Hyde, Jekyll, Me (2015)

I never wanted to watch this when it first came out simply because i foolishly didn't like the glasses image of Hyun Bin. Just recently I became curious and turned out their ratings flopped so bad for a drama with such casts. Probably because of the bad reviews and low ratings, I was intrigued, started watching with very low expectation and ended up finding myself hooked to the drama. There are some parts which were a bit draggy, but it was actually a well-written drama. The way the writer actually put emphasis on both Hyde and Jekyll characters, and managed to slowly integrate them was indeed applaudable. It was psychologically interesting. I have seen people commenting that some scenes are illogical but if you look closer, those scenes depicted real life situations for a fact that human mind is complex and each one of us manifests pain differently

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Could've been shorter

Main reason I watched this despite its age, is because I like Hyun Bin as an actor and was curious about one of his roles from a bit further back.
I saw some mixed reviews, and although my opinion differ from those giving very poor reviews, I can't give it top score either.

I like the acting: I think Hyun Bin plays out his double role well. I am a bit more mixed about Han Ja-Min; I felt she "overacted" the sadness/weariness a bit at times.

As for the storyline, it got a bit too plot-heavy. I felt it could have been rounded off nicely at 12 episodes; I kind of expected it to be near an end in episode 10.

But: I must admit I got emotional (last 2 episodes).

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Rom-com/thriller/melodrama: The cold-hearted businessman who owns what is essentially “knock-off Disneyland, Korea” has a secret split personality who is his total opposite, and who he will do anything to suppress. Mr. Businessman clashes with the woman who runs the circus in his park, doing his level best to kick her out, but they keep getting tangled together. In a twist, she and his alternate personality end up falling in love. But…only the alternate personality. The “main” personality has an entirely different kind of relationship with her. Which brings in questions: which one is the “real” personality? What does it mean to be a “real” person? And more! An unknown attempted murderer is after the male lead for Reasons, which of course means that the female lead will get dragged into danger.

This show starts off as a stretch concept rom-com, but ends up as a surprisingly deep and wrenching commentary on multiple-personality disorder and mental health. The exchanges between his two personalities—via videos that they record for each other, because they don’t remember any time that the other personality is “active”—are fascinating to watch unfold as they begin as enemies sharing the same body and…progress from there.

Most heartbreaking exchange: FL asks the alternate personality if it would be okay if she loves all of him—both personalities. The alternate responds that he is his own whole person, and that he cannot—he will not—share her love with anyone, not even with another version of himself.

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Way too long

I wasnt gonna bother write a review for this drama as it had its ups and downs but werent to bad,i found it way to long it honestly could of finished in alot less episodes,but hey each to their own i only liked the odd characters tbh like the main lead his coldness turn soft was great couldnt really fault him well apart from when he became Robin,yeah he was way to childish touchy feely and kinda sulky,loved the assistant lol found him hilarious.Didnt mind the young girls dad her circus friends and the female shrink liked em all, didnt really like the rest of them couldnt stand the father he got on my nerves heartless dick he spent most of the drama constantly shouting his mouth off, didnt like the guy voted ceo he was proper irritating and kinda creepy.
The female lead was just rubbish to be fair dunno if it was just her character as ive not watched her in anything else or just her i felt they could of made this drama just as well without her,she contributed nothing in my opinion she was just there,i got a little confused though ,i thought she was giving both parts of him a try , she seems only interested in robin ,theyre always lovey dovey not seeming to care there's a nutter on the loose whos after the both parts of the male lead,i also found theyre not very cautious,as the crazy doc seems to always get to them,also how do you love one part of a person and wanna date and play house with him ,but not the other is she really that thick ,he wouldn't even exist without mr gu,wake girl they are 2 halves of a whole,think about it:( by the time i finished watching i just couldn't stand her tbh.
The police in this drama were so shite i mean come on......what a let down , no sense at all,couldn't catch a cold to be fair after abit the male shrink who took the doc just again started to get on my nerves who waits 15 years for revenge just to suck at it so bad ,the storyline to some extent werent bad it just got ruined along the way somehow ,others in it to me neednt of been.
I decided to drop it as i felt it was getting pretty silly at this point i mean the bad guy manages to keep escaping and kidnapping people uh uh it was time to drop it,as i said storyline weren't to bad would be better without female lead and i wouldnt watch it again.

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Before you see this KDrama research D.I.D. disorder so you will understand and rate this movie correctly because I don't understand the low ratings that I'm seeing on this website or others. The comments about the screenwriting being *shitty* are absurd.

I am so glad that this KDrama is not similar to what the U.S. profiles Jekyll and Hyde. The U.S. version is scary and gruesome. I believe that the writers took D.I.D. to another level and didn't twist this mental illness. I thank the writers for bringing a very important but sad mental illness to the Korean Screen. I noticed that some Korean Screenwriters bring a lot to the screen when it comes to mental illness with importance and bring about awareness.

Hyun Bin with his character playing two different types of personalities must have been difficult and he did that with excellence. I applaud Hyun Bin! He did so great that I even thought they were two different people but in the same body. How difficult is that! Han Ji Min who played her character had to deal with a personality whom she deeply loved and the other personality she had to tolerate was perfection and believable. To see their personalities merge was very emotional.

*Standing Ovation* for the whole Hyde, Jekyll, and Me team, cast, writers, producers, visual, costume, and sound.

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I'm sure there will be some people that like this drama but for me it was just ok. Another example of a drama that had potential but then falls into the quagmire of "too much is not a good thing". For one this probably should have been a 16 episode drama, not 20. It really did not need 4 extra episodes worth of, well, for lack of a better word, "drama", or "perceived drama". Which is really a shame because Hyun Bin and Han Ji Min are good actors with great roles under their belt. And they did good at portraying the characters in this show. My personal feeling is there was too much romance drama, so much so that after a while it became repetitive and unnecessary. I can't say I would recommend this drama to anyone unless they really like the leads enough to watch it.

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One word.... COMPLETE

This drama is so well written. Anybody who says differently is not watching the same drama I was watching. Because this was one of the most complete Korean dramas I've ever watched. They delve into each part of the story so beautifully and it was a redemptive hopeful story. It made me cry so much. I laughed and it just gives you hope for life. It's such a beautiful story of love, lost, forgiveness and everything in between.
The only part that felt overdone was hoe many episodes that was given to robin towards the end but it's understavle and respectfully done. I love how they ended it. I love everything about it. I will recommend this to everybody who loves a bit of thriller and romance put together. But I love that the Romans part was the main theme. I love how they dealt with issues of illness, and how they just went about solving everything. Maybe it's because I have not been watching good quality dramas lately in 2024 everything feels badly written with horribly damaging underlying message to our society, but this was such a breath of fresh air.

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Don't Believe The Bad Reviews

Like others have mentioned, I'm not sure why the rating on this show is so bad (relative to Kdramas where everything is a 6 is it's bad or a 10 if it's good). This story was actually really well done and engaging. The plot twists are well conceived and there's a whole lot to unpack every single episode. The lead actors do really well and are well paired with a lot of chemistry. The interactions between the female lead and each of the male's personalities are sufficiently varied so that you, as the viewer, end up relating to each personality as individual people...which is likely the intention of the writers.

I think, from what I've read, many people didn't like the ending. I can understand that, because it was difficult for me to accept as well. But I thought the plot got to that eventuality in a very thoughtful and smart way and it made sense and fit well with the story progression. The ending does happen really really quickly so you aren't given a ton of time to adjust and you don't spend a lot of time post-ending getting comfortable with the outcome. Maybe if they'd ended things a little sooner or had a little more afterward it would have been easier for some people to swallow.

The antagonist in this show was really well done. I didn't suspect him initially as an antagonist at all, mostly because it wasn't apparent yet that there even WAS anything to suspect him of. I didn't like him at all, however, from the first time I saw him. I WANTED him to be a bad guy because I hated the way he interacted with the female lead. I FELT like he was a bad guy before it even became apparent that he might be bad. The actor did a really really good job with this role through all its variations.

The plot itself has so many interesting arcs and really takes you through so many different settings and events without losing a drop of cohesion. It's varied in its events to the point where I had to go back and look at each episode's synopsis to make sure I wasn't confusing multiple dramas as the same, but somehow they all fit together. There's SO MUCH that goes on in this drama that it's pretty amazing they managed to fit the whole thing into 20 episodes.

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Hats off to Hyun bin for his wonderful acting

This is the second drama I have watched with male lead having DID..other drama watched was kill me heal me kdrama..that was also best drama....also this is the second Drama of hyun bin in it..other Drama I watched him was in crash landing on you..I must say..that his acting in this drama was way better than in tht drama..this is just my opinion..but..yhh..I really loved his passionate acting ..back to this drama..I felt a little sad the seo jin didn't receive much love from jung ha na as much as robin did ..my heart ached whn seo jin was rejected so many times but he continued to love ha na and also was ready to sacrifice his life to live with robin..it was also painfull to see that the sencond lead was also the male lead,(get wht I mean?)they were fighting to themselves to get their love but they teamed up..that was nice to see..I wanted to see seo jin receiving love as much as robin did...and also male lead always have this DID ..I never saw a drama wid female lead having this..so I want to see tht passionate acting through a girl..
Hats off to hyun bin's passion..

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Does it deserve the (negative) hype?

This review is as spoiler free as possible while giving fair warning about this drama! So no plot details, but mood spoilers etc.

For me, this was very much a drama of two halves. The first half was enjoyable, the second half was.... Not. The acting is good, the problem here was entirely the script/story.

The portrayal of multiple personalities isn't realistic, obviously. If you're someone who can take the show at face value and just go with the rules as set by that universe, you may still have fun with the first bit, like I did.

It's not the greatest show ever but it's an enjoyable enough ride with plenty of cute and fun moments - up until the main plotline wraps up and you realise there are still a bunch of episodes left. Instead of using those episodes to wrap up the romance, the show goes off the deep end in a way that I can only really describe as unpleasant.

The in-universe "rules" around the personalities are completely disregarded. There is a sudden and massive amount of unnecessary angst. Finally, and I am in no way exaggerating, the very last few minutes of the very last episode essentially goes "wait actually the personalities did work how we said they did at the beginning after all so forget all of that".

If you're the world's biggest Hyun Bin fan and simply must watch anything with him in... Watch up until the main story wraps up and then maybe the last 5 minutes of the last episode. It won't be satisfying but at least you won't feel actively bad.

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Potential lost on those additional episodes

WARNIG, this review contains some massive spoilers!

This drama gave me a lot of mixed feelings. For the most part it seemed very interesting and actually well written. I think I should be warned beforehand by really bad reviews, but at first I didn’t understand why it was so criticised, as it seemed to be actually entertaining. But then something happened.

Let’s start from the beginning. The idea is simple and actually well known. Gu Seo Jin is a young chaebol, director of amusement park. He is very composed, everything must be according to his words, he rules his company in a very stoic manner. And there’s a very good reason for it. Seo Jin has a DID, dissociative identity disorder. And his other identity, Robin, who’s name everyone avoid, can appear when Seo Jin’s heart rate will go too high. So no excitement for Seo Jin. But his five year steak of being Robin-free is about to be broken when Ha Na appears on the scene. Young circus actress work on Robin in mysterious ways and soon he appears.

And honestly, that’s a neat idea, and how it was done was also interesting. The comparison with Kill Me, Heal Me comes naturally, so I’d only say that transformation lacked weird effects, like change of eye colours, magically appearing tattoos or eyeliners (as it was in Kill Me Heal Me). It all seemed a bit more natural here, but of course it wasn’t perfect either.
And at first I really liked this drama. It all seemed pretty well. Production-wise it might’ve not be the best looking, there were some weird, pretty ridiculous moments, but not bad at the end. Main characters were interesting and well played (I mean, duh… Hyun Bin, right?).

It was sometimes painfully cliche. Because of course, and here comes major spoiler, so be aware, Seo Jin’s trauma from the childhood was caused by kidnapping. And of course, the child that was kidnapped with him is now a perp who kidnapped Seo Jin’s therapist. And Seo Jin wanted to save the kid as well but wasn’t able to do it, so that’s why Robin has a need to save people.

But aside all those things, up to some point this drama was pleasant to watch, just like that. Wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t bored, I felt somehow even invested in the story. Characters were interesting, there was some king of plot, even though writers seemed to forget about some motives and they brought them back out of spite.

What you can see from the beginning is cheap production. It’s maybe not incredibly obvious but I laughed my butt off when I’ver seen how they’ve changed car for accident scene. Brand new Mercedes shapeshifter into old Nissan. I mean, color was the same so I guess it’s all fine. But you can see after scenes like this that it’s not all perfect here. At least CGI gorilla wasn’t the worst.

So I actually enjoyed watching it, it all seemed very good, aside of those minor flaws that can be overlooked considering that this drama is not that new.

But you may ask, what happened then? Why am I writing good things about drama that I’ve marked so low?
Well… it all happens somewhere in the middle of the series. I’m always a bit sceptical towards drama that have more that standard 16 episodes. I’ve learned that many times writers just don’t use this additional time perfectly. And it happened here again. For four episodes we have an absolute chaos that doesn’t really changes anything. There’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t have any effect on the main plot.

A lot of new motives were brought then and some were totally forgotten about (third identity, anyone?). And yet, there were just too much information, too much was happening at the same time but the issues were not solved. There was no real plot development.

There was one episode that I swear was just dialogues. Nothing real happened, there was just exposition talking. Who’s who, and what could happen, that sort of things.

And the villain, interesting at first he grew into this exaggerated, over the top bond-type villain, who can do anything and cannot be captured. There were moments that I was wondering if he’s invisible because despite doing pretty obvious things, police still couldn’t figure out that it was him all along.

And don’t start me on the hostage situation episode. Yes, EPISODE. The whole episode when we had exclusively hostage situation. Nothing more happened, just talking about kidnapper. How it ended? I have no effing idea, it was so chaotic that I actually I haven’t catch all of it.

After this we had stretching motives till the very end. One issue had to be talked through by everyone and before anything happened my curiosity was long gone.

And only at the end, last two episodes we had some sense back, those two episodes brought my faith in this drama back a bit, but nothing could bring back my time that I’ve lost before.

So… I’m a bit in a pickle here. I really wanted to like this drama. Despite all of its flaws, ridiculous solutions and poor production. I liked main characters and I really liked how it all ended between them. But the truth is that Hyde, Jekyll, Me should have 16 episodes, no more. That’s it, thank you.

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