Asa child, Park Hoon (Lee Jong-suk) and his father Park Cheol, a well-known surgeon (Kim Sang-joong) were sent to North Korea to conduct an open-heart surgery on Kim Ill Sung to prevent the Second Korean War. After being sent to North Korea, Park Hoon and his father were denied access to go back to South Korea. It is revealed that Park Cheol is suing the Myungwoo University Hospital for a serious malpractice case and Park Cheol's friend, Dr Park Choi wanted to take responsibility. However, the director of the Hospital Oh did not want the malpractice case to become public which will ruin the hospital's reputation. As the result, he conspired with Jang Seok-joo, a national security official to make Park Cheol and his son trapped in North Korea. In North Korea, Park Hoon was trained to become a doctor by his father who was already a famous doctor. He became a genius cardiothoracic surgeon after attending medical school in North Korea while moonlighting as a smuggler, selling South Korea K-pop DVD. There, he fell deeply in love with Song Jae-hee (Jin Se-yeon). After Park Hoon's father died, he tried to flee to South Korea with Jae-hee, but lost contact with her in the end. Park Hoon was able to flee to South Korea alone.
In South Korea, Park Hoon begins to work as doctor in a top hospital Myungwoo University Hospital. Meanwhile, he found a girl that looks exactly like Jae-hee, Doctor Han Seung-hee, who claims not to know Park Hoon. At the same time, Lee Sung-hoon, a leading doctor in the hospital plans his revenge against the institution for the death of his father in the malpractice case 10 years ago.
In China, the online streaming rights for drama were sold for $80,000 per episode and the drama was made available for online streaming on both Youku and Tudou where it received 330 million and 50 million views, respectively. As of July 7, 2014 it has been streamed close to 400 million times.[3] Due to the drama's success in China there are currently plans to edit the drama into a film and release it theatrically exclusively in China with an alternate ending.[4][5][6] According to the website DailyNK, which reports on North Korea-related issues, the drama was highly popular among North Korean youth who would obtain it illegally at the jangmadang (markets).[7]
As a child, a man and his father are kidnapped and brought to North Korea. The man grows up to become a genius surgeon. When he is finally able to return to South Korea, he begins working at a hospital. He's desperate to save the woman he left behind in North Korea.
Imagine wanting to be with your lover, but in order to do so, you have to compete in medical surgeries to score points to be a lead doctor in a VIP surgery that involves a conspiracy between North and South Korea. This is not makjang, and certainly not an average medical romance story, but rather a mix of genres to keep everything balanced. Everyone gets to have a taste of something, and I am going to ignore the collective groan I just heard at that point.
The unintentional humor at play is another plus for this drama. For instance, the protagonist fleeing on a motorcycle is cornered by enemies between a staircase and a car in a narrow alley. It is impossible to escape, but this is fiction, so the hero rides straight at the evil guy standing on top of the stairs, and boom! The bike sweeps across the antagonist, in addition to partially hitting him in the process, and continues its onward journey with the lead. Actually, people call this suspension of disbelief or plot armor, but if it does not involve throwing the phone or pulling the hair in frustration, it definitely gets a brownie point.
Speaking of coupling, I know that the majority disliked the character pairings, but the core of the plot was built on a strong foundation of love, and to break it would mean undoing the entire plot progression and making the entire drama a joke. In hindsight, the quick resolution in the finale episodes does raise the question of whether that was the case. Nope! The couple earned it. The easy way out does not nullify the obstacles in the journey.
All those who have not watched Doctor Stranger yet have the added advantage of going into the show with the end pairings in mind. This leaves a lot of room to observe the consistency in the writing, which we complain about a lot, but never fully comprehend because we watch dramas while wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
While I remain unconvinced, I'm sooo glad that you shared your positive thoughts about this drama. It certainly gave me another perspective to consider which was rather fun. I do agree with you about the hot male leads and the awesome Kang So Ra. And I did find quite a bit of humor amidst all the craziness. Lee Jong Suk was so entertaining as the title character. I mean, even his hair joined in on the fun!
I was disappointed when they changed his frizzy hair to a straight hair. Actually on second thought, dramas have their characters nonchalanty change their hair in the later half, but this drama gave a good reason for it. Maybe I am reading too much between the lines than was intended by the PD/writer, but I was convinced.
This proves that there really is an audience for every drama ?. I am definitely one of those left with PTSD from this show but I can still endorse your first point - the MLs were the reason I stuck with the show! Lee Jong-seok was great and I can only be grateful that the show introduced me to Park Hae-jin.
If you go to
You'll see it got a well-earned "F" rating
(If you are new here and weren't aware of those rating pages, do yourself a favor and look there before you leap into any oldies)
Oh I remember reading the first link years back! Loved their 'Odds and Ends' series. I still cackled at Jin Se-yeon needing to run faster ?. I've seen the ratings page but sorting by High to Low makes you miss these gems!
I love your links! Thanks for sharing them. Its fun to go over what others think about many dramas I have watched. Loved Javabeans and Girlfriday too. They are the culprits responsible for my HUGE love of Kdramas!
I laughed harder at this post than I do at most dramas (The ones trying to be funny, that is). Absolutely marvelous, @emsel. I don't know that I'm going to take the bait, but I suuuure thought about it ???
Do you also remember the scene where Cha Jin Soo shoots at the ML in the hospital and then the drama goes on like nothing happened? People weren't running around screaming, no cops were called, even the leads weren't that terrified ?? There were a lot of funny stuff happening.
I am watching old dramas for the first time now due uninteresting crop of current kdramas, so I watched "City Hunter" few months before it and thought the first two episodes were inspired by it. Ironically, I dropped City Hunter because it was too boring, but stuck to this "bad" drama.
The start is mind blowing with amazing cast, but I drop the drama. I keep telling myself, It is Kang Haneul and Ha Jiwon!!
but the story *sigh* .. at least Doctor Strange sometimes makes me curious of what happen next, even though I end up disappointed.
Thanks @emsel for being brave enough to mention a drama it was always going to be hard to sell. I watched this in my early K drama watching days but it had too much drama for my delicate self so dropped it quite early.
This is brilliant @emsel! HAs to be said, I think there's a "desperation" algorithm at Netflix - shows no-one is watching keep coming up on people's "Recommended for you" lists. Dr Stranger is always on my list and I've always ignored it due to Beanie loathing. But now, just maybe, I will give it a go, armed with the attitude you prescribe. You sold it well :)
Sometime ago, beanies in fanwall mentioned a weird problem of receiving emails on DB notification which was linked to comments from this drama. No one had, in recent times, commented on the recaps for this drama and it was "strange". I guess this drama and beanies are supposed to be destined together and that's why you got Netflix recommendations :P
She was only somewhat tolerable in GRAND PRINCE, but I attribute it to YSY chemistry magic. Otherwise I avoid her like a plague. And that one Daesang nomination... joke of the century, still can't believe it actually happened. Were jury collectively high or what?
That gets me to my next point. Why was the conflict of Doctor Oh, her father, and Jae Joon built up so much only to fall so flat. Jae Joon could have been such an interesting character and fell into the Jae Hee repetitive trap. Is he a good doctor or not. Does he love Oh Soo Hyun or not?
How do you stick through a drama that seems to have so much going wrong with the plot? Amazing characters.
What the series producers did 100 percent right was casting Lee Jung Suk as our leading man Park Hoon. His character was the sole reason why I stuck through this drama. Park Hoon is a complicated character. He has been to hell and back and yet he still cracks jokes and has enough passion for 10 other happier people. Playing a character that emotionally deep and complicated is not for just any actor. This series most definitely made me fan of Lee and I will be watching everything he is in from here on out.
Wow, was that an ending. The biggest complaint I have about Asian storytelling is the ending. Every time I get the end of a drama/movie/book there is all this build up and no time to resolve it. I can now show a true example of an awesome ending. The ending alone made this entire series worth it.
I have not loved an ending of a drama so much. It was equal parts sad, happy, and complete with some room still left for the imagination. Even though they did the repetitive thing again, with Jae Hee and Park Hoon being separated for a year, I was still extremely satisfied. It would have been perfectly logical for Jae Hee and Park Hoon to not have survived. I am so glad they did. That ending was the most gratifying thing I have watched in so long.
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