looking forward to more of your reviews 🍇

  4. 7 thoughts on “Series Review: Lost Track of Time (Cdrama, 2022)

    I wanted to like this and it started out great but I hated the “can’t change destiny” vibe running through the drama. It just weakened the rebirth and revenge aspect of the whole story. I also thought what started out as FL’s revenge turned more into a “trying to survive the villain’s scheme a 2nd time” story which made it much less interesting and turned her into a more reactive character.

    Towards the end, the only thing I liked was FL’s sheer indifference towards Mu Ze and the fact that she couldn’t even work up the energy to hate him anymore.

What do you think?