For those who want to feel anger while being charmed by Lee Jung Suk att his cutest
This is a drama that will have you saying wtf and how can they be so stupid and how the h*** is that person still alive??? So if you are looking for something that makes any sense please look somewhere else… While watching this drama I kept on wanting to yell at the people (mostly men) in this series, what the f**** is wrong with you!!! Just admit to your wrong doings, learn from your mistakes, apologies and move on with your lives/ just move out of the way and let them do their job… So I guess this is one of those dramas that truly brings out your inner anger, so if you are in the mood to get angry, this is definitely the drama for you!I honestly do not know if it is the female leads acting, dialog, character or all of the above that where really really bad, but bad was it… And no matter what was behind it, she was not the least bit lovable and probably had more chemistry (if any) with the villain then the male lead, and considering the male lead is Cutie Lee (Lee Jong Suk) that should otherwise be impossible but look we found someone to fit that description. I´m honestly impressed over this, so it may actually have been intentional if so why?
While the first female lead is boring, the second female leas is bubbling with emotions, she is sweet, loving and cooperative and has this amazing chemistry with Cutie Lee and is truly enjoyable to watch.
The second male lead fits the part perfectly he has great character growth but is definitely one of the people who frustrated me the most and brought out my inner anger.
Cutie Lee (Lee Jong Suk) has an adorable character, he is bad ass, sweet, funny and really shows cutie Lee at his sweetest, well styled, well smiled and just completely charming in every single way. He is what makes this drama not only bearable but worth a watch!
To conclude this, this drama has a great mixture of truly interesting, intense, boring and just plain strange plots. So I can’t say it’s bad but it´s not good either but if you feel like getting angry while being charmed by Cutie Lee then its definitely worth a watch (and if you get to board, just skip ahead).
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Can't stand
Oh my gosh i can't stand watch this drama. A little too cruel for me. At first i think i can stand watch this in the name of curiousity to find out is Song Jae Hee really Han Seung Hee or not. But turn out i really can't stand it & i just jump it to the end to find out the ending.Although i can't stand to watch the episode until the end, i have to admit this is one of best drama i've watch.
In this drama we can really see & feel that love is really not just happiness or promise or about other bullshit. But love sometimes really need prove & the power of faith. Never i've found in any other drama that have love like Park Hoon love for Han Seung Hee.
Re-watch...? No thank you. See Park Hoon struggle and sacrifice once is enough ^_^
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Doctor Stranger has been one of the most hyped up dramas of 2014, with everyone oozing their love for the drama and its leading male star Lee Jong Suk. I’ll be the first to admit that yes indeed he is a handsome actor and yes indeed he can act well, but just because amazing actors are in the drama doesn’t mean that the drama always turns out to be the best ever. The last two Lee Jong Suk dramas I’ve watched were both hyped up, however, I don’t feel all that excited about them as most people do. Doctor Stranger was a good medical drama, but the rest of the plot line wasn’t worth all that, in my opinion. I was more excited about the surgeries than anything in this drama really and found myself either dozing off and blanking out during the rest. When I watch a medical drama, I do embrace all the political drama that goes on in the hospital, but for some reason this story just didn’t really grip me, and I felt as though all that had happened, for what was executed by the drama could have been done in a shorter time frame, and didn’t really need to be dragged on and on. But that happens in a lot of 20 plus dramas, sometimes they don’t need to be that long but they stretch them out. The whole North Korean refugee thing really didn’t come that much into play, in a personality and social circumstance type of way as they made you believe in the plot line and in the first few episodes. It seemed that they got over that rather quickly, though myself wouldn’t have seen it as much drama in the first place, however, I am not a South Korean citizen so I don’t have those types of feelings towards North Korean people. The romance left me wanting more, and for the first time, I had second leading female syndrome instead of second leading male, which is always cool I suppose. I just didn’t find myself emotionally attached to these characters are that interested in their stories which is a bummer, and has seemed to happen to me too often in this 2014 season of Korean dramas. I need more, I need real character development and I found that the writing in this drama didn’t give it all to me, what could have came from this drama, with better writing, less fillers, and more character development and not just sudden “Oh I’ve changed my personality or my ideas” would of did this drama a lot better I think, then again I’m just giving my personal thoughts so you don’t have to take that to heart.
One thing that this drama had going for it, was the big cast with the amazing actors and actresses in it, for the most part, that is. Lee Jong Suk as I have said a million times before is a great actor. I think he can portray his characters well, and he can give an emotional performance throughout it. He can be funny and goofy at times and give us seriousness when needed, and I really appreciate him for that. He isn’t just a pretty face that girls and guys alike can squeal over, he actually has talent and I admire him for that. However, our leading female, Jin Se Yeon isn’t my favorite actress of all time. Her acting style is not just for me, and half the time I don’t believe the emotion that she is portraying. I don’t think she was up to par with the rest of the cast, however that being said I think she has greatly improved since the last time I’ve watched her in a drama, and that’s something to be proud of. I just found that maybe if they had a different actress in her place, the emotional scenes between her and Lee Jong Suk and their situations would have been more powerful to me. It was nice to see Park Hae Jin again, even if he wasn’t the lovable second leading male character like he was in You Who Came From The Stars. This time he was serious and wasn’t there for comic relief, his performance was great. I found myself entranced in his performance, he did a 360 from the last time I watched him and it really showed me the diversity he has as an actor. I hope to see more of him in the future. This was also my first time seeing Kan So Ra, she hasn’t been in that many dramas, and I can say I was somewhat impressed by her. I thought she did a great job with her role and portrayed the emotions well, I did find her crying a little fake, somewhere between the pretty cry and the real emotional ugly cry that people actually do in real life, and I’m hoping that she can pull from the whole pretty cry and embrace the ugly cry which is more realistic to me, then I think she would be a pretty awesome actress. I also want to lastly comment on Cheon Ho Jin. He played a rather bad man this time around, from the last drama, and every time I see him as a great old man who is so kind and sweet my heart melts, but when he plays an “evil” character I find myself scared of him. He is an amazing actor, and his entire speech he gives in episode 19, at the end, was fantastic and showed how great of an actor he is. I really enjoyed his performance the most, and I love watching him in dramas, and I would say that he is the actor that brought this drama to life for me.
Overall, I thought the drama was pretty good but not as great as everyone led me to believe with all the hype, though I never believed that in the first place. I enjoy medical dramas, and from the medical perspective of the show, I enjoyed that the most, the rest of the story were just plain okay to me. It didn’t grip me like it should have, but the actors and actresses brought it along. The plot could have been really great to me, if it was just taken a few steps forward and really pushed, but just didn’t have the pizazz that I was expecting or looking for, leaving me uninterested and rather bored of it, however the actors and actresses got me along through the parts that weren’t about surgeries with their amazing acting skill. I say this drama was pretty good, and I would recommend it, it’s just not the big amazing deal that people made it out to seem, in my opinion. So if you’re just a little bit interested in the drama, I say hey why not go for it, what do you have to lose?
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Saddly, a huge disappointment.
I could hardly finish this drama. Disappointment is the word. "Doctor Stranger" beggins with a very interessant and emotional story that made me dive into the characters and hope for a amazing plot. When I started to watch, I was very excited to see were they go with all political plot, with the tensions built initially... But during the episodes, the emotions lost strenght and we don't see nothing that was promised before.All impact that we have in the firts episodes turn to a weak story about a no sense competition in a reputable hospital. Can you imagine a competition like that happens in a real hospital? I really believe that a drama doesn't need shows one hundred percent of reality, but fantasy is different of neglect in the script. I love the criativity in dramas, but with such a deep theme, reduce the story to that was terrible. Without mentioned the couple Park Hoon and Song Jae-Hee, that have chemistry only in the firsts episodes and turn into a obssessed love with no sense. I can't understand the choices that were made for this script, and I believe that they could made so much more for this story... Saddly, we can't see this here.
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An interesting surprise.
This series is about a child, Park Hoon and his father who were kidnapped by North Korea. There, he was trained to become a doctor by his father who was already a doctor. Park Hoon became a genius-like heart surgeon. He then flees under terrible circumstances to South Korea after losing his loved ones. He begins to work as a doctor in South Korea's top hospital Myeongwoo University Hospital, but he become entangled in the shenanigans of politic figures.This story is definitely something. To be honest, I'm a big fan of dark thrillers, and on a whim seeing Lee Jong Suk as the main actor when this series appeared on my feed, I thought why not.
So you can conclude that I'm not a big fan of romance. I tolerate the few romances I see, if done well then I can appreciate incorporating them into a storyline but generally I just go with the flow.
Here, to my greatest surprise I even felt involved. This is a weird and complicated love square. Two men and two women. All I have to say is that unrequited love sucks.
To talk about the romance, and without wanting to spoil, I have to say that it was done with realism, without unnecessary drama, without a childish attitude, just adults falling in love and sometimes hitting walls, sometimes making mistakes or careful choices. They're just humans setting their priorities, their desires, their hopes.
Here the romance was told against the backdrop of a political thriller. And although it's a series that dates from 2014, so we can expect some cliché or cheesy shots in the production or in the music, overall, I enjoyed it very much.
It's a grand web of revenge, greed and ambition that originates when a doctor just tried to do the right thing for a family whose father died of medical malpractice. It degenerates when this one is sent with his son to North Korea. The rest of the story is intimately linked to the situation between the two Koreas, and the ambition of a man who wants to hijack power by manipulating events.
Lee Jong Suk's character, Park Hoon will suffer immensely. From an early age and throughout history, he endured much and yet showed a very noble character. Han Jae Joon also suffers a lot, and I think the hardest part is when he faces those people who have hurt him, and he only asks for an apology for the wrong they have done, but that those people in their greed and power seeking refused to acknowledge what they have done. It's messed up.
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that, but I'm glad I saw this series even though I'm not a fan of romance. The story is very gripping, the characters endearing and captivating.
I would say that the only negative point would be the competition between the two teams which lasted throughout the series when I would have liked us to move from this plot, I think they could have deepened the political aspect and less the medical one seeing how it turned out. I would say that this part of the story didn't fully elevated to its potential.
But I recommend definitively.
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Great show but wasted opportunity
I'll start off with the most important question: is it worth it? My answer is yes it is worth it, but it could have been a LOT better than it was if the writers made different decisions story and character wise (i'll get into that later). Overall the acting was great from Lee Jong Suk and Kang Sora, and the story was very interesting from the beginning to the almost end, but I am unsatisfied with some of the story choices.Mainly with the couples. The chemistry between LJS and KS was undeniably strong, I was literally drawn to them and that was the main if not only reason that I was so engaged in the show. On screen it almost seemed obvious that they had mutual feelings for each other, but instead the writers decided to have him choose his first love, and while they were cute when they were younger, their chemistry was a lot less and more bland then his with KS. That was just poor writing in my opinion , and it just makes LJS's character seem like an asshole for flirting with KS when it seemed he had more feelings for her then he did for his first love. I'm still waiting to see LJS and KS on another show together...
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First, I want to talk about what this story was to me and why I love it so much! This drama may have been played off as a medical drama, but, to me the medical stuff was only a backdrop for the real heartwarming story! This story was about a Romance that never died, even if Song Jae-Hee had died, I am convinced that Park Hoon would have never loved anyone his entire life. She was the only girl for him, and I loved that! I can't help it, a guy loving a girl no matter what whether she is dead or alive is my kryponite. This is why I loved this drama so much, the love spoke to me. To me, I can always get behind a romance if the guy is head over heels for a girl. The Heartbeat Couple withstood all the obstacles thrown in their way and got together. There were so many things trying to stop them from ending up together, other people who fell for Park Hoon, and also North and South Korean leaders.
I heard that this drama was based on a book, and believe me I wish to read that book. Although, I heard that the ending wasn't as good for our Heartbeat couple as this ending was.
Second, I wish to talk about the Cast/Acting. I loved it, all the actors played their parts well and I loved really believed that they were made for these parts. I can't really see any other actors playing these characters. Lee Jong Suk and Jin Se-Yun of course as our Heatbeat couple stand out! Also, just to let you know there are some really good kiss scenes in this drama! (I guess that is to be expected though, it is Lee Jong Suk after all.).
Lastly, I want to talk about the music in this drama and the rewatch value. The music still brings tears to my eyes when I hear it because I can see the tragedy of our Heartbeat couple so clearly playing out before they got a happy ending. For the rewatch value, although, parts of this drama were clearly about medical operations and surgery, I would not rewatch those parts because I like my family am not into medical dramas. I prefer romance, friendship, action, and family over medical. But, I would rewatch the romance and the funny scenes. They were the core of this drama to me.
Anyway, despite all the other reviews you read, I suggest you give this drama a try, because you might find that you love this drama like I did when everyone else gave it a bad review. I say it is well worth the time.
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I was actually expecting a stable and exciting romance plot in this drama, but sadly the writer just disappoints me because of the confusing loveline (I guess the writer got confused too). But what interests me after that was the competition between Hoon and Jaejoon. It wasn't just a competition, but a competition to show if they really live up to the morals of being a doctor.
The only touching scene that still lingers in my mind until now was the surgery of a woman due to a medical error done by Myungwoo Hospital. I wasn't expecting Jaejoon to give up on the director position and his revenge just because of the surgery and importantly, to live up the morals of a doctor. I can say that this is the first medical drama that makes me respect the doctors in the show very much.
Even though I have finished the drama, I was still quite confused about relationship between Premier Jang and North Korea. Probably I wasn't good in political stuffs.
Overall, the drama is good in terms of acting, especially Lee Jongsuk. However, I won't compliment on the story plot as it frustrates me halfway through the drama. If you are someone who loves romance genre dramas, I will suggest you to drop the drama.
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While I'm not quite taken to the political plot, having the setting where Park Hoon being kidnapped to NK and then being a doctor in that kind of environment pose an interesting conflict to the whole medical plot in the drama. And as to be expected, one can see a good amount of conflicts resulted from the fact the doctors in SK would have some kind of bias against North Koreans in general and how that would affect the treatment on Hoon, despite the fact that he's still a fellow South Korean who had the misfortune of growing up in such a harsh place. And that alone made this drama unique in terms of focusing on cardiac surgeons with a side taste of the North vs South Korean politics.
And Lee Jongsuk pulled the character so well that you can feel such an intense atmosphere around Hoon and can't help wishing for happy outcomes for him. And I love how the music and overall production having this certain sentimental air which was reminiscent of the 80's period when it comes to the North Korean plot. I never thought that it's possible for a drama to have a genre that could only be described as medical noir but here we are.
That said I guess it somewhat fit my feelings regarding Jin Seyeon. Not sure why, but I tend to like many of her noir roles. Provided that the drama had good writer and great production to carry the drama towards its intended goal, I tend to like the dramas that she's in. And I'm thankful that Doctor Stranger really had some of the best writing one could've hoped for. It wasn't always perfect, particularly on the political plot... but the drama did leave us with some hopeful feeling that some things might become better afterwards.
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This review may contain spoilers
------------------- SPOILERS----------------------------Would have been on my list of best Kdramas of the year IF Lee Jong Suk and Kang So Ra had ended up together.. but no.. The writer fooled us in to thinking they still have a chance right until the last episode Lol.
The story wasn't bad. the acting was good. Just got a bit confusing in the middle because it didn't make sense.. they could have gone in to more detail with the other characters backgrounds but overall I enjoyed this drama a lot. I didn't see any point of Sistar's Bora being in it since she was only in it for like 10 minutes in the whole drama.
I didn't like the ending, and I'm sure a lot of you wont but it's a fun watch, would definitely recommend it.
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