Important info: This review will be entirely spoiler free.

Once again after watching a drama I'm at a loss for words. How do you describe something that you liked so much?
When I started watching Mad Dog I didn't know any of the cast, never watched a similar story or knew much about it. I just dived in because it looked interesting. I don't regret that decision at all.

The story itself doesn't need any more explanation beside the fact that while the team Mad Dog do solve insurance crimes this is not the main storyline. There's a red thread going through the whole drama which is about a plane crash that happened two years ago in the drama's timeline. I suffered throughout the drama, but in a good way. The whole story touched me and made me feel with the characters. I won't give away anything but if you have a strong sense of justice you'll might feel the same. I encourage you to keep watching though. Trust me. ;)

This leads me directly to the characters. The actors all did a superb job and I applaud them for their great talent in portraying the characters so authentic. When there's a character you despise then you have to pay respect to the actor's ability to make you feel so upset towards the characters doings and personality. That's exactly how I felt here. I loved to watch the characters develop and the relationships. If you're out looking for romance though, you won't find it here. The comments saying it's subtly there are right. Not that I felt like something was missing, though.
Each character was shown in depth with their motives and their background. I really liked that.

The OST made it right into my music collection and was played on repeat. I love the calm song from Eric Nam as much as the catchy tune of NiiWHA and Chan Yang's ballad. Giving it a well deserved 10. :)

I will definitely rewatch the drama whenever I'm in need of Woo Do Hwan as Kim Min Joon and Mad Dog in action. It's so fun to watch them.

Overall I can recommend this drama to anyone out there who wants a drama with a good story and great cast.
I enjoyed it from episode one to the satisfying end. Mad Dog made it into my favorites list and many of its cast in my custom lists. It's one of those gems that are not well known but so good. Give it a try when you want.

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I was about to drop this drama at episode 4 because of the second female lead (Ming Yue). Since each episode is only around 30 minutes short, I decided to complete it even though the tendency to dropping remained due to other reasons. I don't regret watching it and also don't regret finishing it, but this drama definitely won't make it into my favourites list. It wasn't a waste of time though.

The Story:
The storyline is nothing new or outstanding. It's the typical time travel theme which was okay. I expected that. The villains story is boring and not really worth mentioning. You wouldn't miss much by skipping half of it. You'll soon realise that almost everything in this drama is solved by the uncredited lead character: poison.
It's hard to put much background in a drama with 12 episodes so I think they did okay.
It keeps you interested enough which in my case was mostly because of the romance between the main leads.

Acting/Cast:
I liked the cast, specially the main leads and side characters Xi Feng, Mu Han and Qing Cheng. The acting was good and I think the main leads made a nice couple here.

Music:
I like the title song but that's it. The rest is fitting to the drama but didn't get stuck in my head like some really good OST did. Still I favour music that disappears in the background over unfitting and distracting music anytime.

Rewatch Value:
Close to none. I won't say what the end was like to avoid spoilers for those who want to watch this drama but I didn't like it. In fact I was rendered speechless at the end cause I wasn't sure if I could even consider this an end. It wasn't satisfying for my likings and felt too abrupt. If you want to know feel free to send me a direct message or ask in the comments and I'll answer with a spoiler.

Overall:
5.0 Yes, this looks harsh but I didn't enjoy this much. There was just nothing special about it. Even though I liked a few of the characters I mostly was fighting the urge to skip huge amounts of the episodes. The drama was mostly boring and repeating itself. The end is....well....I wished for something that felt more like an end instead of something like a preview to a second season. Some might find it satisfying, but I didn't like it.
I would recommend this to someone who is looking for a lighthearted, short time-filler in between other dramas. It's okay for a single watch. This drama reminded me of "I'm a Pet at Dali Temple" so if you have watched and liked it, you might also like this drama.

My thanks to Lan Lan for subbing this. Without her, I wouldn't have been able to watch it at all.

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I watched this drama because it seemed interesting and I wanted to see more of Zhu Yilong after watching Guardian.
Usually I don't like love triangle stories or those where two guys fight over a girl. This time I made an exception and I'm glad that I did. Overall I enjoyed watching this drama though I grew to hate Xu Xing Cheng.
It was hard to watch how the friendship between Luo Fu Sheng and Xu Xing Cheng went downhill and how corrupt and out of his mind Xing Cheng got during the course of the drama. There were many moments where I thought he must come to his senses and that no one could forget a relationship like those of brothers. While I'm not happy about how the script made him that bad I like how Kevin Chu portrayed his character so well. He is capable of showing the depth of a human soul and makes the development of his character convincing.
For at least half the drama Tian Ying has no idea what she really wants which made it sometimes tedious to watch and it had this typical "saying clearly what you want could ease half of the dramatic tension". I hate this in dramas because it makes an otherwise good scene or even story look pretty artificial.
The 40 episodes seem too long for the historical storyline but too short for the whole drama. The main protagonists of the story playing in the present remain blank compared to the historical ones as they only appear in the first and last episode. I wish the script had given them more screen time so they have had a chance to develop. Because they lack this time the ending seems rushed and while it's not a sad end it's not as satisfying as it could be which is a pity.
The setting in the China Republican Era was something new for me but nice to watch.
All the actors did a great job and create a good overall image. The music was nothing special and didn't stuck in my head (excluding the beautiful theme sung by the two main leads).
I would recommend this drama as it does have a nice storyline and great actors that made it a pleasure to watch.
Specially for fans of Zhu Yilong it's a must watch as he have a loveable character here that is among my favorites.

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At first I wasn't even sure if I was going to watch this until the end after seeing the first two episodes and were about to drop it. Now I'm glad I didn't as it managed to entertain me and I ended up liking it.
I'm far from being a medical profession but still, I do know a bit about medical stuff so maybe I'm more difficult to please when watching a drama with medical theme and tend to be also more critical.
While I cringed here and there about some things that just didn't seem logical to me the drama was enjoyable in total.

I didn't know and haven't seen the Japanese Original from 2009 when I watched the Korean Remake so that's possibly why I was more compliant than other reviewers who watched the remake after the original. Still, now that I watched it I have to adjust the rating. The Japanese Original is indeed better.

The Korean Remake is definitely not bad but it included an unnecessary second male lead to cause a "dramatic" love triangle and that was just dumb. The story doesn't need such nonsense and it made things just worse in the remake, things that would've been fine without this element that Korean Scriptwriters seem to love but is mostly annoying to no end, at least for me. The storyline is really interesting on its own and doesn't need any adjustments in my opinion. The J-Drama has some depth that lacks in the Korean Remake which is sad cause it gave the drama so much.

I like the characters and think the actors did a great job. The medical theme is not perfectly accurate but quite good and I've seen worse.
The whole time travel, parallel universe stuff was a bit confusing towards the end and I have to admit that at some point I lost focus and didn't care much about how it would be explained in the end. As anticipated the explanation wasn't really satisfying anyway so I didn't dwell on it. It was more logical in the J-Drama and I think it might've been better to just keep that instead of changing it to something that is confusing.

The music was not really outstanding and sometimes it felt a bit out of place and was not matching the scene but it wasn't really throwing me out of the scene anytime so it's okay. In fact the song "Last Love" sung by Song Seung Heon was very nice.

Despite it's flaws I like the drama and enjoyed watching it. I think it's worth a watch if you enjoy historical medical drama like me, but I would recommend watching it before the Japanese Original because the Korean Remake has some changes and most of them are not good but rather the opposite.
For me it's perfect proof that sometimes remakes are not needed and that an original is still better. Truth is, that it's hard to do something better what is already very good. In this case the attempt failed. I probably won't rewatch the remake again, at least not completely but instead picking the scenes I liked.
I still give it a solid 7.5 stars rating, cause it gave me a good time when I first watched it.

Edit: a little over a week after the original publishing of the review

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