A Beautiful Mind (2016)

I abandoned this show for a couple of weeks after watching part of the first episode, but I am so glad I picked it up again. Seriously, just stick with it if you are in a similar situation and contemplating dropping it after the first few minutes. I know the show isn't the most medically accurate, but honestly, which medical drama is? Ignoring that, the drama does deal with some very important issues of medical ethics and I think it did a pretty good job. What I really loved was it's lack of cliche moments and the presence of dark and light elements in the same show. I am also really glad they didn't try and "cure" him magically. What I was most disappointed about was the length of the show. While they covered the bases and did create some closure and a fairly satisfying ending, it felt abrupt and somewhat unfinished, like there was more to the story which we never got. Which is a pity because this has been one of better shows I have seen recently, so this is the one time I think it could have run longer.

The acting was quite good. Jang Hyuk did an excellent job, but I wish they had implemented the idea that he is very good at mimicry as good psychopathy are. He looked a little too blank and lost for that.

The soundtrack was well done and Bernard Park's 'Dirt' really gets stuck in the head. My only complaint is that it sounds like he keeps saying 'dirts' instead of 'dirt' and it just drives me crazy. I believe he was born and brought up in America so I refuse to believe he didn't have access to a native speaker who could have potentially corrected this for him if he himself is not a native English speaker and if indeed this was a mistake and not just because of the way he is singing.

Overall, it's not a drama that should be missed. It has the right amounts of drama, romance, and humor. I will definitely be watching this in the next few years.

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WHAT A GREAT SHOW

Here I am. A late bloomer of Jang Hyuk dramas, discovering him only in 2020. I kept Beautiful Mind on the back burner a bit and saw most of his other dramas which started with Fated To Love You, Thank You, Robbers, Chunno which were all done with great acting by him. To guide me to his next effort, I read all the reviews on DramaList and just completed watching this great show 'Beautiful Mind'.

Beautiful Mind has a very interesting medical mystery murder story line surrounding the hospital that Dr. Lee Yeong Oh (Jang Hyuk) works after returning from overseas back to Korea. He suffers from an antisocial personality dis-order where he is unable to emphatise with people and situations around him. However, through a series of events involving a murder case in the hospital, he is suspected by a traffic policewoman Gye Jin Sung. It was enjoyable to watch how this traffic policewoman evolved from a naive rookie police who is a bit clueless of her actions to being transferred to Criminal Police division and slowly mature to a more rounded cop. Her character is pure and simple (but I do find the character a bit too young) and is quite a good change from the heavy and interesting drama in the hospital. Her simplicity also helped to draw out Dr. Lee's journey in discovering his emotional side and hence beginning to help him deal with changes and acceptance of situations around him in spite of his personality dis-order.

The show has a great story line with every episode, surprises, joy and I also cried a little. Each cast did justice to their performance and of course, Jang Hyuk (Dr. Lee) is exceptionally talented. As always in his performance, again in Beautiful Mind he is able to take us through the complexity of Dr. Lee Yeong Oh's character. His ups and down and the variation of situations he has to deal with to bring the entire drama from a great start to a super ending.

Love the show, suggest to watch it.

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Weird trauma story with decent romance.

I really liked this drama and I generally am super meh about medical dramas. It wasn't exceptional, but it was interesting and kept me entertained and excited for the next episode. The lead actor brings a lot of intelligence to every role he does, and this role was no exception. He plays a man with limited emotional range and empathy ostensibly because of a failed brain operation as a child. The actor does a decent job depicting an emotionally stunted character.

Unfortunately, toward the end things got pretty sloppy and I really didn't get the plot twist with his dad or why it was necessary. From the beginning I felt like his dad was a bad guy, the actor they picked just LOOKS like an evil guy. Adding a weird redemption arc and confusing trauma sub-plot really didn't advance the plot in any satisfying way, it just basically confused things. Maybe that was because the twist was introduced/handled so casually that you felt like you needed to rewind to see if you'd missed something somewhere.

I did like the interaction between the two leads and the male lead did a really great job never dropping the plot thread of his disability. I liked that they didn't heal him with love at the end like every other mental illness Kdrama. I liked that he retained his core defect and embraced it and worked with it instead of against it by the end. But mostly...I just like Jang Hyuk as an actor XD.

Overall, I wouldn't rewatch this show because there isn't anything compelling enough to interest me. Everything was decent and satisfying, but it's a one-and-done sort of story.

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ROMANCE! It happens.

I have to agree with other reviewers about this being the rare drama where having 16 episodes is justified. It wrapped up nicely, but I think an extra episode or two would have made the ending feel less rushed and given us more time with the two leads. There was romance, but not enough personally. Also, the romance isn't gushy and feels sort of balanced considering the main guy's disorder,
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Don't hesitate with this one!

I highly recommend this drama. It's a perfect blend of mystery, ethics, murder, romance, comedy, while withholding some of our beloved k-drama cliche moments. A brilliant story that will keep you hooked with suspense and controversy.

This is my first drama with Jang Hyuk. He fantastically portrayed the egocentric, stoic, blunt Dr. Lee Yeong Oh. New face Park So Dam, does a brilliant job portraying our main lady, however I wasn't so keen on her character in the beginning- she is your typical female lead.

I loved all the other characters and extras but my favorites were the director ( Oh Jung Se), Nurse Jang ( Ha Jae Sook), and our source of comic relief, the group of doctors referred to as the "Power Rangers".

There were a lot of scenes that were so effortlessly touching, heartbreaking. How the writers integrate romance in this fits well with the story and is undoubtedly creative! Given the fact that the main character is unable to empathize with others, I was afraid the writers may go overboard with the romance, potentially ruining the story.

The soundtracks picked were excellent and perfectly timed.

All the loops were tied in the end, closure was provided - you'll end this drama feeling satisfied and without regrets.

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Brilliant Characters

A spectacular story about nature vs nurture, preconceptions and human frailty. What you see isn’t always what is.

I felt that the story was beautifully written and executed. The actors brought their characters to life.

The development of the main characters was earned through their well plotted experiences.

I feel that this is well worth watching more than once. You will uncover things you didn’t catch the first time.

Park So Dam’s is the star of the whole thing. Her ability to portray her characters need to understand and adapt to the events she is involved with really make the show what it is. She makes you feel the heart and pace. Jang Hyuk’s energy, while dealing with situations his character has never been taught how to, is a perfect match. It’s an incredible casting choice that works 100%.

Enough twist and turns to keep you guessing and binging straight through. It definitely does not feel like you’ve just watched 14, hour long episodes.

I’m my opinion, it’s well worth your time.

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Overall: This is one of the best Korean drama I've ever watched. I love Jang Hyuk and Park So Dam is not a bad actress even she is still young. I still don't understand why this drama get a very low rating when aired. To be honest, this drama has all factors to be a high rate drama, funny, sad, thrill...

Story: I usually do not have big interest in medical drama. But I like Jang Hyuk and his acting, so when I read the synopsis, I thought I give it a try to watch it, even though I didn't really into Park So Dam. I watched this drama continuously when it still aired. And I found out this drama got me more and more hooked in every episodes. After ended, I also got days of drama hang over which was made me digging more of Jang Hyuk old dramas.

Acting: Jang Hyuk's acting is no need to be questioned, definitely top class actor. And I think being an emotionless doctor, he nailed it perfectly. And when he slowly can feel emotion and empathy towards others, the development of his character is really touchy. And I think Park So Dam can match him well, she delivered many emotions that changed along this drama, from resentment, pity and then love.

Music: This drama pratically only had 1 original soundtrack. But the song by Bernard Park is really deep and memorable. It's a very amazing song and match every scenes of this drama.

Rewatch value: I give a high rating for rewatch value, but I don't think I will rewatch this drama again, since this drama was so tearful and sad.

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First of all, my opinion looks like an unpopular opinion hehe.. no hate please :D

Okay, so I started watching this drama because of the goods reviews I saw here and from some other sources. However, tbh, this drama is just not my cup of tea. I am not thrilled watching this drama and I could not really feel the chemistry between the leads. More specifically, I dont really see how the two main leads develop throughout the story. I do see how the main guy changes with time, but I do not see how they grow romantically. Moreover, I am not fond of the lengthy conversation about the medical stuffs or all those conversations between the old doctors, I skip most of those parts.

In terms of the acting/cast, everyone did a good job. I love the main guy's acting; he really portrays his character nicely. Music wise, I could not think of any song related to this drama, so maybe the music is not 'spectacular' enough.

I do not really recommend this drama to you guys, but you guys can try few eps and decide if this is your cup of tea. For me, this is not my cup of tea :)

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At first look this seemed like a winner - Jang Hyuk who might not always play characters I like but at least can act, an interesting premise and a good MDL score.

Unfortunately as I watched things started to go wrong. JH's sociopathic Dr? very interesting: I thought on the whole he played it well and it kept my interest. Unfortunately instead of sticking with a winning theme we have to have Hospital politics/corruption as an interminable backdrop. FF was my friend for this, though as ever when you end up skipping such large portions of episodes you miss pertinent plot points. I didn't care I was too bored by it
The whole father son stuff was all as seen before as well which was ok but not really worth sitting through.

The FL was the usual nice but gullible cliche which undermined a lot of the romance in the end, letting the chemistry flicker and fizzle rather than bloom. The end of her/their story arc was so mind numbingly unoriginal I skipped through most of that as well.

The bits that worked best are the actual patient/doctor the true medical drama stuff. Those parts brought out the best in JH's portrayal of Dr Lee and the best of the character itself.

So all in all if the romance grabs you, if you don't mind all the politics/corruption stuff, if you still find entertainment in uninspired cliches give this a go it's probably a lot better than I've made out.

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The drama was very entertaining and addicting. I was always connected to Lee Young Ho's struggle and Jang Hyuk was magnificent in displaying this complicated character. During the drama I sometimes wondered if the performance really had to be that way because it didn't always made sense at first sight. But now that the drama is over and everything about his character and his "being different" is in the open, everything is quite clear for me.

I was very fascinated about that special father/son relationship. It was complicated, and subtle gestures, words and looks created a really good feel for those both as well as for me.

I also liked that there were so many grey-ish characters, some of them explained more detailed, others less. Being in the medical field myself I can relate to the daily struggles and difficult decisions the doctors have to make - and it's stressing you out a lot. Of course, for us it looks like "Omg, he's such a bad person." but well... it's never easy to make life changing decisions, right?

I also mentioned before that I'm in love with the constellation of the cast, right? This drama has so many of my favorites actors and actresses in it, that it was pure pleasure to watch them - even if the script was trash. Though that is definitely not the case here. The plot, the writing, the dialogues and the execution were great. Except for the last episodes. I wouldn't have minded two more. I think that it would have been better for the story flow because the finale feels a bit flat and rushed now. Also, for the development of the relationship between Lee Young Oh and Gye Jin Sung, especially how she is slowly changing him. Both of them together got less screentime because of the cut since the drama also had to solve the criminal part.

But nevertheless, Park So Dam and Jang Hyuk were... well, they completed each other? I mean, they were able to pull off the differences in character and how they completed each other (even though I feel that Park So Dam's character fell a bit short on that part). They had really good chemistry, even though I also enjoyed Jang Hyuk's and Park Se Young interactions in the beginning (yeah, part of it was Money Flower-induced... :p).

Those Power Rangers below (excluding Jang Hyuk, ofc)... and the rest of the medical stuff were a nice addition, and even though they were either not the nicest people or just too undefined in the beginning, they grew on me. Though Dong Ha was my favorite from the first minute :p~ And he and Jang Hyuk... I need another drama with them together!

The medical part is very... tumor-heavy, one could say. It makes it look like there are just no other diseases out there. I always told myself that there are a lot more patients with minor illnesses, but just not shown for the viewer. And for the sake of the viewer they picked the more dangerous and rarer ones. I can't blame them. First of all, it was very interesting to get to know about some of them. And secondly, not every "tumor" means "cancer". "Tumor" just means "lumb/swelling" where the structure of the cells is either slightly or gravely different from the usual ones. I learned that in school recently, but I'm sure that the majority of people who don't work in the medical field and don't research those things on their own, don't know about it. There's a difference in cells and benign tumors (the good ones) can be removed if the location is not too dangerous and it won't re-appear. Benign tumors also won't "spread" because their cell walls are definite. There's a lot more to the subject, so I will stop here since it's quite the dry material. I just wanted to point that out because I know a lot of people freak out when they hear "tumor".

If you listen to "Dirt" by Park Bernard, the songs makes you all warm and melancholic and sad with a spark of hope. Not every OST of a drama is worth mentioning, but this one needs to be. It's captivating and so different from your usual songs, and stays with you even after the song has already finished for some time.

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What can you say about a drama that got cut? I mean, I cannot rate it based on potential but only on what we got on screen, but what we got was still better than a heck of a lot of other dramas, including some very highly rated ones appearing right now (looking at you a certain other medical drama that is horribly written but got the 6 additional episodes Beautiful Mind deserved and needed).

Anyhow, I am happy that they were able to give us a satisfying ending even if they had to throw logical consistency out the window and drop about 85% of the balls they were trying to juggle. Frankly, I don’t know how this story could have been told properly even in 16 episodes. But the writers did their best as did the cast, and I am thankful.

I will forever remember Beautiful Mind for its gorgeous directing, interesting plot, wonderful cast of secondary characters (Eagle 5, nurse Jang and Dr. Yang – I’m looking at you cuties!), and most of all for forcing me to take Jang Hyuk off my overrated list. He was wonderful in this – wonderful.

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