I was blown away by the intensity of the first couple episode which sucks me in completely. I can't stop myself to keep on watching. The main male character is very interesting and the story mainly focuses on his point of view. In the beginning, there are a lot of questions whether he is a really good doctor or just a talented yet only focus on money.
I think the idea of the story is amazing and the chemistry and the acting between Jo Won and Kim Tae Hee is just amazing. Jo Won is one of the most talented actors that I ever know. I have watched some of his drama and every time I watch him on screen, he always surprises me. The only thing that I think makes this drama kind of boring is the couple last of the eps. I find it's dragging too long and wrapt up in a very open end way. To be honest, I kind of wanting a different ending.
I recommend this drama for a person who loves angst and melodramatic drama. There are some little comedy but not much.
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Nonetheless, it was a good watch (most k-dramas don't have a good ending anyways :p ) ! the acting was really nice and it has some cool scenes.
I'm not saying it's bad , it's just a bit disappointing compared to the trailer and the first few episodes. so if you're watching this , don't have any high hopes. It's still really enjoyable and somehow interesting.
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The story brings nothing new. The chacracters are put in typical kdrama situations. There is absolutely no doubt I gave a 6 score.
But... why did I give a 9 for the overall? Can a drama with ordinary plot have any chance of getting a higher score?
Yes, it can. And this is like... the second time I truly feel a drama being underrated.
There are chain events that are very well connected throughout. For an uninteresting story, they made it very well executed and I could not help but keep watching and watching until the end. The writer did a great job building plot outlines. I was kept entertained and it was honestly a success for drama to do so to me.
The shining part about this drama, however, is the characters.
There are really a lot of characters and I love it. Every person isn't the same with different names, but has their own traits amd color. That's why I didn't bother seeing so many scenes involving different people but not the main pair.
I love Yong Pal. He is playful and acts like money is everything to him (which is right sometimes), yet a very talented, kind person who always thinks of the positive and justice (and something along the lines), despte of course, his kindness becomes too angelic here and there (and that makes him even more lovable).
And also we have Yeo Jin. She is a very strong woman with great intelligence and a very clear mindset - tit or tat; you own blood, pay with blood. We can't blame her for acting just about the same as her enemies if we get to know about her childhood and her surroundings environment. At first I thought Yong Pal is going to overshadow Yeo Jin (hence the title) but actually, Yeo Jin just shines at much, especially toward the second half of the series. Her inner character complexity and the contrary between hers and Yong Pal's mindset makes their relationship feel realistic.
Both characters have their own flaws and their different persinalities blend well with one another. That's why theri love is special and very convincing as well.
This kind of characterization, I only have seen in this drama. The characters are very strong and deserve their main roles in the drama.
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Of course, this drama has many problems aside from its great characters. Mediorce OSTs and BGM (the intro was actually good though), choppy and forced love development, not so special storyline, unanswered questions (for example, the nurse in charge of watching Yeo Jin, there was a picture of her and Yeo Jin yet we never find out what kind of relationship they have). The ending should be longer though. There was only 57 mins for the last ep so why not make it longer for our couple? Ugh.
The chacracters is the main point that make this drama a recommended one to watch. Thats all I have to say
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This review may contain spoilers
Chaotic plotting, some interesting ideas, a few engaging characters - many that you will just hate.
Enjoyable.That said, first - the irritations with this drama
I found the pacing too slow. This should have been absolutely no more than 16 episodes at most. I think it actively spoils a good drama when they spin it out with unnecessary pauses in dialogue. No body speaks that slowly! Perhaps they "think" that it heightens tension, but it ruins it.
The music was heavy handed to say the least. It's not BAD music. It simply tries to maximise tension or convey emotions which should rest in the writing, or the production - it's a real indicator of laziness or poor work when this happens. I suppose there may be times when it is used to supplement poor acting, but never have I ever seen that!
The plotting is pretty loose, with plot holes and poor depiction of - for example - realistic procedures to take down a conglomerate; recover from a coma; complete a medical degree; kidnap someone; arrest the entire board of a multi million company; and so many more!
The ML here doesn't do it for me. He's believable up to a point - especially in his role as underdog but brilliant surgeon moonlighting on the shady side of the tracks, but I don't believe him as a romantic lead. For some reason his screen presence in those moments just isn't strong enough, and - even though he pities the FL - I just do not see any chemistry.
The FL here also has little to work with, but perhaps does her best. Unfortunately she spends most of the time immobile and expressionless, and then when she is recovered and has her own agency is revealed as a very unlikeable person. I didn't believe she deserved anyone's affection. Pity, yes, but warmth, not so much. When she was with Tae Hyun, she seemed like a different person, but she was unfortunately not someone I would trust for a moment - her first instinct would always be brutal revenge. TH was absolutely right to get out when he did, but when they get back together, would I trust her to be changed? not much. Her vengeful patterns are rooted in her background and her anger, but we hear about incidents when she was incredibly young and that adults around her feared her revenge - that's never going to change. She might never take out her anger on TH - but she will in a heartbeat hurt anyone else around him - and that would break his heart. Also - is the fault with the writing or the actor - I find it hard to say that another actress could have presented a less imbalanced personality - I think the writer failed to get the balance right.
All that being understood - what's to like
I was engaged by some of the relationships as they developed, especially between Tae Hyun and ... nearly everybody else. He starts off being someone who seems to have very questionable morals, but little by little that gloss is peeled away and we see him as someone prepared to take risks to protect anyone he loves: not perfect, but an enormously high achiever; bruised by life, but not yet beaten down; possessing a drive for excellence wherever he places his hand; increasingly able to empathise and very quickly form alliances wherever he finds himself, with the most unlikely people.
There are several moments of satisfying victory - both in the hospital settings, the mansion, and the company world. Each are pretty unrealistic, but still enjoyable.
There are a number of thought provoking issues, moral dilemmas, real risks, psychological struggles and personal conflicts, as well as genuinely heart-breaking moments. Many of the last are (for me) ruined by very heavy handling from the director, and the liberal serving of heavy strings in what I can only refer to as foreground music, but if I were reading it on a page, they would be very moving indeed.
The plotting is not well balanced. There's a massive shift in focus from hospital settings to conglomerates, with huge focus on indicators of status and power, and ways in which those both affect the world but can also be undermined. It's a roller-coaster -and sometimes annoying, but some of those elements are very interesting.= and make the rather chaotic plotline bearable.
The acting was competent all round, with some very familiar faces which always mean good things - notably Jung Woong In, Kim Mi Kyung and Oh Na Ra in minor roles - not much screen time but always a lot of dramatic punch. Chae Jung An was excellent as the female airhead who hides a knife-like mind and enormous determination - and a very dark and vengeful personality. Her husband, the main villain was serviceably presented by Jo Hyun Jae - handsome and affable in appearance, a certain amount of charisma, but perhaps not quite enough, but believable as the boss with murderous capacity. He did a very good job in making the character, apparently strong, but in reality easily manipulated by his Secretary, very believable. The secretary, played by Choi Byung Mo, was (for me) always very obviously the real villain, so I had no surprises when his conspiracy with all the other baddies was revealed. That could have been handled better, but it was all flagged so desperately obviously in the script and direction that I can't for a minute blame the actor.
I apologise for this long and rambling "review". It was hard to get to grips with my thoughts. This somewhat reflects the pretty chaotic plotting of the drama though, so perhaps not so inappropriate!
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If you're planning to watch this show, don't expect too much medical/ surgery scenes after the first half episodes, or maybe after the first two episodes will do, lol.
Don’t expect a lot of action scenes. The first episode is thrilling but that's that, you won’t be able to see another scene as breath taking as that on the nxt eps since only few action scenes in this drama.
This drama is entitled “Yong Pal” but it didn’t really talked abt him. It’s abt waking up ‘Sleeping Beauty’, helping her back to the throne, and trying to stop her from her revenge.. It’s mostly about Politics, Revenge, romance. And just a touch of medical thingy…
As others have said, the story took a complete turn on the Second half so don't expect too much out of the Male Lead since he was overshadowed by the Female Lead.
And again, this drama gives us a little information Abt Yong Pal (at least for others, or so it depends on how we really view it).
And soo… There are a lot of reasons to watch this drama and whether we like or hate it depends upon our tastes.
Unlike others who got bored after the 1st/2nd episode, I find this drama interesting from beginning to end. But I’ll focus on the characters…
Often, I’d prefer dramas with Cool, cold, mean, rich, male leads who falls in love with a poor, naïve, sweet girl or in short, a Cinderella story but this movie changed it all…
I love the role reversal in this movie. The Male lead is a talented poor, kind-hearted, charming doctor who fell in love with the rich somewhat spoiled beautiful patient… I love how badass Yeo Jin is in this show, her mean demeanor, and cleverness got me cheering for her, she’s not your average female lead always getting saved by the Male lead because of her idiocy.. instead, she’s a strong woman who can protect and think for herself. She’s so sweet and loveable when she’s with KTH, but cruel and vengeful to others and yet, you can’t definitely hate her-- She used to be innocent, sweet little sister to her brother but she changed after the people she trusted the most betrayed and imprisoned her. (Think about Sleep Paralysis and experiencing it for 3 yrs, I find it frightening)
Tae Hyun isn’t your ordinary impatient guy who pulls tantrum when something goes wrong, he always try to be understanding and supportive towards Yeo Jin and does his best to stop her from doing bad things for her sake. Not only that, his relationship towards other is simply appealing as he cares so much about them—how he risk his life for money in order to save his sister is heartwarming, saving chief lee is definitely something, the way he treated the gangsters as humans to be helped earned him respect, and that saving the life of the police who was out to get him, he gained a friend.. and many other beautiful interaction.
Others would often comment that the Main leads don’t have any chemistry but the romance in this drama is admirable. Their relationship is unlike others-- its full of caring, deep understanding, and to see them separate is heartbreaking.
Chae Young … I like how she often tease her husband that she never fails to annoy him. She’s a happy-go-lucky, always full of energy, and often times playful,. Yet she too fall on the abyss of darkness and in the end got blinded by vengeance. I think on one way or another, she did love her husband at one point. Lol
Not only the Main leads are awesome… there are a lot of diverse characters in this movie and they all performed their role well that it’s often frustrating and disheartening to keep on watching the antagonists plot something on some point. But of course you’ll also love the people who supported KTH no matter what happened …
Why not a perfect 10? It might have been better if it ended when YJ finally got her rightful throne back since the extension of the show for another 2 more eps did disappoint me since many of the characters personality changed a lot you’d actually wonder wtf happened, and too much unnecessary scenes and flashbacks for the last 2 eps… As I said, I love how badass YJ is, yet her brilliant cleverness suddenly disappeared that she can’t even do a simple reasoning… And I’m fine with the ending but I don’t particularly like it, if only they extended that part rather than dragging too many scheme in the episode, but oh well, it can’t be helped..
OVERALL, I LOVED IT and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS DRAMA... I Had fun watching and have re-watched it so many times, I can't just get over it…
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Interesting start.....Boring end
The cover of this drama really caught my eye. I have dropped this drama twice before at episode 1. After years I came back.....I'm glad I gave it a third chance. The first episodes were very good, especially the story and the action of ML character. That's also what keeps me from watching all to the end. The second couple also had a good love story, but it's sad that the love story ended so fast for them. How much I wish that there was a separated drama for their love story.Acting: I started this drama because of Joo Won. I really liked his acting in Good Doctor, so I had high expectation. He did a great job here too. I like when he acts a 'special/mystery' person, his character Yong Pal. He acted cool and makes me want more of his action drama's or as an action doctor.
Kim Tae Hee' s acting felt disappointing for me. I mean she can act, but I guess this character didn't suit her and I didn't see a lot of expression from her as someone that wants to make her enemies payback for there crimes. I have seen her acting in many dramas before. She is very good at princess type of characters or sweet romance characters. Here I find her acting too bland as the FL character. Everytime I watch her part, I can think of a lot of beautiful South Korean actress play this character more suitable than her.
The supporting casts did a good job. I really like Chae Jung An and Jo Hyun Jae as an Onscreen Couple and their love story in this drama. More than the lead couple.
Music was good especially the song A Nightmare by Yong Joon Hyung and Heo Ga Yoon.
Rewatch: I really like the beginning of the story and the story of the second couple in this drama. So I will rewatch selectively.
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Rushed ending
Short: Really nice pace, really good characters, has some clear evolutions in the story making it feel like it's moving at a decent pace throughout... and then just stops. Totally feels to me like this 18 episode story was meant to be 20 and they cut it, so while it has an ending, it just isn't satisfying at all.Detail:
I was hooked on this one throughout, Kim Tae Hee and Joo Won are both excellent and they are surrounded by a great cast as well. The story has an interesting premise and moves along at a nice pace throughout so it was always interesting but i'm left at the end of it just feeling like the story ran off a cliff and suddenly stopped as soon as they could possibly do it - it's like the final seconds close out the loop, the [final thing] happens and boom - credits.
I always prefer a nice run-out to my stories, let's see them live their best lives now that they've worked hard to get there.
I don't really have anything else to be sore about on this drama, if it had a decently closed off ending this would have been at least a 9 if not a 10 for me but I hated that rushed ending.
To be clear, it DOES have an ending, it DOES have closure, it's just supremely rushed which undid the great work and pacing prior.
So i'm conflicted about recommending it as a watch - on the one hand, it's great fun and I really enjoyed watching all the characters, but on the other - if you're like me and you like the long run-out endings be prepared to be checking your netflix player to double check you didn't just run out of internet or something :)
I did note with some amusement that near the start, she transfers 2 million USD to him that needs a password to release that he'll get once he gets her out of the hospital... and at no point at all during this did she ever actually do that - it's like that whole thing was just forgotten about because it was inconvenient, instead he ended up relying on another source to help his sister (because that was more story-angst-ridden :) ).
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The love story was really not very convincing, but OK, I rolled with it anyway.
The ending felt like the writers had run out of ideas and just decided to write a WTF-worthy ending for us.
On the technical and behind-the-scenes aspects of the show, the first episode featured a few really bad editing screw-ups, including terrible, terrible CGI. Joo Won also looked extremely exhausted by the end of the drama. Very obvious that the live-shoot system caught up with the show by the end of it.
A plus point is that this show features strong female characters, who aren't simply helpless damsels-in-distress crying out for the male characters to rescue them.
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If this drama was stupid from the begining I would've gone with this mindset , but it started well , a doc who saves gang members for money at night and when the day stars anew he is a very good surgeon that makes other people go rainbow colors with envy , throw there some romance and intrigue and there you have it , a really nice easy going show , but no , they had to make into a stupid revenge story that really doesn't show us anything new , people die , people get hurt and that ' people die when they are killed ' ( Emiya Shiro , Fate Stay Night , great guy , but not one with words ) or as in this ' masterpiece ' they really like to kill themselves , like that stupid ass of a brother of hers .
With this things said , we are not done with the bad parts yet , the negative side of the characters , the bad guys were such a mess , no character , no deph , no nothing , absolute zero , honestly speaking after watching Remember , War of the Son , Nam Gyu Man ( evil dude ) was the best at his role , but he was not the only one , all of them were good , it made you think that this is what they do everyday and they were getting paid for it to appear in the show , if you compare them to this side , well really , there isn't that much to compare .
Ok , the last bad part , the rushed ending , if it couldn't get any worse than this , well it did in the end . The last two eps were catastrophically bad , all of a sudden Yeo Jin trusts everyone , including doctors , her damn snake of a secretary even her sister in law , that if you read up until now , she , Yeo Jin , killed her husband AKA ' big bro ' , really ?? From the queen of aligators ( self proclaimed ) to that embarrassing state of hers .
As an optional , that guy from the states , american version of Yong Pal , what the heck did he do ? Nothing , he ordered for some scissors and that was all , a great doc indeed , and all the drama for what ? They done the operation rather easy , pff ...
The only good part of this drama was the begining and the main lead , he kept it from going really under , even so he was a shadow of what I saw in Good Doctor .
PS : Why did I compare this to Remember ? Because it had some similar plot ideas and that it was the last one I watched .
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It's intense, no fillers, interesting plot, twists, gang-culture, suspense, etc. Infact, it's the type of drama i love to watch.
But towards the end, i think a lot more could have been done to give it a 10/10 rating. The actors did their job but the scriptwriter (who had done amazing from the start, went a bit downhill. The ending was rushed so much. I was waiting for another episode only to find out that was the last episode 😭 😩 l guess viewers downrated it because of the last episode. Infact i wanted to downrate it too because the ending was disappointing for me but decided to be fair since there was more amazing episodes.
I was thinking of watching again right after watching but lost the desire to rewatch. Maybe I'll at some point.
With all that has been said, i highly recommend this drama since the storyline is very interesting
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I got into Yong Pal because years ago a friend told me it was good [if I'm into medical drama]. I didn't have time then, but after seeing Joo Won's performance in Good Doctor I decided to give it a try.
The base story of how Yong Pal is Yong Pal is really good. I really loved the action until the part about the Miss Young Ae rescue and it's just until there. I think the addition of the love story was too much for me to handle, a bit cringey. I just hope it just remained a medical series all throughout with the bits of power struggle. I think Joo Won carried so much in the drama for me to actually stay with it until the end; I kind of felt really bad with the ending when I finished it, like "Okay...?"
The acting of the cast was mostly handled by Joo Won. Augh. Poor dude. It's like Kim Tae Hee's face was trying so hard most of the time, but she still can't manage to convince me.
The music was really good. It's keeps your heart racing, especially with the action parts.
Lastly, there were too many filler flashbacks. I remember spending time skipping a lot of parts while watching because I know the parts already.
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