Doctor Cha

Hard choices to pursue your dream and happiness

The Dr. Cha series was good. The drama revolves around the life of Dr. Cha, a talented and dedicated doctor who faces numerous personal and professional challenges.

One of the highlights of this drama is the exceptional cast acting. The lead actor portrays Dr. Cha (Uhm Jung Hwa) with such conviction and depth that you can't help but empathize with her struggles and root for her success. Her husband (Byung Chul) plays the typical insensitive and non-supportive spouse. All of this pushes you to empathize with her cause and to hope she chooses the right path for herself. The supporting cast also delivers commendable performances, adding layers of complexity to the overall narrative.

Dr. Cha's writing was well done. The pacing is engaging, but the story was somewhat predictable. However, adding additional potential interest kept me engaged. (remember that empathy build up) Perhaps to break up that predictability. The blend of melodrama, romance, and medical themes creates a perfect balance, making the storyline both intriguing and relatable.
The drama's production quality is good. The set designs, costumes, and cinematography transport you into Dr. Cha's world. Attention to detail is evident.

Furthermore, Dr. Cha tackles various societal issues, shedding light on the challenges faced by medical professionals and the ethical dilemmas they encounter. It beautifully explores themes of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption.
I enjoyed Dr. Cha, but I just found it a little above average. It was the acting and the intrigue of what may happen next that kept me attracted to the show despite the predictability.

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pretty funny honestly!

it was really interesting and very suspenseful at the end I thought that the two would end up together and not her husband but I’m happy that her and her husband have gotten divorced. it’s not that bad really so you should really give it a watch it was it was very funny. I was laughing throughout the whole thing, but overall yeah it was pretty good. i’m not sure if I would rewatch it. I would definitely rewatch the funny scenes, but not the whole thing over again, but I was so excited when I seen her face on the thing because she’s one of my favorite actors.

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The Series is Quite Tedious

I really didn't like this series. It's my own fault b/c I thought it was a comedy all the trailers I saw make it seem like that but its really a drama. Some comment I read said it was a tragicomedy and that's very accurate.

There are no real consequences for the husband, mother in law or the mistress. All of whom act like children throughout the series. Dr. Cha played the martyr throughout. Yes, the series is about her journey to self love but that doesn't mean other issues couldn't have been addressed but they played most of the husband's scenes for comedy and I think that irritated me the most. The husband is trash and not b/c he cheating on her but b/c he's mean, selfish and gaslighting her. In the 11th hour they tried to make him sympathetic and that pissed me off even more.

I did like the Dr. Roy & Dr. Jeon and I loved the main characters best friend, Mi Hee.

12/7/24

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Managing Work and Home

Doctor Cha did not pass my 15 minute “love it or leave” test. However, this barometer does not account for dramas which have necessary set up time and/or are slow burns. Nonetheless, there was enough there to keep going with this drama. There was her husband who was a true piece of work and her mother-in-law, whose chippy son honestly fell close to tree. I found by the end of episode 1 that Doctor Cha was an undiscovered gem. Also what helped me to stick with this drama was the fact that although episode 1 only got 5 % viewership nationwide in Korea (10 % is considered a hit drama), Doctor Cha tapped out in episode 16 with a 19 % viewership in Korea. This would make it a mega hit. To be noted, Doctor Cha is one of the most melodramatic melodramas with over the top performances by most of the cast. With touches of dark humor, there is enough to entertain all in this Medical; Comedy Family drama.

Women, we all know Doctor Cha. She is that woman who unselfishly sacrifices her career and life to stay at home with the kids and slave for a thankless mother-in-law and a two-timing husband. Well, after a near death experience, now she realizes that the kids are grown and nothing is stopping her from realizing her dreams. You go girl! Fighting! I invite all to cheer on Doctor Cha, as she learns how to be empowered. It is a go for me.

Quote from Doctor Cha

Mistress of two-timing husband, upon hearing the his wife was in the emergency room with acute liver problems, which is about to cancel their secret get-a-way, “If you are that worried then just go to the hospital”.

Two-timing husband, “It’s not like she is a kid. I have a sense of decency, you know. How could I just leave you here and go (to her)?”

Actors Corner

Uhm Jung-hwa as Doctor Cha Jeong-suk—One of the founding K-pop Artist, she has been an Actress since 1990, appeared in Our Blues. Uhm Jung-hwa is a nine time Baeksang Arts Awards (plus Grand Bell) winner. She would be our Meryl Streep.

Kim Byung-chul as Doctor Seo In-ho (Baeksang Arts Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor for Skycastle)

Min Woo-hyuk as Doctor Roy Kim is a Singer, Actor, and Model (If You Wish Upon Me).

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It’s not bad but its not good just realistic

I’ve seen the many bad reviews for the show saying that it got boring or it just wasn’t giving what it was supposed to get or that it was insulting but honestly it was realistic. There are many situations where its the man fault but the 2 women hate each other and fight each other, thats the reality. No one likes seeing 2 women put each other down over a man but then again things like this actually happen and i feel like thats what people are upset about

The part where Dr.Cha rejects Roy is unfortunately also the reality. In every kdrama everyone gets a happy ending and the ending that was for the best but Dr.Cha ending was pretty happy, it showed that she was back on track to enjoying her life. Originally after the first surgery she was trying to enjoy her life but she found out about her husband cheating and that took a turn, however, after the second surgery you can see she is really dedicated to living her own life. Like yes it wouldve been nice for Roy and her to be together but then again its also best for dr cha to put herself first.

last thing im going to mention is the fact that the husband was upset at her for working because he was having an affair and he thinks that she should be a stay at home mom is also unfortunately realistic as there are indeed some men who act like this in real life. There are some men who are just selfish and only care for themselves but that is something only they can change, you cant force yourself to try to change a person if they arent willing to admit their mistakes and change themselves

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They say forgiveness is a virtue ..this drama denies that concept

I won't say complete forgiveness but in my opinion being friends with your cheater husband and his mistress is either stupidity or straight up foreplay to some explicit thought.😑 Anyways here's the review:


This is the story of a woman who fought her way through life's brutal punches—a serious illness and a failed marriage—only to rise stronger and finally discover her own purpose. The premise somewhat overlaps with Emergency Couple, where the FL builds her career post-divorce. But while Emergency Couple leaned more into medicine, this one is 90% family melodrama and only 10% medical, and honestly, it could’ve done better with tighter writing, more backbone and well.... more medical cases. 😏

The plot starts off well-paced, but eventually devolves into a draggy mess around the divorce arc. The FL’s complete denial of her husband’s cheating is so damn frustrating. Yes, some women can’t accept that even after being devoted and loving, their husbands might still cheat—but this level of delusion was outrageous. 😮‍💨😮‍💨

Let’s not even talk about her family’s role. The FL working under the mistress, who also has a daughter actively trying to reveal the truth, and they still think it’s okay to keep the affair a secret from her ? How delusional can you be? This wasn’t noble. It was just plain stupid.😮‍💨😮‍💨

Writing Flaws That Offended Me as a Woman

One of the most offensive aspects was how indecisive the FL was when it came to dealing with her garbage marriage. Instead of making a savage exit or serving some poetic justice, we’re served plate after plate of crying, hesitation, and internal conflict. Girl, throw him off the terrace , beat him to death ... Or just drag him by his collar to court—anything but this wet tissue approach.😬

I expected rage. I expected revenge, cause this man was literally disgusting ... He deserve it .. but What I got? emotional constipation and hesitance stretched over episodes.😒



Characters:

🔹 Doctor Cha (FL):

A fine protagonist—inspiring, graceful, kind, and empathetic—but the writer clearly confused graceful with weak and pushover. I’ll explain that in a bit.😐



🔹 Dr. Seo (ML or more like Male Trash):

Let’s just say it—he’s human scum. A disgrace, a walking pile of filth that should be buried next to the word shameless in the dictionary.😤

This man was dating the SFL (his so called first love), but sleeps with FL, gets her pregnant, and marries her. So far, so normal. But then he goes to the US for residency, meets the SFL again, knocks her up, and continues having steamy nights with the FL too—because surprise, she also gets pregnant.

Both women give birth to daughters nearly the same age. For 20 YEARS, he hides this double life. And that’s not even the worst part.👏

He never spends vacations with his wife and kids.

He and his lovely little mother treat the FL like a housemaid.

When FL is hospitalized with liver failure, this man refuses to donate his liver.

Oh but wait—he uses her disability card to park near motels where he’s off screwing his mistress.


Honestly, he deserved to be eaten alive by a rabid dog.

But this is a patriarchal K-drama, so of course—he gets a redemption arc. He donates his liver in the end and boom—all sins forgiven, apparently. Never mind the SML (second male lead) was ready to donate his liver for FL too. Nooo, our FL chooses to take this cheater’s disgusting organ and continues to be friends with both the mistress and her ex-husband after the divorce. 🤮🤮🤮

Excuse me—what kind of messed-up foreplay to some twisted adult content is this?

On the contrast this man is the answer to korea's shrinking population.. i mean he created 3 babies with two women quite a nice shot he got down there 🤭🤭

Mistress: Oh not even worth discussing... Just imagine a woman who has no bottom line. 😒

Cast : there isnt much to pinpoint ..all of them are seasoned actors .. been in the industry for decades ..they delivered the best. 🙃🙂



Final Thought

The message had so much potential: a woman reclaiming her life after being broken by illness and betrayal. But instead of giving us fire, the writer gave us damp ashes. They turned an empowering journey into a circus of unrealistic forgiveness, watered-down female rage, and the glorification of human trash in the name of "growth." 😐

Call it what you want, but I call it a waste of righteous anger.

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Enforces the stereotypes it claims to oppose

What's the use in showing a woman fighting the oppression she faces by society if she'll eventually submit to them?

It annoys me that the portrayal of women in korean society is so accurate. the show does a painfully good job at this, you sympathize with dr Cha, who's working hard and has the brains, only for sexism to hold her back. It annoys me cause they do nothing with this! you don't get a medal for simply adressing the unfairness, the story must fight it. and it doesn't, the shitty cheater doesn't pay, neither his enabling mother. nothing changes, at the core.

About her "happy ending" I have mixed feelings. Loved that she became more confident and independent, but that wouldn't be erased if she gained a love interest. Koreans have a problem with middle aged women having a life beyond being a mother and wife. people in their 50s have sex, as they should. sometimes with younger men. as long as he treated her well, I don't see why she didn't give him a chance. you can be strong and independent while in a relationship with the right person.

Other reviews have said it better, but I'm saying it again: it's not her that had to change, it's the society!

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Misleading victim narrative

I saw the promo for this on Netflix back in late April and decided to wait till the whole series finished uploading in early June to watch it. It wasn’t worth the wait.

Dr Cha’s premise is that of an ambitious woman who gave up her dream of becoming a doctor to became a devoted housewife to an unappreciative and disrespectful husband and family. It promises a great comeuppance epic for the middle-aged woman who gets a new lease on life, a second chance at her medical dreams replete with a haircut that makes her look more youthful and a toy boy to elicit jealousy from her cheating husband. What an enticing mix! Except, we find that this narrative is all BS in Dr Cha’s case.

The premise is set up in the following manner: we get intro’d to a near middle-aged Dr Cha who questions whether having given up her medical license, and her dream of becoming a doctor, to become a housewife was worth it or not. Her mother-in-law assures her rearing children is the most worthy pursuit in life before instructing her on performing her duties and chores, which is basically as a servant of the household. The protagonist then has advanced hepatitis and we see how meaningless her selfless sacrifice has been. Her husband (In Ho), the only compatible donor for a liver transplant, is not only reluctant to save her life but is having an affair on the side. The oppressive mother-in-law puts the life of the family above hers yet guilts her into being more “considerate” of In Ho’s future as a surgeon and actively stops him from donating his liver to her. Oh, the outrage! Oh, the inhumanity! What a bunch of a-holes. Except we find that Jung Sook is anything but a victim.

In only a couple of episodes, all the poor victim housewife narrative is debunked. Firstly, Jung Sook never had a medical license so she was never a doctor. I’m not even sure how the scriptwriters figured in her residency years when she got pregnant in only her 2nd year of med school. Medical degrees are usually 5-6 years, with a year’s internship before the residency years, so she wouldn’t even have made her residency years. It’s doubtful that she even completed her degree. Plus, she never had a dream of becoming a doctor until she had her brush with death, in the present, so this part of the premise fails too.

Secondly, there was no betrayal from the “affair” since Jung Sook and In Ho didn’t get married because of love. They got married because Jung Sook seduced him in a situation that can only be described as the lamest reason to hook up I’ve ever seen—Jung Sook basically had sex with In Ho because the room they were in was very warm. *roll eyes* Laziest scriptwriting ever. And I say she seduced him because at the time, it was well known in their course that In Ho and Sung Hee (the “mistress”) were in a r/ship. They were the it couple of the program but because, and I quote verbatim from Jung Sook, Sung Hee was not there to stop them, they had sex together. Not only was love never part of the equation, the mother-in-law had never approved of Jung Sook to begin with; instead, she preferred the gf, Sung Hee. Despite this, they did marry because In Ho was man enough to take responsibility for the child and felt obligated to provide for mother and son. So it was understandable, in the present, that In Ho was reluctant to put his life and career at risk to donate his liver since there was never any love between them to begin with. And being that there was no love, his “affair” could not be construed as a betrayal. Thus, the whole unappreciated, betrayed victim housewife angle fails spectacularly. Not only that, it quickly becomes clear that Jung Sook is really an opportunistic and petty airhead.

For one thing, Sung Hee not only stole In Ho from Sung Hee but also Sung Hee’s best friend, Mi Hee. Also, although we get told that she’s good at studies, she gets better grades than the surgeon husband, In Ho, and also a higher residency mark than her son, a surgical intern in In Ho’s department, the reality of her abilities is totally different. Of all the hospitals she could have applied to, for her residency, she applies to In Ho’s hospital. Why? Is it because it’s a good hospital? We don’t get told this so—no. Is it because it’s sentimental to her? She suggests this but even Mi Hee vetoes the idea so—no. It’s because she finds out that Sung Hee is his colleague. Yes, the gf that, when Mi Hee was recounting the past with her, she claims she doesn't remember at all. Talk about starting anew—NOT.

Then, rather than diligently focusing on her work, which is literally life and death for patients, she indulges in petty office politics by resolving to keep an eye on her son’s strict supervisor (and secret gf), doesn’t know the basic medical acronyms, sulks about being reprimanded for getting medications wrong (which could’ve killed someone!) and gets upset over not being treated with respect as an elder. What an entitled attitude. This is after having the gall to meet the woman whom she stole the bf from, asking Sung Hee if she remembers her before asking her to support her application to the hospital. Unbelievable nerve. By right Jung Sook could not have made it in at all but for the same agency that brought her a compatible liver in the first place—luck! This airhead is nothing but lucky and did not make it in anything in life on any of her efforts because they don’t exist! She gets lucky by getting knocked up by a skilled boy, whom later becomes a good surgeon, and then lucky by an applicant dropping out of the running for the residency position. How does she celebrate all this luck? By drowning her new liver with the very thing that would damage it—alcohol.

The toy boy angle was a mess in this clusterf#ck of a series. The whole American-surgeon-moving-to-Korea thing was obviously created to enhance the appeal of the toy boy, and her middle-aged "revenge", but, like her medical license that never was, the angle made not an ounce of sense at all. It’s great that toy boy went to Harvard or Stanford med school and all but being an adoptee who grew up in America, how the heck did he learn up adequate Korean to be able to be a surgeon in Korea? Why did he come back to Korea anyway when his family and life was all in America? Just because someone was born in Korea doesn’t mean they’ll be able to master Korean when they’ve grown up in a non-Korean speaking country most of their life! Not only that, conversational Korean would be vastly different to technical medical Korean, of which toy boy would have had to have mastered to be able to give the simplest instructions in a surgery. Did this obvious fact not even occur to the scriptwriter at all?! Jeezus!

I tapped out half way through episode 4 when Jung Sook was trying to guilttrip her son for not doing everything that was rightfully her job as a resident-in-training in what was meant to be her dream career. She's effing useless and I had no bond with the character nor any inclination to want to invest in her journey, which is the most important thing for a screenwriter to have to do with a character. Instead, the writer created a self-absorbed narcissist who should find somewhere else to play out her misguided victimhood fantasies so that she can stop endangering the lives of patients.

Despite this, I do plan to finish this series but only while on the treadmill where I don’t need all my brain cells but just moving images to keep me going. For those who do want to watch shows with a full brain though, I wouldn’t recommend this. The suspension of disbelief needed to watch it with full attention is asking too much of a discerning audience. It’s just insulting to the intellect to watch Jung Sook being valorised as the victim when she was the real mistress and villain to begin with and I felt sorry for Sung Hee for the villainess tag that the series was obviously trying to pin on her.

Disappointing AF.

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