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odanurr87 · 2 years

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My thoughts on... Doctors

Yoon Kyung Sang as Jung Yoon Do, Park Shin Hye as Yoo Hye Jung, Kim Rae Won as Hong Ji Hong, and Lee Sung Kyung as Jin Seo Woo If I were to draw a line segment and place the medical kdramas I've watched to date on it, with the degree of over-the-top drama and lack of professionalism decreasing from left to right, I'd place Yong Pal all the way to the left, followed closely by Doctor Stranger, and Hospital Playlist all the way to the right, with Doctor John probably somewhere around the left of the midpoint (still haven't finished watching Angel Eyes). Much to my surprise, I think Doctors probably belongs somewhere to the right of the midpoint (but not too far) and I'll try to explain why that is, but first let's talk a little about the premise. Doctors aka Female Gangster Hye Jung (no, really, that’s another title for it) focuses, not surprisingly, on the transformative journey of Yoo Hye Jung from a smart, rebellious, and kickass teen who doesn't get along with her dad, has no friends and no dreams about a better future, to a driven and talented doctor who's well liked and respected by her colleagues, but who's held back by a tragic event from her past. Hong Ji Hong, as her home-room teacher at high school, is the one who sets her on her path to becoming a doctor, and later as her mentor/boyfriend also helps her move on. Yes, you read that right, her home-room teacher eventually becomes her lover. Personally, I don't think they handled the pacing of the teacher-student relationship very well. The first couple of episodes do not hint at any romantic feelings between these two but then along comes Episode 3 and suddenly they... kinda do? It all felt very rushed, especially her friendship with the second female lead, Jin Seo Woo (Bok Joo!), and the fallout between them, what prompts a bitter rivalry when they meet again working at the same hospital 13 years later.

She’s not called gangster for nothing

Subverting expectations or bland storytelling?

It is perhaps to be expected that Hye Jung has an agenda, tied to a possible case of medical malpractice that involves Seo Woo's father and the hospital's director, Jin Myung Hoon, played by Uhm Hyo Sub, known for playing the antagonist in several dramas (but I always remember him as the butler in Shopping King Louie). Curiously, while this plot thread is present throughout the show it isn't given the prominence one might expect, with the screenwriter (Ha Myung Hee) slowly developing it over the course of the show, always careful to keep the details of the event shrouded in mystery. Instead, the show chooses to give more prominence to the development of the relationship between Hye Jung and Ji Hong and to the medical cases that the doctors face, how they resolve them and how they often tie to their personal lives, but mostly Hye Jung's.

And here's where I got the largest positive impression of the show: the doctors don’t lose their composure in the OR, they act calmly and professionally. The one time this doesn't happen it is considered a serious breach and immediately addressed. This show doesn't feel the need to artificially create drama by having characters act irrationally, having doctors sabotage each other for the sake of their personal glory, or having patients die in the OR so that a doctor can be conveniently blamed and drama can be amped to eleven. In fact, I can't recall a single surgery that didn't go as planned. There were several times I'd go, "Aha, now this will happen so that event X and Y will follow!" and the show would answer with a resounding, "Nope." Perhaps many viewers will find this boring but I found it refreshingly different. And this is not to say there are no dramatic or tension-filled scenes, what sometimes make it lose points on a realism scale, but they're never overplayed.

Not sure I want to know what he means by that

Besides Seo Woo, whose rivalry with Hye Jung takes some time to resolve, the only other character who's initially distrustful of Hye Jung's ability and disapproves of her attitude is the second male lead and her senior, Jung Yoon Do. However, after a couple of instances where Hye Jung proves herself in his eyes he apologizes and never doubts her again. This becomes a turning point for our SML as he slowly starts falling for Hye Jung's charms and loosens up considerably, to the point I really liked him despite his unrequited love for Hye Jung. This is another plus for Doctors, as when he confesses his feelings to Hye Jung she wastes no time clearing the air replying, "I don't trust love between a man and a woman. But if I have to love, that one person will be Hong Ji Hong." That's that potential love triangle neatly resolved. Even when he later gives Ji Hong a heads up about his feelings for Hye Jung (Yoon Do is very straightforward and honest) the latter nonchalantly replies, "Good. Try your best." what leaves Yoon Do thinking he's already lost before he even had a chance to compete.

Ji Hong and Hye Jung: A mature relationship with little drama

Ji Hong is a charming, easygoing, glass half-full, kinda guy, who always looks out for his students and never holds a grudge. As he tells Hye Jung one episode, there are too many things he wants to do in his life to waste time mulling over negative things like revenge. If this were a fantasy cdrama, he'd probably be a Daoist (he'd certainly make a better Daoist than The Taoist Grandmaster). This may irk some viewers looking for a revenge-driven plot where the protagonists actively seek the downfall of some powerful figure/s with almost single-minded determination, like in Graceful Family (which I do recommend btw). The seeds are certainly there for Doctors to take that route but it chooses not to, what makes me think that perhaps they were planted because it is expected for this type of show to have that plot line and not because the screenwriter particularly wanted to, but this is pure speculation. While Ji Hong helps Hye Jung with her search for the truth he does so out of a desire she'll be able to close that painful chapter of her life and live more in the present, and he doesn't waste an opportunity to let her know she can be happy, as this dancing scene to The La's "There She Goes" proves.

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This man makes it difficult not to fall in love with him As for Hye Jung, I think this is probably the better Park Shin Hye performance out of the dramas I've watched with her (no, I have not yet watched Pinocchio). She was cute as Go Mi Nam in You're Beautiful but I felt the show never let her grow out of that character and show us who she was as Go Mi Nyeo. Here I felt she was able to show more range and she looked comfortable with her male costar despite their age gap. Certainly, the two actors/characters seemed to have a lot more chemistry than that shown in her latest drama, Sisyphus: The Myth, between Kang Seo Hae and Han Tae Sul, and makes me wonder what a reunion with Kim Rae Won as Han Tae Sul would've looked like.

I still love you, Go Mi Nam.

Honestly, the only obstacle to their relationship is themselves, as they're both highly intelligent and independent people who've never been in a romantic relationship before and who usually try to solve problems by themselves rather than relying on others. This veers dangerously close to "noble idiocy" territory at times but doesn't outright cross into it, to my mind, or at least doubles back fairly quickly. For instance, in order to protect Hye Jung, Ji Hong makes a deal with a character one time that I won't spoil. When Hye Jung finds out about it she confronts him but Ji Hong defuses the situation by arguing he's "taking one step backwards and two steps forward" to ease tensions, that this is not as bad as she makes it out to be (glass half-full kinda guy), and that he's actively looking for a way to revert this. When I took my time to ponder his argument I had to concede it was fairly reasonable. Like I said, Ji Hong is surprisingly mature about handling relationships and conflicts, something that was unexpected. Another time the two have a conversation where Hye Jung points out how he's always trying to protect and comfort her but that this is not reciprocal, that she also wants to protect and comfort him but he won't let her, finally asking him to change if he wants to make their relationship work. While she definitely had a point I was a little irked about the conclusion, which came across as rather one-sided. Quite surprisingly, it didn't take long for Hye Jung to acknowledge she was wrong to corner him into changing when she was also asking him to love her for who she was, a confession that leads into this beautifully awkward scene where Hye Jung tries to make the first move and Ji Hong doesn't know quite what to make of it.

When you try to give him the green light and he doesn't get the memo Their relationship isn't perfect (what relationship is?), there are bumps on the road, and they alternate between being lovers, teacher and student, and colleagues, throughout the show and depending on the situation, and sometimes their inability to recognise what role they should be playing (the characters, not the actors) causes some tension or friction between them that usually gets resolved by, shockingly, having a conversation like normal adults. Maybe these are the moments that some reviewers had trouble believing, as they sometimes appear to be dissecting the ins and outs of their relationship with clinical precision. They are neurosurgeons after all.

Of second-lead relationships, The Beagles, and music

I've praised the main leads and the second male lead, but what about the second female lead? Seo Woo's growth is very slow and a large part of it occurs when a conflict that personally involves her arises towards the end of the show. Seo Woo is initially jealous that Hye Jung has managed to become so successful in life and doesn't take kindly to Yoon Do falling for her rival. She has insecurity issues tied to her parents' expectations of her and Hye Jung "taking things away from her" (she also had a crush on Ji Hong in high school) that should've been better fleshed out in the initial episodes of the show. Surprisingly, what seems to be a trend with this show, the second leads don't end up together and, in fact, Seo Woo ends up in a relationship with fellow doctor Pi Yeong Kook, the one friend who's always there for her no matter what. Eventually, Seo Woo is also able to let go of the past, daring to stand up for Hye Jung and call her a friend, and overcomes, if not her parents' expectations, certainly their narrow-mindedness and greed, not to mention her own ego.

I guess this qualifies as subverting expectations? There is also quite a bit of comedy too, in no small part thanks to "The Beagles," Jung Pa Ran (played by Lee Sun Ho), Yoon Do's uncle, and Jo In Joo (played by Yoo Da In), both of which are Ji Hong's closest friends, who have a great friendship and a running gag of annoying the heck out of Yoon Do by constantly staying at his place. There's one episode where even Seo Woo joins the beagles and Yoon Do is like, "I give up. Live happily among the three of you." and finds himself temporarily exiled to Ji Hong's apartment, much to the latter's surprise.

The Beagles adopt a new member Music-wise, I wasn't particularly impressed by the songs, as the one that made the most lasting impression was The La's "There She Goes." The score itself was composed by Park Se Jun, who previously collaborated with the show's director, Oh Choong Hwan, on shows like Start-Up and While You Were Sleeping, but perhaps this shouldn't be surprising as Park Se Jun's name pops up everywhere. The score itself is actually not half bad but it wasn't particularly memorable, save for a few exceptions. The first one is the fact that Doom at Your Service's "Destiny to Love" is used regularly throughout the show, what surprised me seeing as it's a track from a 2021 drama playing on a 2016 show (they really should've used it when Ji Hong steps out of the helicopter). The other is the track "Goodbye My Fellow" which, for the life of me, sounds like something lifted straight from another 2016 show I recently watched, Marriage Contract. I could swear they're playing the same, or mostly the same, music as in either "Beautiful Memories" and/or "Beautiful Days" but to different notes, speed, or something. The second I listened to that music playing in Doctors I instantly thought of Marriage Contract. Initially, I thought maybe they were simply reusing the score from one of their shows but Marriage Contract is from MBC and Doctors is from SBS so I'm not really sure what's going on here.

Marriage Contract. Probably the best contractual relationship kdrama there is. Watch it.

Conclusions

All in all, Doctors was a surprisingly pleasant watch throughout and I didn't find it boring despite its 20-episode order, what usually makes me suspicious of the quality of the show. Some reviewers have argued the ending feels rushed and while I disagree I have to concede certain plot lines are purposefully left unresolved. In short, if you want to see the antagonists killed or in shackles, then this is not the drama for you. It's not that there are no consequences for their actions, there are, but we don't get to see the full extent of them. Following Ji Hong's life philosophy we only get to see the positive outcomes, not the negative ones.

In the end, I think I can confidently say Doctors succeeded in subverting my trope-oriented expectations, what I consider to be a positive. It’s no Hospital Playlist (that’s a high bar) but it’s certainly a lot better than some of the other medical dramas I’ve watched. Of course, perhaps my baseline isn’t diverse enough, with medical dramas like New Heart, Good Doctor, D-Day, and Dr. Romantic still on my watchlist. What about you? Have you watched Doctors? Where would you place it on your own medical kdrama line segment?

#kdrama #kdramas #review #doctors #park shin hye #kim rae won #yoon kyun sang #lee sung kyung

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