Doctor John (2019)

I tried to write a review without spoilers but i am sorry this still does contain some minor spoilers.
- !!Disclaimer!!: This is just my opinion about this drama. I don't think this is the Truth of the Truths of this world. I won't recommend this drama to some of my friends, but I will recommend it to some others. So if you want to try this drama and start to hesitate because of this review, please don't :) you can just start it, try several episodes and then decide for yourself! Thank you for reading! -

Doctor john explores the concept of euthanasia, pain, rare diseases, CIPA patients etc. etc.

Well I saw many good reviews so I'll just take the unpopular road this time, with telling the bad things this drama had. very sorry to people who liked this and to people who worked hard making this drama but this was very meaningless and unrealistic story.... I gave rating 4 only for the people who worked on it.

What I liked:
-sister and fellows romance
-kitten
-mom

What I didn't like:
-story (lol)
-characters(lol)
-they mixed too many concepts
-something failed here very badly....
-one-sided answer to a controversial problem.
-main couple's romance
-male lead's occupation
-just everything lol

longer review:

Music was ok, so I just put a random number there. Acting was ok, as they act out the written characters and are not characters themselves. The story/plot.... well this is where the real issues start.
First of all this drama started with prison and showing Doctor Yo Han as some brutal mysterious guy stitching himself. Plus the main female lead Kang Shi Yeong who was constantly crying for any reason. Well at first we don't know the reasons so it's ok. And when we learn her reasons we start to understand her. But she keeps crying even for reason unrelated to her problem, for any little thing. Anyway... after that the whole story goes to hospital. The prison part was extremely unnecessary. It was just a useless way to keep viewers, because 1) it's prison and that itself is usually intriguing, 2) Yo Han was shown very mysterious, which was captivating. BUT It didn't help the plot at all. They could have just stated about prison and that's all.
After that we see them working in hospital. And the problem of euthanasia rises more. We see two people who are fiercely fighting against it, and also the lead who doesn't say anything. So here i thought oh wow this explores that problem it's great! However the drama suddenly starts exploring rare diseases. and you get one rare illness after another and the doctors are like investigators trying to find the culprit. Why, oh why should the anesthesiology department be the only place where people can do diagnosis. Yo Han could have just been a person who gives diagnosis, like doctor House and it would have been awesome. But somehow anesthesiologists do that job. Then they start talking about pain. How people feel pain, what is pain, for what, and about people who don't feel pain at all. Cha Yo Han says many nice quotes. But wait... this is already like 3 different dramas. O_O and all this time Kang Shi Young was following Yo Han a bit like a stalker and crying all around about him not telling her this or that, not being careful etc etc. I felt no chemistry between them, to be honest. It felt very forced and one-sided.
during all this time they were showing some secret group which was somehow related to that problem of euthanasia.
In the middle of the drama the two people who were fighting against euthanasia turned out to be simply crazy. while the drama was showing them so full of justice at first.
Might think this just explores that problem more and more, but in the end it gives a clear answer: "we are against euthanasia, and it is murder". they don't say it like this but this is what is implied very strongly during the last 4 episodes.
The secret organization only truly appears during one episode and then no one even thinks of searching them more.
takes shift to the forced romance and ends, leaving in darkness so many doors they opened randomly but never really showed us the rooms. Him willing to be a doctor like that even while dying also didn't make sense, he totally could be someone who makes diagnosis. that would suit him much better and that was what would needed from that person. This was very meaningless and unrealistic story. Maybe the writer wanted to explore many problems and wasn't sure she will be able to do it in other dramas and decided to use everything here. lol Well this became a grey mixture not even captivating enough.
The characters were also written poorly. Cha Yo Han as I already said is perfect at making diagnosis but somehow he is anesthesiologist, and even performing surgeries sometimes(!!!) I mean not just going there checking the patients sleep and all, but really doing stuff.... lol also treating many patients. their department looked more like the emergency center of rare diseases. In the middle of the drama he starts to act like a girl lol with female lead being all protective and him accepting everything and falling for it. lol Kang Shi Young was a character that cried a lot, got in the way a lot. They tried to show her as a strong person but she wasn't. Her big problem became not so big of a problem later just because she met him and her head was full of him. All the stuff she said was not so nice. I mean i would have gotten angry if someone talked with me like that. told that kind of stuff and cried all the time. The two other resident guys were just funny comedians, not even knowing english... just how in the world did they become doctors. The only nice characters were Kang Shi Young's mom. sister and the other doctor that plays Mugwang (cursed guy) in Arthdal chronicles. Their romance with kitten was nice.
P.S. I watched this with my mom and she was even disappointingly asking how the actors could choose such a drama and how directors could agree to shoot it and no one told the plot as big holes in it.

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It was decent until it wasn't....(I watched 31 1/2 episodes)

Using my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh," & "nah," this was a “liked” up until the last two episodes then it became a “nah”. I actually did not even watch the last half hour of the last episode. Read on to find out why.

Things I liked:
Ji Sung did an excellent job in that role. I actually liked all the characters. I liked the slow-burn romance between the two leads. I liked that there was zero love triangle, the sisters reconciled, and the father got a dignified end. I also liked the growth of the two “antagonists” (the prosecutor and the nurse) throughout the series as they realized they were focused on the wrong thing.

Things I did not like so much:
At first, I could handle the medical inaccuracies. For example, a main characteristic of the disease that afflicts Cha Yo Han is mental disability/development delays. So, the fact that this incredibly rare disease (despite it showing up a lot in medical dramas) had two characters with the disease and neither of which had one of the key characteristics was a little much. The other thing I dislike about medical dramas in general is that apparently hospitals consist only of doctors and nurses and zero other health professionals. Having worked in the hospital setting before (as one of the health professionals never featured), hospital work is much more complex and involves not just a team of physicians but a team of a variety of different health and health-related professionals.

Minor points of dislike: The fact that Lee Se Young's character was always in tears and the fact that, apparently, her hair dresser got called away to deal with a family emergency in the middle of her hair cut (or someone was putting in extensions and only got the first piece in before suddenly dying a of a heart attack or something).

A key dislike I had was the fact that the show kept getting “physician-assisted suicide” and “euthanasia” confused. What the former minister and the attorney were trying to promote was physician-assisted suicide, what Cha Yo Han had gone to jail for was euthanasia (btw, with that severe of a disease, no way he survived prison…and is that a drama thing that a doctor who euthanizes a patient and goes to jail gets to be a doctor again or is that really possible in South Korea!?). Those two concepts from moral, legal, ethical standpoints need to be treated differently. One is a patient’s informed choice about the end of their life, the other is NOT a decision made by a patient but rather an ethics committee or family or physician.

But the big reason why I ‘dropped’ it halfway through the last episode was the jack@$$ male lead ghosting the female lead for three years, during one of which he was stalking her—all of this after she’d begged him not to keep her out of his medical problems! Then he shows up and says that if her love for him was strong enough, she would not have moved on and would take him back. Such *clap* BS *clap*. Served him right if he came back to find her happily married to someone with much less drama in his life! But no, dramaland would not let such a toxic move impede a ‘happy’ ending, she immediately forgives him because, of course, she could not live without him and kept herself loyal and single (and most likely a virgin) for three whole years despite the fact that he had his colleagues lie to her about his situation, had been in the country for a whole year and didn’t tell (plus stalked her!), and didn’t trust her to help him through his medical issues. At that point, all the little bits and pieces that hadn’t made sense came crashing back in, I could no longer ignore them, and I was done. At that point, a ‘happy ending’ of them getting together was no longer a happy ending for me.


Should you watch this? I don’t know. It wasn’t a bad drama as medical dramas go. The romance was not even that bad, but I could not handle the sudden toxicity at the end. The conflict that underlined the entire show was anti-climatic and not enough to be worthy of the mystery they tried to make it out to be. If you’re a diehard Ji Sung fan, he does look very good in this, so there’s that. :D

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This series left me with mixed feeling i know i gave it a 9/10 overall rating which is considered good but it felt like something is missing after it ended.
I decided to give this drama a shot because of ji sung who is a great actor and the synopsis sounded interesting. The first couple of episodes were really captivating and it shocked me that they discussed a subject which has always been a source of debate with no ending conclusion, but i appreciate to watch something different and the fact that makes you search and think about topics that we don't usually talk about.
The music was so good and it fits the atmosphere of the drama and the acting was great. I know everyone is talking about the FL hair style that was a mess but i didn't care and i found the cast did really a good job portraying their characters.
The story started very well with medical mystery genre and a slow developed romance that really fit this kind of story. The chemistry between the leads was good and then the euthanasia was brought up. i thought it was great to see a drama that approach this topic. The writer did a good job in the beginning but toward the middle i felt like she was lost and didn't know how to handle the story anymore and she focused more about the illness. I expected more deep conversation about pain death and the value of life and i expected the actor lee kyu hyung's character to have much more importance in the story.
Beside that "in my opinion" the story wasn't so well developed the drama was worth watching. I enjoyed every episode and the acting was soooo good never gt disappointed by ji sung and i loved the side love story of the second lead.

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Unfortunately even with Ji Sung's usual on-screen charm, the series itself was just okay. The underlying focus revolves around a complex and heavily debated topic that impacts all of us and that aspect is appreciated. However, I wish they either focused more on cases within the prison, at the hospital, or just in general.

The initial few episodes started off great but unfortunately it didn't keep the same pace due to it leaning much too heavy towards romance. It didn't help that the two mains had zero chemistry with one another and her character felt more like an obsessed fan, rather than an effective partner. The supporting cast had much more character development than the female lead. She was consistently clingy and didn't seem to be a very competent doctor despite the excess praises she received. Overall, I managed to finish the series by skipping through large chunks of the scenes where the two leads were alone and being awkwardly sappy. This one had potential, but for an hour long episode with 16 episodes, they could have used that time to dive much more into the lives of the rest of the team or included more cases to add more substance. Even excluding the romance aspect, it felt like the plot was put together with pieces that don't quite fit together.

Really surprised this series had such high ratings and I wonder if it's due to the fact that there are some pretty great cast members in it.

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I really enjoyed this drama up until the very end. There was nothing bad about the ending, just that there was nothing amazing about it. They were leading up to an amazing resolution between the characters and plot and it just fell flat. The romance wasn't particularly satisfying and the time-jumps in the final episode felt like a cop-out. By incorporating the time-jumps they didn't have to really work *through* the problems, they just kind of fast-forwarded to the "happy ending" like it just happened over time naturally. It wasn't satisfying at all. Especially for all the emotions I invested into this drama. Up till the ending though, the story was amazing and well-thought out. I very much enjoyed it. The OST is great and paired well with the drama as a whole. Acting was also superb! Ji Sung has an intensely sexy smolder, if you didn't already know. XD All the other actors were also enjoyable. Due to the ending, I'm not sure I would recommend this drama, but if it really draws you in, I wouldn't dissuade you from watching it either. This drama is definitely more suited for people who enjoy medical dramas.

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Okay to watch

I watched this because I love Ji Sung so much. He's brilliant at everything he does. And he did in this one too. Everyone was great, just too much running and too much crying.

The female lead's part irritated me to say the least. Too obsessive about him to the detriment of her job. Never have i wanted a couple to never succeed. They had no chemistry and that's putting it mildly. Everything always ended in tears.

The nurse with the vendetta just disappeared into thin air. So she wanted an apology, so why not say so. The story was all over the place.

Worth watching but not a 2nd for me.

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What a waste

"Doctor John' starts with a bang and interesting first episode, however it goes downhill after the main female lead character, second year resident Dr. Kang Shi-young, falls madly in love with the male lead character, professor/attending Dr. Cha Yo-han. As a second year resident in a very demanding pain anesthesiology program, it is unlikely that she would have so much time running after (almost like stalking) her professor/attending at work or after work. I bet all residents that are doing residency wish their life is as easy as this second year resident. The scrip is not well written. Also, there are too many long "love scenes" that become too annoying and boring. I tolerated watching "Doctor John" because my significant other liked the lead female character and enjoyed the long "love scenes". I respect his preference.

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There are a lot of things that make a drama worth watching. But the one thing that makes a drama 'unforgettable' is the appropriate use of it's theme and maintaining the moral of the story throughout. This drama picked up a very controversial topic in medicine and law and handled it really well. It gave no definite answers to Euthanasia but just like the endless debate, left no side as the bad guy and no side as the good guy.

Instead of focusing on pain leading to 'death' as an abrupt end of life, this drama focused on 'living' till the very end. It gave a very memorable perspective to death and life. It may not be the best medical drama, but this drama was much more. It left valuable lessons and worth watching perspectives behind and that is as important sometimes.

The acting was quite obviously outstanding. Nothing less to be expected from Ji Sung. Doubt any other actor could have portrayed the different emotions this drama and story required. He was as usual phenomenal. The other actors were brilliant as well, especially Lee Seyoung who is most definitely a very promising actress.

The soundtrack was brilliant and fitting in every scenario. It was both melancholic and hopeful, happy and sad. Just perfect. The romance was handled very well. Not the typical romance drama types but rather a mature romance. Practical, deep and beautiful.

This drama did justice to all the tags and to it's viewers in my opinion and is definitely worth investing your time in. Also i mean, it's Ji Sung! Come on! Haha.

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Nice story that will keep you involved.

If you think medical dramas are all the same, you need to watch this one. A unique twist on doctors who manage pain with an overriding theme of euthanasia. Throw in a little romance and you have something exciting to watch. Don’t let the 32 episodes discourage you, the 30 minute episodes will fly by.

The storyline concentrates on pain management and does a good job of bringing excitement to an otherwise boring topic. Each doctor in the group has their own personality making it that much more interesting. Ji Sung was amazing as Dr. John (Cha). He fit the part and made it believable.

The love interest between Dr. Cha and Dr. Kang started slowly and peaked briefly at an airport farewell. It was a nice scene with love confessions on both sides. Other than a few minutes later in the story, there was no more real romance, and there definitely wasn’t much chemistry between the two leads. I don’t know if it was the story or the actor, but Ji Sung just didn’t seem to warm up to the romance concept. Lee Se Young, on the other hand, had much better chemistry and gave you a warm feeling that she was really in love. They tried to bring them back together in the last few minutes of the drama but that never really works to anybody’s satisfaction. But this drama really wasn’t about romance, it was about pain management.

In summary it has a good storyline and a strong supporting cast. I liked this drama. The music was fantastic, some of the best I’ve ever heard.

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I see detectives not doctors

Doctor Yo Han can solely diagnosed patients on observations without equipment. Something happened that caused him in prison. There he met a capable anesthesiologist, but she is very hesitant about herself due to her past.

The story set up a gripping premise around our leads, we quickly know what happened to Dr. John and the struggle of Shi Young. I never will watch a medical drama if it wasn't for Ji Sung, as topics around severe illnesses and surgeries never drawn me in. Not for everyone, I don't think you'll want to watch this if terminal Illnesses trope is your trigger. Acting of all are very good! Se Young did her best for the emotional scenes, Ji Sung is very charismatic doing public speaking he got chances to showcase his talent here. What's nice is that seeing how the doctor team diagnose patients based on symptoms and background, like detectives' investigation.

First 5 episodes are slow-paced, there's too much staring and flashbacks. I rolled my eyes because the main conflict is discussed too often without any action. On leads' relationships, it's intriguing to see similarity between Cha Yohan - Shi Young and Kang Yohan - Ga On in The Devil Judge, one of my all-time-favorites; She often does things he advised her to do and admire him and the next moment she confronts him on his liability and motivations. But here, the execution is not that exciting, it has many crying scenes for self-pity.

Imo the script was a bit meh in the early phase, but it got better later on, especially when more characters are involved in discussing the main conflict. The stakes got higher around the halfway mark, not only the patients but also the leads. I feel a bit annoyed with a plot twist later on, but the resolutions are so emotional. I give it a pass because they successfully made me cried. Last thing, it has a very good OST collection!

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Only Ji Sung can make me watch and enjoy16+ hours of serious surgeries and doctor-politics LOL

Only Ji Sung can make me watch and enjoy16+ hours of serious surgeries, doctor-politics, heartbreaking discussions on euthanasia and actual blood, sweat, and tears.
He is as always PHENOMENAL in his role, and truly disappeared in his portrayal of the enigmatic Cha Yo Han. He was stellar, and so was the show.
I liked his relationship with the lead actress and enjoyed their interactions, he was adorable with her, and they had a fitting end together.
I LOVED the other doctors, the sister of the female lead with Lee was SO CUTE, and the other two male doctors with their adorable bromance.
The rest of the cast was great too.
The story has a lot of thoughtful moments, discussing what it means to be truly alive and what can blur the line between living/surviving so easily. It was enjoyable from beginning to the end, and for some reason didn't even feel like I had seen 16+ hours of this show, it kinda felt like a movie almost.
Highly recommended as a great medical drama.

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After watching dramas for nearly a year now, I finnaly got myself onto a medical drama and it did not dissapoint. As a person who is into science this show was very interesting.

When watching the show i really felt connected to the leads becasue they didn't make them over the top to where thier lives are unbelievable. With Cha Yo Han, who was a person living with CIPA it made me realise that there are unfortanate people in the world at at the age of 18 i am very lucky to have what i have which is mild asthma. It almost makes me appreciate life a lot more because there are people who are more unfortunate than me but they are fighting thier hardest.

I really enjoyed watching Kang Shi Young's character develop I reallyt think that Lee Se Young did a really good job player that character. I loved teh chemisty between the two leads as i realised that a romance drama doesn't need to have the usual loads of kissing and things like that. This taught me that love between two people is about understanding one another and respecting eachother.

I really loved the Prosecuter's character because he was dealing with his own personal problems but was also dealing with corrupt medical practises. I like how the relationship between Cha Yo Han and the Prosocuter turns from kinda enemies to a friends and when i saw them in a last episode I wished it happened earlier so we could see thier bromance.

Overall for my first every medical drama I loved what i saw and would reccomend this to anyone looking for something new that isnt the whole mushy love that a lot of dramas do and it shows a sense of reality.

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