'Healer' himself is the key character to this story - the one who transforms from a loner, selfish, barely trusting anyone to a kinder, more generous person who wants to see justice done. His story would be transfixing on its own - but its paired with a believable romance with lots of interactions, a mystery with multiple subplots, and a moving story regarding old friends, family and generational hopes.
The acting is top notch, and all the leads (and many of the supporting characters) can go back and forth between humour, tragedy, action etc. with the drop a hat. The music is good enough. There is a lot of rewatch potential as a lot of its value is not in the 'mysteries' of the show.
I grade by other criteria as well:
Complex Themes -10
There are A LOT of themes here regarding corruption, power, love, friendship, selfishness v. sacrifice etc.
Character Growth -8.5
'Healer' grows a lot as noted above, and at certain points in the show does a 'Superman' type deception. Yeongsin does become a bit sharper, cynical and somewhat steelier over the show, but the majority of the transformation is on his side.
Nuanced Women -7.5
There are 3 great female roles in the show - very smart with strength of character, but unfortunately no real bond or connection between them until the very end. The women are more ideals and inspiration - motivations for the men in the show than fully fleshed out characters in and of themselves.
Cinematography/Production Values - 8.5
The action scenes are really well done on what appears to be a lower budget than what K-dramas have today. Lots of 'exteriors' shot in real settings scenes - good, basic cinematic camerawork. The main downfall is the wealthy people do not have the trappings/attitudes of the wealthy probably due to lack of budget.
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What I liked:
* The main lead's acting. I loved how he portrayed his character's emotional turmoil and, especially in the first half, his confusion about his feelings.
* I liked the pacing overall. There was a bit of a drag around the 2/3 mark, and the last episode felt rushed, but I really liked how the story, the parent's history and the love story, unfold.
* The action scenes were well done, and there was no excessive violence, only what was needed by the plot.
* I like the underlying message. Namely, that a free press (Free of politics and free of commercial restrictions) can be very powerful and that is why we need it.
* Something which I loved: At the beginning of each episode we were shown the last scene of the episode which came before -- which is not that new, but that scene always had something new, either just an extended version or the pint of view of another character, which sometimes even made me re-evaluate what I saw before. I don't think I've seen that done before, at least not that consistently.
What I did not like:
* Maybe I'm spoiled by dramas like "The Good Detective" or "Stove League", where there are multilayered characters and no clear line between good and bad, but I was disappointed by the "mystery", which was basically the "evil group who controls everything with an even more evil leader" trope. That trope is old and overdone, and I think audiences can and should expect more respect for their intelligence.
* I especially don't understand why they had to introduce a new plotpoint in the last two episodes. I'm sure they wanted to resolve the "item" and the murder of the first episode and maybe they wanted to finish with a bang, but it did not feel as an organic part of the rest.
* The female characters (apart from "Ajumma") also stayed remarkably passive during the whole show. The plot was mainly driven by Healer and the male reporter, while the young female reporter and the lady in the wheelchair usually followed behind, although both women's lives were equally, if not more, affected by the bad guys. Also, they are meant to be reporters! I expected them to take the lead at least in the later episodes.
All in all, it wasn't a bad watch but I'm not sure if it's worth a rewatch.
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This review may contain spoilers
Love this series. The suspense...yes. Plot...yes. Action...yes. Romance...yes. Sexy....yes, yes.As soon as you finish 1 episode you'll crave the next episode, I mean crave like a fiend. The plot keeps you in it and the romance is just right. Spoiler!! Who knew holding hands could sizzle like this? 1 item though...they overdid the Parkour in one of the episodes and after all the build up there should have been a little more meat for the, I'll just call it, "the true reunion" towards the end. Also, Moments of the last episode felt a little hurried. This is the only reason this wasn't a puuuurfect 10...it's a 9.9! Other than that..it'll keep you on the edge of your seat. It's a fantastic journey. My recommendation? ---Just watch it!! Healer is the cure for the common KDrama! Fyi: . I'm now going to be looking out for more shows with Ji Chang-Wook. Empress Ki...you and I will be in for a looong binge.
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Not my cup of tea
I feel bad because a lot of people have recommended this drama and I genuinly tried to enjoy it.I think this one might just be me more than the drama. I'm more of a main character focus first then slowly get into plot - high stakes - larger than life conflict sort of person. This drama just failed to make me care about the characters.
When I first started watching the very first episode we hardly spent much screen time with the MC. There is just too much going on, so many overly complicated political nuances that I honestly do not have the patience to follow at this point in the story. I usually can appreciate the political side of dramas and the evil overlords that want to conquer the world and kill ML but with this one, because I barely had any information about ML and the situation at hand, I couldn't care less if he died or not. It's a bit of a structural problem... like they're introducing the bad guys and side characters first and ML and FL second. It just felt all over the place and very disconnected. I gave it five episodes and each one felt like a chore and homework mixed together. I had to keep tabs on everyone all at once and the backstory is not very engaging.
ML is charismatic and has um.. visual appeal, but other than that I'm not really seeing much five episodes in. He might get better in the future but if you haven't been able to properly introduce your ML in five hours I can't help you. His connection with FL- them knowing each other as kids but maybe not remembering is something that I've seen being handled so much better in other dramas. A picture of both kids sleeping next to each other is just not enough to make me relate to them. If you're having them be childhood friends at least have them be awake. I don't care for sleeping characters as an introduction.
FL is annoying... such a disappointment from her wonderful introduction being raised by thugs. All that goes out the window very quickly for the sake of rescuing her. I love me some damsel in distress actually, but it felt... forced here.
I did not care for Reporter guy or his backstory. Sorry.
Overall this drama lacks the binge factor/page turner/mystery aspect that makes me click the next episode. I might come back to it one day and give it a chance, but probably not at the time being.
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but cast were good
i didn't like the first songs they could put better musics than those english songs...
ajuma(kim min kyung) was fantastic...
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A Kdrama superhero tale lacking in budget, acting and originality.
I was hesitant to watch Healer because I always check the currently watching and dropped ratings for older dramas to get a feel for how well they've aged and it has some polarizing numbers: 7.85/10 for current and 5.25/10 for dropped. But I figured I'd give a shot because of its popularity.It wasn't a total bust I wasn't wowed either. There's a good story in here somewhere but it feels too much like a tropey Kdrama knockoff of a Marvel franchise: OP parkour secret super hero ML and quirky cutesy sidekick FL team up to take down a cabal of corrupt old rich dudes involved in a far fetched conspiracy. I grew up with that comic book format and this brought nothing new to the table for me except the historical context, which I was more interested in than the romance.
Eventually I dropped it because even positive reviews agree the ending is haphazard and unsatisfying and 20 episodes is way too much time to spend for that kind of pay off.
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This review may contain spoilers
The emperor is naked
All the reviews praised this drama as 10/10 best thing ever, and with netflix taking it down in a couple of weeks, "Healer" arose interest from fans both old and new.But is it worth the hype? Well, after seeing 5 episodes, I'm afraid to say....no, not really.
But first thing first. I realize I'm not a target audience. I expected a thriller with some love story, but instead I got love story with lots of melodrama and some thriller. Very little action.
The mc is batman-like hypercompetent gary stu, supported by super-hacker who can just hack anything in 3 seconds if she just looks at it through mc's magic super high tech glasses. No one must know his identity, which doesn't stop him from enlisting at news agency where he pretends to be a clumsy, stuttering dumbass in character development as old as Clark Kent.
There he falls in love with a girl he was originally paid to stalk. However, little does he know they are actually amnesiac childhood friends with childhood promise, and every single villain and side character they will encounter from now on is somehow connected to their past!
Oh did I mention that the first time they met in person the bus they were driving stopped too fast, and the female mc conveniently fell in Healer's embrace? Perhaps I also should mention that he's so hyper-competent at combat he can defeat multiple armed thugs at once, and parkour fast enough to catch up with a car. Oh, and of course, everyone takes notice of how handsome he is....
In other words, the story is full of tropes and cliches. It's fairly well-executed, as far as acting and production values and direction are concerned, at least based on these 5 episodes I've seen so far. But it's just....boring and predictable.
The FL is pretty cute, but so far, she's just been a clueless damsel in distress. Any sign of competence shown in the first episode went poof, she can't even notice she's being stalked by multiple people at the time.
And don't get me started on melodrama. I had to turn episode 5 off when FL's wheelchair-bound mother got the worst acted epilepsy attack I've seen in years just when the name of her amnesiac missing daughter was mentioned.
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