Extremely shocked at the terrible production quality
So I've finally decided to complete this show after so many years since it aired, since currently the incoming influx of C-Drama and K-Drama shows have been stale in quality. Not sure if it has anything to do with streaming services cutting down on the typical production budget.
But anyway, I'm going to keep this review short and simple. Healer is a show with a very good choice of Main Actor and Actress. Park Min Young was hot at that time, and all the girls seem to be crazy for Ji Chang Wook (this is likely the reason for the high ratings). The choice of actors alone, carried this show.
The script was nothing special though not as bad (I've seen worse in the plethora of 2024-2025 c-dramas being released with boring AF draggy episodes). Comparing healer's script to these latest productions, it can be treated as a "decent" script. In the first few episodes, the main character gets toss aside and the side/antagonists characters with their boring past consumes most of the screen time. A good script should introduce the main characters first or at least give them a decent amount of screen time, this doesn't happen in healer, so we pretty much did not care if the main character lived or die since there's no attachment.
Now on to the bad. (If you don't wish to read anything negative about this show, skip this portion you're done reading this review)
The camera work gave the nauseating feeling. Action scenes seem as if they were shot while there was a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hitting South Korea. It's as if the crew had forgotten to turn on their camera stabilizers or a camera gimbal and were simply running around with their camera. The footage was unbearably shaky in several scenes.
The OST, especially when the main character whoops the bad guys, is shared across multiple other non-action scenes, happy scenes, stress scenes, fighting scenes etc, somehow the production team decided to use this 1 corny tune on all these scenes. Ruining the mood of these scenes. This tune seemed as though it belongs to a game like Maplestory where cute characters fight against cute monsters. Imagine taking one of this game's background music and inserting it in multiple different scenes in this supposedly action thriller crime drama.
To summarize without spoilers, I'm confused as to how this show got such high ratings. But as stated earlier, it is likely due to the choice of actor and actress, especially the main leads. If you're a diehard fan of either, by all means watch this show and enjoy it. But if you're in the mood for a well-produced show and couldn't care less of the casting choices, the shaky camera work and surprisingly TERRIBLE background music choice will sting both your eyes and ears to oblivion in the first few episodes. This is the first time I've been turned off solely by shaky cam and terrible music. Now I can appreciate the importance of music and how it influences mood in dramas.
If you're looking for a great Ji Chang Wook action-romance drama, check out the K2 which doesn't suffer from the same complains as this show. It has better ost music that matches each scene, the plot focuses on the main characters from the start with little draggy scenes, and the camera work is free from healer's shaky nightmare.
If you're looking for some of the top action romance show and don't really care about the casting choice, check out City Hunter, Bridal Mask, and Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre. These shows, especially City Hunter, have top of the line production quality. Camera work, action choreography, music choices are of a high and acceptable standard (for a TV show it is impressive, just don't compare them to top budget movies from jackie chan / donnie yen or the MCU). Of course each of these shows have their own sets of flaws (no dramas are perfect), but at least they've definitely surpassed many shows which rightfully makes them some of the best in the Action Romance genre.
But anyway, I'm going to keep this review short and simple. Healer is a show with a very good choice of Main Actor and Actress. Park Min Young was hot at that time, and all the girls seem to be crazy for Ji Chang Wook (this is likely the reason for the high ratings). The choice of actors alone, carried this show.
The script was nothing special though not as bad (I've seen worse in the plethora of 2024-2025 c-dramas being released with boring AF draggy episodes). Comparing healer's script to these latest productions, it can be treated as a "decent" script. In the first few episodes, the main character gets toss aside and the side/antagonists characters with their boring past consumes most of the screen time. A good script should introduce the main characters first or at least give them a decent amount of screen time, this doesn't happen in healer, so we pretty much did not care if the main character lived or die since there's no attachment.
Now on to the bad. (If you don't wish to read anything negative about this show, skip this portion you're done reading this review)
The camera work gave the nauseating feeling. Action scenes seem as if they were shot while there was a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hitting South Korea. It's as if the crew had forgotten to turn on their camera stabilizers or a camera gimbal and were simply running around with their camera. The footage was unbearably shaky in several scenes.
The OST, especially when the main character whoops the bad guys, is shared across multiple other non-action scenes, happy scenes, stress scenes, fighting scenes etc, somehow the production team decided to use this 1 corny tune on all these scenes. Ruining the mood of these scenes. This tune seemed as though it belongs to a game like Maplestory where cute characters fight against cute monsters. Imagine taking one of this game's background music and inserting it in multiple different scenes in this supposedly action thriller crime drama.
To summarize without spoilers, I'm confused as to how this show got such high ratings. But as stated earlier, it is likely due to the choice of actor and actress, especially the main leads. If you're a diehard fan of either, by all means watch this show and enjoy it. But if you're in the mood for a well-produced show and couldn't care less of the casting choices, the shaky camera work and surprisingly TERRIBLE background music choice will sting both your eyes and ears to oblivion in the first few episodes. This is the first time I've been turned off solely by shaky cam and terrible music. Now I can appreciate the importance of music and how it influences mood in dramas.
If you're looking for a great Ji Chang Wook action-romance drama, check out the K2 which doesn't suffer from the same complains as this show. It has better ost music that matches each scene, the plot focuses on the main characters from the start with little draggy scenes, and the camera work is free from healer's shaky nightmare.
If you're looking for some of the top action romance show and don't really care about the casting choice, check out City Hunter, Bridal Mask, and Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre. These shows, especially City Hunter, have top of the line production quality. Camera work, action choreography, music choices are of a high and acceptable standard (for a TV show it is impressive, just don't compare them to top budget movies from jackie chan / donnie yen or the MCU). Of course each of these shows have their own sets of flaws (no dramas are perfect), but at least they've definitely surpassed many shows which rightfully makes them some of the best in the Action Romance genre.
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