Doctor Stranger

The only way I can even begin to describe this drama is as a 'wasted opportunity.' Now, it wasn't 'bad' by any means, but that also doesn't mean that it was the greatest.
Doctor Stranger had a very intriguing beginning that captured the viewers attention just by the mere mention of North Korea. With such a strong beginning it is almost impossible to think that this drama could even go downhill; however, this a completely wrong assumption to make. At the start, the focus on Park Hoon and the moral dilemma of being a doctor made for a completely emotional story line. Unfortunately, the show was not able to keep up this interest as it feel into a decline. The romance was dragged out between the main character and his love interest with too much push and pull that made it quite difficult to end up rooting for them (especially since their romance as childhood sweethearts was too adorable to handle). If you are looking for the romantic doctor content, then you most likely won't find it here. The biggest issue with the story line is that it just wasn't planned out as well as it could have been.

Acting wise? Not many complaints. Lee Jong Suk provides amazing depth to the lead character and acts with the same charm that we all know and love. Park Hae Jin's double sided character is portrayed as well as it can be within this drama, no complaints. As for the two female leads, it is hard to say whether they were good as their characters were just terribly written. Many scenes with the female actresses were just missing the character development that they both deserved which in turn just made them bland and uninteresting to watch. I think it is safe to say that Yoon Bora's Chang Yi saved the day in terms of female characters with her lovable and charming personality.

Can't say much about the music as it did not seem to have as much of an impact as it should have.

Would I rewatch it? Probably not. Would I recommend it to someone? Possibly yes, depending on if they are a fan of any of the actors/actresses.

Overall opinion: I am not going to say that it is the worst (even if it was, I can't leave a drama unfinished). But there are definitely places for improvement, which is disappointing because the show had so much potential if it had been executed properly. My positive opinions about the show come from a bit of a biased opinion based on the pure fact that I am a fan of Lee Jong Suk and Park Hae Jin. If you want a romantic drama, this isn't the one to look for. If you want a medical drama, there are a few better ones out there. If you want good looking male leads who provide depth to a character, then knock yourself out with this.

Read More

Dieses Drama ist ein Krampf...

Es ist wirklich anstrengend gewesen, die vollen 20 Episoden durch zu halten. Die Geschichte ist so holprig und teilweise unsinnig. Die Geschichtsstränge fügen sich absolut nicht zusammen. Nichts harmoniert hier miteinander. Es gibt zwei Arten von Geschichten, die in ein Drama gepackt wurden. Einmal die Storyline mit Nordkorea, Flüchtling und Politisch brisant und dann der Krankenhaus quark mit Rache am Direktor. Aber rein gar nichts davon, ist stimmig oder fügt sich gut zusammen. Die Musik ist so anstrengend und schlecht, sowie unpassend. Die Schauspieler die eigentlich Paare bilden, haben null...wirklich absolut null Chemie. Ist auch egal auf welches man hier schaut. Die FL (Dr.Han) ist unsagbar unsympathisch. Viele Handlungen sind völlig irrational und unsinnig. Die vorletzte und letzte Folge, sind spannend...bis das Ende naht. Dann ist es einfach nur noch Stumpfsinnig und Platt. Völlig sinnfrei geraten sie in eine Situation die einem Dejavu gleicht. Es macht aber wirklich gar keinen Sinn, wie es dazu kam. Alles in allem, ist die Serie eine krasse Zeitverschwendung. Unglaublich viele Filler Folgen, ziehen das Übel unnötig in die Länge. So unrund war ein Drama schon lange nicht mehr. Schade.

Read More

Rating Justification:
Story: 9/10 - I really enjoyed this drama's story. I must admit that I did prefer the first half of the story and I do think the concept of Jong Suk and Se Yeon did tire me towards the end. The North Korea element really boosted the story for me and definitely kept me up at night! I am sure I will never forget the first 4 episodes of this drama. They have sticked with me until now, and I think it drove this story to the 9 it is now. 
Acting: 9.5/10 - I LOVED this cast. When I say the cast, I am being a little biased considering 2 of my favourite actors are the main characters of this drama (Lee Jong Suk and Park Hae Jin). However Kang So Ra was also a great protagonist, and our dear Chun Ho Jin was ever the great villain!
Music: 8.5/10 - Okay, this soundtrack was indeed great and I remember actively singing along with it while I watched this drama, but the sole reason for this 8.5 is the fact that for the life of me I could not remember any of the songs as I started writing this review. After a quick look at my k-drama soundtracks playlist I indeed found some of the songs among my favourites. 
Rewatch Value: 8/10 - This criteria is a bit hard to judge for me, seeing as I am a person that doesn't enjoy rewatching things that much, so I have decided to judge this based on how much I predict I would enjoy it in case I did rewatch this drama. I have based this 8 on the sole reason that I think if I had to watch Se Yeon's character for 20 more hours I might get slightly put off this drama for real. 
Overall: 9/10 - I think this drama is another Korean Drama classic. Besides the action packed story and great actors, it explores much more than the mere relationships between doctors or patients. It pushes the boundaries of what we think medicine is and makes us question corruption inside the government. It will forever be a drama that I remember dearly, even if some aspects of it lacked a little (Lee Jong Suk and Jin Se Yeon's relationship). I do apologise for the excessive talk on the Jin Se Yeon character, but it is honestly the only flaw I can point out in this drama.

Read More

The beginning is one of the best!!!

I rewatch it a month ago...
I enjoyed it more because i knew what was coming.
The story is interesting, the separated lovers and the endlessly effort to reunite. I didn't like the plolitics, wish it has more "hospital" time, more interesting ways of showing the awesome skills of Park Hoon.

A little long to me, could be cut to 10 or 12 episodes.

I think the end is ok, a little rushed for me.
I don't understand Park Hoon decision of living in a remote place and a remote hospital Is he going to waste his ans Hang Seung Hee skills?

I was completely addicted in the first 8 to 10 episodes! But after that, they did dragged a little: don't understand the 16 episodes formula. Few dramas deserve so many episodes and most of them tend to drag the story.

Overall, this could be a master piece but it fail to deliver...

But, if you like beautiful and true love, a plot with lots of twists and mistery, great moments of suspense, excitement, specially in the O.R., them please watch it!

Read More

---

I generally skip this but i couldn't help myself from writing a review after reading the comment section. I know this review is quite late so better late than never.

I would love to RECOMMEND this show.

The drama beautifully blends high-stakes medical cases with intense political conspiracies, keeping viewers on the edge of their seat.
My favourite characters are Park hoon, Jae hee and Han jae joon. I really enjoyed their respective characters journey. Jae hee and Jae joon being the most complex characters. I also liked park hoon and jae hee didn't loose their spark even after going through so much. I did wish Park hoon and Han jae joon could have taken their revenge together.

And surprisingly i disliked oh soo hyun. I actually thought i would love her like so many did but she was a sore thumb in all the 4 main characters. Yes she had good chemistry with LJS and a good actor indeed but her character was a mess. Writers should have refrain from a love triangle to begin with, this was absolutely unnecessary. Which actually made me dislike Dr. oh's character coz she emotionally cheated on Han jae joon. She fell in love with Park hoon while she was still dating han jae and also avoided breaking up with him. She came across as a confused and a coward character. She had such a great potential with han jae. Han jae deserved better than her.

But all in all it was a great drama.

Read More

eternally blackmailed

A strong and intense beginning, then... it all went downhill.
To prevent a war between North and South Korea, a doctor was sent to North Korea to rescue a head of state, so that the United States wouldn't attack and start a war.
His son was kidnapped and forced to stay with his father in North Korea. South Korea denied them repatriation.
As time passed, the son also became a skilled surgeon.
Honestly, I don't know how he survived in this environment. He had a girlfriend who was forcibly taken by the authorities and locked up in a concentration camp. After many years of searching, he finally found her. His father allowed himself to be killed to allow his son to be free to make his own choices, and he, seizing the opportunity, fled with her to Hungary.

When he managed to return to South Korea, he was able to work in the same hospital where his father had worked to avenge him. Challenge after challenge...

There are so many things I can't explain:
- Do the female doctors work in 12-inch heels?
- Is it that easy to watch the surgeries live? It's like turning on the TV and connecting.
- Everything revolves around this fake competition to determine which of the two best doctors will perform the prime minister's heart surgery? Patients used as pawns. Terrible.
- What a shitty plan! To become president, the Prime Minister
is staging this whole charade? He's holding the doctor's mother hostage for decades just to force him to perform heart surgery on the president? Without killing him, but keeping him in a coma?
- This villain who was shot in the head by a professional killer is back? How is that possible?
- The president's behavior isn't what you'd expect.
- In the last episode, the North korean girl gets shot and falls off the bridge? I could understand they wanting to recall the previous time she'd fallen, but here she would have collapsed and not been thrown from the bridge.
-then the end... no comment.

Read More

"Doctor Stranger" a.k.a "The missen opportunity".

Doctor stranger was a drama i went into and started watching with pretty high expectations. Right from the beginning of the drama, i was really into it, i thought it was really interesting and i honestly thought "this must be the best drama i've ever watched". But as the series goes on, it just goes downhill.

Now, i don't think doctor stranger is a bad series, i really don't. I think the idea they had for this drama, is really cool/interesting. The whole thing about communism and North-korea, it's just a really interesting concept, and it was too...for the first 5-6 episodes, after that the series sort of falls flat and becomes really repetitious. There was a lot of surgery scenes and a lot of scenes where Park Hoon was trying to convince his ex-girlfriend that she was his ex-girlfriend, I also found myself disliking her more and more as the series goes on, and by the middle of the drama, i was hoping that he'd just forget her and date "quack" instead. Some people say they think it gets better towards the end, i honestly don't think so. I absolutely loved the OST to this drama though. Bobby Kim-Stranger, I think that song especially, fits really well with the drama. So my overall thought are that Doctor stranger is that K-drama that could've been amazing. If they had just put in a bit more effort with the scriptwriting, it would've been great. But i will say the acting was great (Lee Jong Suk did great and i loved his character), the storyline (the idea of the drama) was great and the music was great.

I hope that someone will come out with a drama that has the same concept as Doctor Stranger, just better.

Read More

I started watching this drama because because of Jong-suk so I had a really good expectation. And I was both thrilled and disappointed. Thrilled because the first few episodes were really good I wanted to watch more but also disappointed because at some point, the story just went downhill. Also, I had hoped for Hoon and Sora`s romance but come on now. When I was watching episode 16, I was already looking forward to the day this drama would end because it was such a pain to watch the rest. If there is something that`s worth redeeming is the characters. They really delivered.

Read More