This drama surpassed my expectations on many levels, most importantly it did not fall into the cliche most kdramas tend to be trapped in when it comes to a story about chaebols and their family. At first my initial expectations were extremely low, i am a skeptic and a story with a summary like "...third-generation billionaire, suffers memory lapses and his personality then scattered into seven different identities. ...a first-year psychiatric resident, to try to helps him secretly, but she eventually falls in love with one of his personalities" sounds like a recipe for disaster. However this summary does not do this drama justice, there is much more to this story than rich mentally disordered person falling in love with his doctor. It's about the twisted dynamics of a broken family that is so shrouded in mystery that everyone who knows about the past swears to keep it a secret, and the price of this secret is eventually revealed to us through the eyes of the main character Cha Do Hyun.
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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