Even though 20 episodes sounds a lot i was able to breeze through within 2 days. That tells me the story was captivating enough to keep me engaged (along with dramatic musical score). Its not without flaws though (especially the silly elements that occurred during the screenplay - you will notice someone roaming around unnoticed all the time)
I especially loved the ending, it's a satisfying and a happy end. Everything (main characters) ties up nicely in the end.
It may not be the best K-Drama out there but due to the low rating it may fly below people's radar. If you enjoy political thrillers, medical dramas or destined romance you should give this a watch.
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This is the first drama I've rated before finishing it (I believe I rated it after the first couple episodes :P ) and gave it a 10, and, sadly, it proved me wrong.
However, I strongly believe that this is not a drama when there can be a majority saying that it's good or bad, like it can happen with many other dramas and that's because, in this case, I believe it is all a matter of ones opinion and plots/twists/characters that he/she likes. I never though of dropping it, I always looked forward to the next episodes, it just didn't turn out to be as great as I thought.
As many people have said in here (and I strongly agree) that this drama started out great!! During the first episodes, I believe most of us were like I can't wait till next week, or I really don't know how this is going to end, or I really can't decide what couple to ship. But it kinda lost it during the next episodes. And since I can't spoil it for those of you who haven't watch it yet, I'll say again, that this is one of those dramas were I can't generally say that it's good or bad. It didn't end the way I personally wished it would, but I there are a lot of viewers who were really happy and satisfied with the ending.
Story: Like I said, started out really great! I didn't get, like, really bad afterwards, I just think it could be better. There were a couple of interesting twists though, along the way.
PLUS: If you're a fun of medical dramas, I think you're really like this one. All the surgeries and stuff, I just loved it!
Acting/Cast: I gave it a 9, cause there are really some great actors in this, but I didn't like the female lead at all. Jin Se Yeon has gotten some big roles and we've had a chance to see her work, and my opinion for her hasn't changed. I find her a one dimensional actress, she's just the same in every character she portrays and it was really tiring to watch her in this drama
Music: Not much to say here, I think the music was really nice ^_^
Rewatch value: As I've said before, it depends on whether one's satisfied with the ending or not. But, all those medical sences were really a plus. I could rewatch this for those ^_^
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I watched it because I was hoping that the show would redeem itself at the end but to no avail. I have added this to me "Warn people not to watch list". Which is rather disappointing because this show had SUCH massive potential. Disappointed. Now I'll have t find out who the writer is and avoid all of his/her shows.
IN SHORT : too many illogical twists and turns. Unbelievable characters, it''s like going down a rabbit hole. I'm not a fan of the casting either. The main lead's pair is impossible to like. SO are a few others.
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There were two things that bothered me the most; the repetitiveness and the romance. In the beginning we saw a lot of different sceneries, whether it was outdoors or indoors, the setting had more life. That just disappears later on. It then jumps from hospital, another part of the hospital, the clinic, a house, the Blue House - rinse and repeat. It bored me, and many scenes felt so very repetitive because of it too, which is a shame.
Now as for the romance... it confused me and left me frustrated a lot. "Where is the main pairing? Ohhh, so it's those two, I get it. Haha, they're funny. Wait... it's not? Hold on, what? What what what, noooo", that's pretty much me while watching this series. The feeling when your NOTP ends up being canon. Anyhow, the romance was weak and the chemistry was off. There was just too much push and pull between the main pairing for my liking. Actually more push than pull. Too much weak drama becomes annoying in the long run.
But let's take a break from being Negative Nancy for a while and look at the positives. The comedy must have been the highlight for me. The comic relief was VERY NECESSARY for me to even consider giving this series a 6, and it was very nice, I'm not gonna lie. Plus the cast did a really nice job and I was never really that upset about the acting. Maybe a few times, but I think it's because I have a personal preference in character.
The story could've developed into something great and beautiful! But it fell short of the big expectations I had in the beginning. It's a REAL shame because the cast is really great and they could've made this into something much more than it is. But here we are - unsatisfied and a bit confused. So I'll give this a 6. It might sound generous to those thoroughly disappointed by this series, but I think the good things I found made it more of a 6 than a 5. So there you have it. I wouldn't strongly recommend it, but it works.
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The biggest problem with Doctor Stranger is its characters. In particular Song Jae Hee who is one of the two female protagonist, and Han Jae Joon one of the two male protagonist. The script writer really did their best to mess up these characters, they could have been so much better if not for the terrible script and character development. I came to hate the character Song Jae Hee because she's so unworthy of Park Hoon's love and because she is such a two dimensional character without a hint of intelligence in that brain despite being a spy and top notch doctor. Her role is so cliché that throughout the entire series i was sitting on the edge of my seat hoping she does something I don't expect but it never happens.
Han Jae Joon is a character that might have turned out much better if the drama gave us a chance to know him. Instead after 20 episodes all we know about this guy is he is a good doctor who graduated from harvard and he plotted 20 years to get revenge for his dad. The script writer basically abandoned this character after giving it a goal to achieve in the drama without even attempting to make him seem realistic and three dimensional as a person.
Thankfully the script writer only messed up two out of four main characters. Park Hoon is a very complete human being who is not a robot with no personality, and therefore it is very easy for the viewers to sympathize with him and his decisions. Even tho some of his calls were rather dumb such as choosing to fight bad guys when he is a lanky piece of stick who probably can't even punch properly (sorry Lee Jong Suk). Oh Soo Hyun (Kang So Ra) deserves some notice as well, out of the two females she is the more likeable one being the sensible female who falls for the wrong guy while also having the rather unfortunate fate of being daughter to the chairman and therefore middle of all the melodrama.
Acting wise even though some of the other reviews criticized actress Jin Se Yeon (Song Jae Hee) for her acting I feel she simply did the best she could with the script given to her. It was simply put bad script that destroyed the characters not bad acting in my honest opinion. Also I have a huge question mark toward Lee Jong Suk's wardrobe in this drama as he continuously wore extremely strange clothing that is unbefitting of a doctor. Through majority of the the time Lee Jong Suk was working in the hospital he wore an extremely loose T-shirt under his doctor coat that never failed to show off his colarbones and his skinniness. Was this awful dress code designed on purpose by the drama team in order to emphasis on something? I can't for the life of me figure out what is the reason for his terrible sense of fashion in this drama. Honestly cloths makes a person and Lee Jong Suk was simply a complete failure at passing off as a doctor in this show, more than half the time while watching I was just praying for him to get a wardrobe change because I couldn't stand the cloth.
Music in Doctor Stranger is pretty mediocre. The quality of the music is ok, nothing that really stands out but at the same time nothing that is glaringly bad and makes me hate it for existing. However one thing worth noticing is nearly every single song is a love song, but in a medical drama does this make sense? Sometimes when the song is playing in the background it completely doesn't fit the scene (i.e the lyric is talking about breaking up, but the scene is of a patient lying in the hospital bed post surgery?). I wish this drama could have focused on some classical music and used it during surgery or post surgery moments, it definitely would have added more depth to the drama.
Overall Doctor Stranger is a pretty decent medical drama, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as the saying goes and Doctor Stranger definitely won't awe you with its amazing thought provoking plot and medical knowledge/jargon. The time allotted to most kdrama is too short for intricate plots focusing on politics and mysteries so as long as you watch this drama with the intent to enjoy it flaws and all you will have a good time.
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I just said what the heck....let me see how bad this is. There is a quote from this drama, "I am a doctor nothing more nothing less";. So my analysis is this. Guys!!! this a kdrama nothing more nothing less!
If you are debating on watching this just go for it. It isn't horrible. and I am sure everyone has had their share of why did i watch that? I know I have, but you don't know unless you try.
Why I personally would recommend this drama:
Lee Jong Suk- I personally never thought much about his acting, not much in Secret Garden and I just saw I Hear Your Voice, which quite honestly didn't move me as far as his character development maybe because I only thought of him as a high school kid. How much development could you have. Sooo if for no reason at all check him out in this one.
Lastly, Just watch and let it the ride take you wherever, it's not so predictable, but assuming and having high expectations from this one, than you probably might just get disappointed.
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As a fan who has watched almost every medical k-drama in existence, I really liked this drama. Medical dramas usually focus on the medical aspects of the story, and rarely do they actually ever focus on romance, even for the more melodramatic ones. So it's actually refreshing that they even had romance in this drama.
I have to say this is #2 out of the top 3 medical k-dramas I have watched. Almost everything was excellent, except for the confusing plot in the middle and the presence of some unnecessary scenes that did not add to the story.
This drama focused more on romance than your regular medical drama. Medical dramas in general usually focus more on the medical aspect than the romance, which can make them seem boring at times. However, the romance in Doctor Stranger managed to make the medical aspects more accessible to a general audience.
Some events in the middle of the drama involving character motivations and actions were not resolved satisfactorily. Unnecessary relationships complicated the story, making it harder to understand the characters and their motivations.
The acting was amazing because all of the main actors in this drama were not rookies. They knew what to do and how to do it. If there were problems, it was mostly because of how the characters were written in the story, not the actors.
Overall, I would recommend this drama to those who like their melodramatic romances as the main focus of the story. Those who are new to medical k-dramas should start out with this one, which has less gore than the typical medical k-drama.
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While I'm not quite taken to the political plot, having the setting where Park Hoon being kidnapped to NK and then being a doctor in that kind of environment pose an interesting conflict to the whole medical plot in the drama. And as to be expected, one can see a good amount of conflicts resulted from the fact the doctors in SK would have some kind of bias against North Koreans in general and how that would affect the treatment on Hoon, despite the fact that he's still a fellow South Korean who had the misfortune of growing up in such a harsh place. And that alone made this drama unique in terms of focusing on cardiac surgeons with a side taste of the North vs South Korean politics.
And Lee Jongsuk pulled the character so well that you can feel such an intense atmosphere around Hoon and can't help wishing for happy outcomes for him. And I love how the music and overall production having this certain sentimental air which was reminiscent of the 80's period when it comes to the North Korean plot. I never thought that it's possible for a drama to have a genre that could only be described as medical noir but here we are.
That said I guess it somewhat fit my feelings regarding Jin Seyeon. Not sure why, but I tend to like many of her noir roles. Provided that the drama had good writer and great production to carry the drama towards its intended goal, I tend to like the dramas that she's in. And I'm thankful that Doctor Stranger really had some of the best writing one could've hoped for. It wasn't always perfect, particularly on the political plot... but the drama did leave us with some hopeful feeling that some things might become better afterwards.
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This review may contain spoilers
I like that this show happened to show some of what North Korea is kind of like. That many Korea shows talks about North Korea that much. I think the scene were the two were almost killed and they didn’t know the other one had lived. It seem very realistic seeing they had just escaped from North Korea. I like all the medical drama that was in this show. I thought the medical stuff was good. The romance was average when I got down to it even know that things the couple did were not average in the least. There was a enough drama to keep me watching. It was never boring not even for a second. As soon as I started I wanted to binge watch the show to the very end. The script was well written. The translation was good too. The actors and actress did a great job acting in this show. All of the hair, makeup and outfits were nice looking and made sense for what was happening in the show. The plot to me was good from the start of the series to the end. I would highly recommend this show to everyone who loves medical dramas a lot. Was this review helpful to you?
Story: As you must have read in the previous reviews Doctor Stranger started of really good and promising. I still remember the first 3 episodes, which in my opinion, were the best in the drama. The idea wasn't something original, but the setting was. I loved how they focused on his life in the North and the hardships he had to go through. Now, many people said that those were the only good episodes in the drama, but for me everything was fine till episode 10. After watching that episode it seemed that everything I knew till then wasn't true, the story was rushed, feelings reviled out of nowhere, it seemed as an entire different show for me. Anyway, I still kept watching because I was eager to find out how it will end. By the last episodes it seemed that they tried to save what could be saved only to blow everything off with the final episode.
Acting/Cast: If there is someone to thank for saving the show it should be the cast, except for one. Their story arcs were interesting to watch and they did a good job with their characters even with the huge burden of such a chaotic storyline.
Park Hoon(Lee Jong Suk) - I really think that Lee Jong Suk gets better and better with every role he plays.He really didn't disappoint me on how he he played Park Hoon. But that doesn't mean that I was totally satisfied on his character. I think that the writers made him too of a "love fool" than it was necessary. As the drama progressed I began to notice that he was more obsessed with Jae Hee(or the idea of her) than actually being in love with her. They made him be someone that doesn't care for anything in the world than her, and that is pretty bad in my opinion. Apart from that I actually love "Doctor Park Hoon" more that "Lover Hoon".
Jae Hee(Jin Se Yeon) - I don't know if it was the actress or the character but I just couldn't make myself like her. As many people said, Jin Se Yeon is still young and has time to learn and develop as an actress, but I really disliked her in every character she played. The pity is that Jae Hee could have been a really interesting and challenging character if played by the right person, but instead she made me frustrated in every episode...this girl has only 2 faces: a forced smile and a blank "what are you talking about, I don't understand" face. I'm really sorry about her fans but she ruined it for me.
Jae Joon(Park Hae Jin) - I've just found myself a new crush with this show and that is actor Park Hae Jin. He is the character I loved the most in the entire drama because he seemed to me the most human and realistic one. A man with desires, ego but at the same time rational thinking that knew when to give up because something more important came in his life. Also I love the bro-romance he shared with Park Hoon.
Soo Hyun(Kang So Ra) - I wasn't a big fan of Kang Sora till this drama, but after watching her here I really came to like her, she came a long way since her Dream High days. Soo Hyun was a really interesting character to watch who changed during the drama. Starting as an insecure doctor that wasn't confident in her skills she ended up being someone trustworthy that gave hope to other people.
Music: The main song "Stranger" by Bobby Kim was really good to hear, but the other weren't mindblowing, at least in my case. But this is really a subjective matter that depends on the listener preferences.
Rewatch Value: I can say for sure that I won't rewatch this, because I wouldn't be able to go through with the story again, it was enough one time.
This to be said I can't say that his is a must-watch but I still encourage you to give it a try if you are curious, it wasn't so bad as many people say if you can "play blind" for a couple of moments, at least in my opinion.
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- The lead Park Hoon is funny and charismatic with Lee Jong Suk demonstrating his amazing acting. Throughout some of the less exciting bits of the drama, I continued to watch happily just for the character of Park Hoon.
- I loved the music and listen to it often even after having finished the drama some time ago.
- The story had me hooked from the beginning of the first episode and although it drags a little in the middle, I was happy with the ending.
- Good, non-cringe-worthy humour.
- Could not fault any of the actor's abilities.
Bad Points:
- I found the character of Oh Soo Hyun (performed by Kang So Ra) to be a tad predictable and actually annoying in some scenes, although Kang So Ra's acting cannot be faulted. I believe her character would have been less of an irritation to me had they not made her such a main character, but that is just my personal opinion.
- The story does flop a little in the middle where it becomes less fast paced and the surgeries seem to end in a predictable way, however the story picks back up and it ends well.
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Simply it was the other reviews giving this 3 or 4 points.Inam flabbergasted by how underrated this show is ..
Story :
This is a medical spy thriller where a North Korean refugee doctor (Lee Jong suk) who has mad medical skills ends up in S Korea looking for his lost girl friend (Jin se yeon) who he lost while escaping.Also In the mix are the snobbish daughter of a hospital director (Kang So Ra) and a gifted doctor (Park Hae Jin)who may have stuff other than medicine on his mind. What happens when these 4 (or 3) characters come face to face?
What i liked :
1. Fast paced ,almost thriller like story and a superb central character make this an engaging watch.Also loved LJS and PHJ face offs in the operation theatres and outside.
2. The central actors perform admirably and keep you invested in the characters they portray.LJS is the giy who does the heavy lifting but the rest support him excellently. Even the supporting cast were superb in my opinion
3. Direction: Jin Hyuk is one of my fave S Korean PD and it seems he cannot make a bad show.The show is almost movie like in its intensity
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