Kiseki
I think the casts did a really good job in this drama. I'm not familiar with any of the actor/actresses but my favourite has to be Park Min Young. Her portrayal of Chae Yeong Shin was really cute and easy to fall in love with. I think Ji Chang Wook did a great portraying Healer both in a super natural way and as a human who is isolated from society. Park Min Young and Ji Chang Wook have good chemistry together, they pass off as a couple very naturally so it's easy to understand how Healer can fall in love so quick with Chae Yeong Shin. I think main characters having chemistry is great, however at the same time I felt like neither of them were very inspiring during emotional scenes in a way that went straight to my heart. When they cry or stare into each other's eyes, the intensity of the emotion is lacking and I never get the gut wrenching feeling i know i should feel. Something else that really bugged me was the romance was a little bit too puppy love. Call me perverted, but in the few lip touching (i can't call that a kiss com'on!) scenes and hug scenes where we get to see the couple enjoy time together with each other (and when they finally confess), why does everything feel so tepid? Is that really all they do together?! Considering we know how much Healer did in order to be by Chae Yeong Shin's side, yet their romance is sorely lacking.
Anyway favourite character in this drama is in fact hacker Ahjumma, she is someone who's past is still shrouded in history and will forever remain so but I like how she worries subtly about Healer and watches over him and their bickering is like mother and son.
My impression of the music in this drama is not good. The main reason is due to one single song that ruined every moment for me, every time it came on during tender moments the singer's high pitched voice felt like nails scratching down a chalk board and killed the moment. I remember hearing this song on three separate occasions and how it completely ruined the mood for me. As a result i have a extremely bad impression of Healer's OST as a whole. Subjectively speaking however the music might deserve a higher rating than i gave them, but again the reason i did so is because of one song which killed every single scene for me.
Rewatch value of this drama is quite low for me because once the story unfolded all the mystery of the past was solved, and there is really nothing that attaches me to this drama. The romance of the mains while convincing just isn't at the level that makes me miss them.
As this drama drew to a close, it became more and more obvious the pacing in the initial episodes was a bit slow so not enough time was given in the last episode to wrap everything up. Therefore viewers are forced to watch a rushed job as the script writer and director do their best to give us a happy ending. I am extremely dissatisfied with this ending, it could have been much better but due to bad planning and scripting it became poorly made.
Overall, this is a drama i might recommend to friends who like a good action/suspense story and prefer romance to be toned down.
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Story:
The story is probably the weakest part of this series with several discrepancies that leaves you with more questions than answers. The weakness stems from the supernatural-ness of the main character Do Min Joon being an alien who comes from another planet. Over time while watching, many questions will arise regarding DMJ (the alien's) background and how relevant it is to the story at all. In the end, the only relevancy appears to be the fact DMJ never ages and he is a living fossil of 400 years of Korean history. If you go into this show expecting Sci-fi rational you might be sorely disappointed. However questions about DMJ's past aside, the rest of the storyboard which focuses on melodrama is very solid and extremely well paced. 8.5/10
Acting/Cast:
JJH acting as Cheong Song Yi really outdid herself in this role, the amount of versatility required of her character was extremely high. She has to portray the glamorous life of a top Hallyu star with all the pride and arrogance that celebrities are known for, while showing the viewers the vulnerable person underneath all that; a girl who was forced to grow up too quick, a woman who has not yet experienced the thrills of first love, and a daughter in a broken family. In the span of this drama, she awes us all with the facets of the character Cheong Song Yi, we laugh when she is silly and drunk, cry when she is sad and heartbroken, scream when she is alone and in danger, and then laugh some more at her singing and rapping.
KSH acting as Do Min Joon the alien who lived on Earth for more than 400 years. He did a great job at expressing emotion using very little facial expression and portraying a 'old soul' aura onto his character. KSH has very natural chemistry with JJH this cannot be reputed, their very brief but scorching kiss scene in The Thieves was the highlight of the movie while I watched it. The same can be said for this drama, whenever scenes of the two occur it's a natural magnet for the eyes they stand out in a very good way. So kudos to the casting for putting KSH and JJH together in one drama, they already won half the battle in my opinion.
Props should also be given to the supporting casts especially Yoo In Na who played the jealous best friend of Cheong Song Yi who somehow managed to gain my sympathy despite the antagonism of her role. Park Hae Jin who played the foolish man who is in love with the same girl for over 15 years and still persists, what a stubborn and loyal guy. Shin Sung Rok the villain with the deadly creepy glare, he has pretty natural chemistry with KSH too, the scenes of the two standing face to face glaring at each other redefines black and white. 10/10
Music:
I was very taken with the music in this drama, both instrumental and OST songs. My favorite songs in the OST are 'Like a Star' by K.Will and 'Tears Like Today' by Huh Gak. I really enjoy the way the OST complements the natural atmosphere of the drama and enhances the heart warming aspects without sounding like background noise as it happens in some dramas. The instrumental Beethoven Revolution, Stars Comic Tension, Run Away (Ending Title), are some of the highlights in the drama that never fails to set the mood and increase the tension. 9/10
Rewatch Value:
This where this drama breaks open my door and set a new record for me in terms of loving it. How worth is it of a re-watch? I can answer this by saying, the first time i watched this drama i did it in 3 days. 5 days later i re-watched it again this time in 2 days. It only took another 9 days for me to decide to re-re-watch it again. Each time i watched I did not regret every single minute it took because i still laughed at all of Cheong Song Yi's silliness and enjoyed every bit of DMJ/CSY interaction on screen just as if it was the first time. Would i re-watch this drama even more in the future? Without a doubt yes, maybe in a year or two i will come back to it again. 10/10
Overall:
I wonder if this drama set the bar too high for me in the future of kdramas, post YWCFTS i've tried to watch a few other kdrama but none had as big of a emotional impact on me. I'm not in the habit of rating things 10/10 and in light of the flaws in the story, as well as the ending nearly disappointing me I will not give it a perfect 10, but a 9.5.
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Moving on to the character, cast and acting. The only cast i'm familiar with is Ha Ji Won, she's a pretty girl and remarkable action actress. However sadly she lacks facial expression variety and seem to have the same face for all situation. She didn't impress me in King 2 Heart and failed to impress me in Secret Garden. The character she is playing must have extremely low self esteem to continue 'liking' a guy who verbally abuses her on regular bases (as well as his entire family for that matter). Next Hyun Bin... Well considering his role is suppose to be an immature brat of a rich boy, he does a good job of portraying that role. Hyun Bin's character is suppose to be 34 to Ha Ji Won's 30, but throughout the entire show i felt like it was the other way around. Well regardless to summarize my impression of this couple it was - no chemistry. Seriously, i spend the first 15 episodes wondering at what point does Ha Ji Won's character fall in love with Hyun Bin's. Was it after they switched bodies and she checked his body out personally? There was no spark at all, unless she was eventually convinced by his wealth, connection, and could not stand his immature attitude any longer.
My favorite two characters in this drama was actually Yoon Sang Hyun (Oska) and Lee Jong Suk (Han Tae Seon). Believe it or not I felt the strongest chemistry between them two (lol), kudos and props and applause to Lee Jong Suk for being able to pull off the 'i'm gay' vibe perfectly and fantastically. Yoon Sang Hyun's (Oska) reaction to being hit on by a guy was also hilariously funny. Damn it by the end of the drama I was seriously hoping for a kiss between them!
Other notable characters include Yoo In Na, Lee Phillip and Kim Sa Rang. This drama was made better by the cast of great support characters 8/10.
In terms of music, it was ok. I mean in a drama where you don't feel much chemistry between the main leads how good can the music be? Music is there to enhance the romantic atmosphere, but if there is none in the first place it's really hard to judge. Some songs that stood out was the ending theme, it had some good fantasy/mystical elements to it in order to complement the 'Secret Garden' theme. 6/10
I would not rewatch this drama if my life depended on it. Episode 7-15 was a total waste of my time and only good for a laugh, in fact I am of the opinion it could have been skipped altogether and wouldn't have affected the story at all.
Overall I cant say i enjoyed this drama much but it wasn't a total disaster due to the charisma of the support cast and the detailed side stories focusing on Oska and other side characters. I feel you really have to be mentally prepared for certain genres when coming into this drama, least you get shell shocked at the way the main lead treats and woos his love interest.
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The bad guys in this drama is cliché enough to give me cancer; the boss man is all talk and no action, his minions are 2 dimensional with no personality and easily killed off by himself or Ji Sang, their goal is some nonsense that is never revealed in the drama. The good guys are not any better; in fact they are worse. I can't count the number of times i face-palmed at Ji Sang running into a 5 vs 1 and getting beaten up then repeat. Does he have some psychic powers to know the bad guys won't be carrying a gun and therefore he is in no danger of being unloaded with bullets? There is no 'cool' factor or 'wow' factor in walking into a beating over and over again, therefore i have no clue why the scriptwriter keeps pushing Ji Sang into a mob of bad guys with no plan whatsoever.
The romance in this drama is one of the few times romance just seems completely out of place. To say there is no chemistry is an understatement. Between looking for a cure and discovering who murdered his parents, Ji Sang literally has no time or effort to fall in love. That's why the chemistry between the main leads is so awful. Normally I am a pro Nona/Donsang relationship person but in the case of Ah Jae Hyun and Goo Hye Sun I believe the pairing failed spectacularly XD
The soundtrack employed in this drama is mediocre at best. The problem is that there is only ever one soundtrack for action scenes and every single time something is about to happen the soundtrack plays and gives away the scene. Nothing really stands out in the music score that really caught my attention except maybe the ending theme I liked the piano.
Overall my gripe about this drama is its failure to live up to potential. This drama would have been much better without the stereotype bad guys and romance to mess up the pace and create needless conflict.
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As much as I enjoyed the plot and direction Kill me, Heal me took, it wouldn't have been as much of a enjoyable watch if it weren't for Ji Sung who acted for Cha Do Hyun and all seven of his personalities (Shin Se Gi, Perry Park, Ahn Yo-seob, Ahn Yo-na, Nana, Mr. X). His acting is just amazing and so diverse I just can't believe how good of an actor he is. The way he switches from personality to personality through the use of expression and body language, and of course my favorite personality is Ahn Yo Na because watching Ji Sung act like a girl is just about the funniest thing ever in drama land.
Hwang Jung Eum who acted as Oh Ri Jin, Cha Do Hyun's secret psychiatrist I can't give the same praise for. I feel she was all too expressive to the point her shock, anger, amazement seems overdone and fake. Even though Koreans believe good acting is in having expressive facial expression but too much can cause reviewers to feel like it's all an act which is sadly what occured here. She doesn't have the excuse of pretending to have 7 personalities so it makes very little sense to show such exaggerated expressions in the show such as screaming like a banshee, or jaw dropping so wide and so on.
The support cast in Kill Me Heal Me is sorely neglected because this drama spends most of its time focusing on Cha Do Hyun's mental disorder, he himself is 7 main characters. So we have some severely underdeveloped side characters whose motivation is very lacking and they are more often than not simply used as plot devices to move the story in some direction. Such as Cha Gi Jun (Cha Do Hyun's cousin) and his family who plots to secretly take over the company are cast in the role of 'villain' simply because it follows the standard of kdramas to do so. Even though the amount of impact they had on the overall story was next to zero. Also Han Chae Yeon - Cha Gi Jun's fiancee who actually likes Cha Do Hyun - is a person I would have personally liked to know more about being Cha Do Hyun's childhood love and it seems feelings run deep, but by the end of the drama she is simply ignored and it feels like the thread of plot that includes her was cut off leaving no trace of her in the ending. I won't go into detail of every support cast in this drama, but I will say the only support that got some attention is Oh Ri On (Park Seo Joon) - Oh Ri Jin's twin brother.
The music is fairly good with the title song Auditory Hallucination being such a high impact rap it featured in nearly all the emotional scenes in this drama and never failed to enhance the atmosphere, best of all it doesn't get boring even after listening to it 20 times on repeat. Honestly this is the first time i will say a song carried a drama, without this song i can't imagine Kill Me Heal Me to be as good.
A few things that eventually caused me to lower the rating of this show is the tear jerking quality which was really overdone. I didn't even feel 'sad' by the end because the drama did such a good job of crying for me that I personally didn't shed even a single tear, especially when the truth of what happened 21 years ago comes out it wasn't as shocking or severe as i imagined. Another problem is Cha Do Hyun's dad's role in the abuse did not feel convincing, the drama tried too hard to soften the blow of talking about child abuse by casting the primary villain in a good light, kind of like trying to brainwash the audience into Stockholm syndrome and actually find sympathy with the captor.
Overall I gave this drama a 8.5 because the two upstanding qualities were Ji Sung's acting and Auditory Hallucination. This drama is a must watch because of these two things, but at the same time there is quite many flaws in this drama and it's not perfect by any means.
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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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Chinese and Taiwaness dramas of the few i watched have always followed a similar formula with regards to character creation, triangular relationships, and view of modern society. Autumn's Concerto is dime in a dozen and very closely follows this well trekked and guaranteed to succeed formula to high viewership. The formula is as below:
1. Rich/well off/successful guy (with an attitude) meets poor/innocent/pure/kind girl and finds her special
2. The rich guys' family disapproves of them together and thinks of various devious plans to split them up
3. Insert: Secondary male who is often the best friend of the girl, he is kind, thoughtful, helps her with problems, does not care that she is poor or has unfortunate family background
4. Just when it looks like the couple is about to get together, some kind of accident or tragic circumstance cause them to separate and split up
5. Separating for 'insert time period' often going to 'insert random city/town/village name' they meet again by freak chance
6. Various misunderstandings will occur without any of the characters trying to explain anything to each other causing episodes to drag on for a long period without anything seeming to be resolved
7. Just when it seems like things cannot get any worse, all the characters suddenly become smarter and realize 'wow we can just talk with each other and explain' which results in a hasty get back together, pregnancy and happily ever after
This is a phenomenal which appears to only occur in Chinese/Taiwaness dramas. Of the Korean dramas i've seen there appears to be much more creativity and uniqueness when it comes to character and story creation. However Autumn's Concerto should not be judged merely by it's adherence to the formula as it is not without good points some of which includes it's emphasis on familial love, loyalty to friends, and strength in females to overcome difficulties.
Watching Autumn's Concerto is one of the only time I was tempted to drop a drama in the first 5 episodes due to bad acting. With kdrama I don't understand the subtle nuisances in their words and matching facial expression, but I did not have this luxury with Autumn's Concerto because i understand Mandarin. One of the most upsetting thing while watching this drama is how sometimes the tone and meaning coming out of the actor/actress's lips does not match their expression at all and looks fake. In the beginning of the drama, I felt this way whenever Ren Guang Xi (Wu Vanness) was doing his playboy act and flirting with the girl he is interested in. After a while his act became more solid but I still can't give him high points for his acting.
Liang Mu Cheng (An Ady) did a much better job comparably. Her expressions and speech was always spot on and realistic without appearing faked or forced. She performed really consistent through the drama and so props to her. The bad acting is most obvious in the first 5 episodes, the side characters too were just off to a rocky start and overall I've never felt more tempted to drop a drama. Later on around the time of the time skip, the acting improved and it feels like the cast was finally getting comfortable with their character and story.
The music is really the highlight of this drama. The OST of this drama is composed of some old famous Chinese songs that felt vaguely familiar to me as i was watching, as well as some new songs by various artists all of which was really lyrical and soulful. More than once i found myself singing along to the music playing in the background. The music inspired the mood, often enhancing the scene playing on screen and was overall great choices for this drama. I usually rate music not by personal preference but by how compatible a fit it was for the drama and this drama's music is one of the best.
I don't plan to ever rewatch this drama. The good and sweet moments are few and far in between, if i really miss their romance (which i won't because the story dragged too much and killed the romance for me) it will be hard for me to find the specific scene that i miss since this drama is so long.
My last words are Autumn's Concerto is a worthwhile drama to watch if you have lots of time. Pros are the characters and music. Cons are the story which drag its feet and bad acting at the beginning if you understand mandarin like me. Overall a solid drama from one coming from Taiwan.
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