The hype train is at it again in Korean drama town. Everyone hyped up this drama to no end, and I’m not a believer in those sorts of things, but in the end..I gave it a try. I finally watched Doctor Stranger and you know what….they hype was half true.I think.
Doctor Stranger has been one of the most hyped up dramas of 2014, with everyone oozing their love for the drama and its leading male star Lee Jong Suk. I’ll be the first to admit that yes indeed he is a handsome actor and yes indeed he can act well, but just because amazing actors are in the drama doesn’t mean that the drama always turns out to be the best ever. The last two Lee Jong Suk dramas I’ve watched were both hyped up, however, I don’t feel all that excited about them as most people do. Doctor Stranger was a good medical drama, but the rest of the plot line wasn’t worth all that, in my opinion. I was more excited about the surgeries than anything in this drama really and found myself either dozing off and blanking out during the rest. When I watch a medical drama, I do embrace all the political drama that goes on in the hospital, but for some reason this story just didn’t really grip me, and I felt as though all that had happened, for what was executed by the drama could have been done in a shorter time frame, and didn’t really need to be dragged on and on. But that happens in a lot of 20 plus dramas, sometimes they don’t need to be that long but they stretch them out. The whole North Korean refugee thing really didn’t come that much into play, in a personality and social circumstance type of way as they made you believe in the plot line and in the first few episodes. It seemed that they got over that rather quickly, though myself wouldn’t have seen it as much drama in the first place, however, I am not a South Korean citizen so I don’t have those types of feelings towards North Korean people. The romance left me wanting more, and for the first time, I had second leading female syndrome instead of second leading male, which is always cool I suppose. I just didn’t find myself emotionally attached to these characters are that interested in their stories which is a bummer, and has seemed to happen to me too often in this 2014 season of Korean dramas. I need more, I need real character development and I found that the writing in this drama didn’t give it all to me, what could have came from this drama, with better writing, less fillers, and more character development and not just sudden “Oh I’ve changed my personality or my ideas” would of did this drama a lot better I think, then again I’m just giving my personal thoughts so you don’t have to take that to heart.
One thing that this drama had going for it, was the big cast with the amazing actors and actresses in it, for the most part, that is. Lee Jong Suk as I have said a million times before is a great actor. I think he can portray his characters well, and he can give an emotional performance throughout it. He can be funny and goofy at times and give us seriousness when needed, and I really appreciate him for that. He isn’t just a pretty face that girls and guys alike can squeal over, he actually has talent and I admire him for that. However, our leading female, Jin Se Yeon isn’t my favorite actress of all time. Her acting style is not just for me, and half the time I don’t believe the emotion that she is portraying. I don’t think she was up to par with the rest of the cast, however that being said I think she has greatly improved since the last time I’ve watched her in a drama, and that’s something to be proud of. I just found that maybe if they had a different actress in her place, the emotional scenes between her and Lee Jong Suk and their situations would have been more powerful to me. It was nice to see Park Hae Jin again, even if he wasn’t the lovable second leading male character like he was in You Who Came From The Stars. This time he was serious and wasn’t there for comic relief, his performance was great. I found myself entranced in his performance, he did a 360 from the last time I watched him and it really showed me the diversity he has as an actor. I hope to see more of him in the future. This was also my first time seeing Kan So Ra, she hasn’t been in that many dramas, and I can say I was somewhat impressed by her. I thought she did a great job with her role and portrayed the emotions well, I did find her crying a little fake, somewhere between the pretty cry and the real emotional ugly cry that people actually do in real life, and I’m hoping that she can pull from the whole pretty cry and embrace the ugly cry which is more realistic to me, then I think she would be a pretty awesome actress. I also want to lastly comment on Cheon Ho Jin. He played a rather bad man this time around, from the last drama, and every time I see him as a great old man who is so kind and sweet my heart melts, but when he plays an “evil” character I find myself scared of him. He is an amazing actor, and his entire speech he gives in episode 19, at the end, was fantastic and showed how great of an actor he is. I really enjoyed his performance the most, and I love watching him in dramas, and I would say that he is the actor that brought this drama to life for me.
Overall, I thought the drama was pretty good but not as great as everyone led me to believe with all the hype, though I never believed that in the first place. I enjoy medical dramas, and from the medical perspective of the show, I enjoyed that the most, the rest of the story were just plain okay to me. It didn’t grip me like it should have, but the actors and actresses brought it along. The plot could have been really great to me, if it was just taken a few steps forward and really pushed, but just didn’t have the pizazz that I was expecting or looking for, leaving me uninterested and rather bored of it, however the actors and actresses got me along through the parts that weren’t about surgeries with their amazing acting skill. I say this drama was pretty good, and I would recommend it, it’s just not the big amazing deal that people made it out to seem, in my opinion. So if you’re just a little bit interested in the drama, I say hey why not go for it, what do you have to lose?
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