Doutor Estrangeiro (2014)

The only way I can even begin to describe this drama is as a 'wasted opportunity.' Now, it wasn't 'bad' by any means, but that also doesn't mean that it was the greatest.
Doctor Stranger had a very intriguing beginning that captured the viewers attention just by the mere mention of North Korea. With such a strong beginning it is almost impossible to think that this drama could even go downhill; however, this a completely wrong assumption to make. At the start, the focus on Park Hoon and the moral dilemma of being a doctor made for a completely emotional story line. Unfortunately, the show was not able to keep up this interest as it feel into a decline. The romance was dragged out between the main character and his love interest with too much push and pull that made it quite difficult to end up rooting for them (especially since their romance as childhood sweethearts was too adorable to handle). If you are looking for the romantic doctor content, then you most likely won't find it here. The biggest issue with the story line is that it just wasn't planned out as well as it could have been.

Acting wise? Not many complaints. Lee Jong Suk provides amazing depth to the lead character and acts with the same charm that we all know and love. Park Hae Jin's double sided character is portrayed as well as it can be within this drama, no complaints. As for the two female leads, it is hard to say whether they were good as their characters were just terribly written. Many scenes with the female actresses were just missing the character development that they both deserved which in turn just made them bland and uninteresting to watch. I think it is safe to say that Yoon Bora's Chang Yi saved the day in terms of female characters with her lovable and charming personality.

Can't say much about the music as it did not seem to have as much of an impact as it should have.

Would I rewatch it? Probably not. Would I recommend it to someone? Possibly yes, depending on if they are a fan of any of the actors/actresses.

Overall opinion: I am not going to say that it is the worst (even if it was, I can't leave a drama unfinished). But there are definitely places for improvement, which is disappointing because the show had so much potential if it had been executed properly. My positive opinions about the show come from a bit of a biased opinion based on the pure fact that I am a fan of Lee Jong Suk and Park Hae Jin. If you want a romantic drama, this isn't the one to look for. If you want a medical drama, there are a few better ones out there. If you want good looking male leads who provide depth to a character, then knock yourself out with this.

Leia Mais

Rating Justification:
Story: 9/10 - I really enjoyed this drama's story. I must admit that I did prefer the first half of the story and I do think the concept of Jong Suk and Se Yeon did tire me towards the end. The North Korea element really boosted the story for me and definitely kept me up at night! I am sure I will never forget the first 4 episodes of this drama. They have sticked with me until now, and I think it drove this story to the 9 it is now. 
Acting: 9.5/10 - I LOVED this cast. When I say the cast, I am being a little biased considering 2 of my favourite actors are the main characters of this drama (Lee Jong Suk and Park Hae Jin). However Kang So Ra was also a great protagonist, and our dear Chun Ho Jin was ever the great villain!
Music: 8.5/10 - Okay, this soundtrack was indeed great and I remember actively singing along with it while I watched this drama, but the sole reason for this 8.5 is the fact that for the life of me I could not remember any of the songs as I started writing this review. After a quick look at my k-drama soundtracks playlist I indeed found some of the songs among my favourites. 
Rewatch Value: 8/10 - This criteria is a bit hard to judge for me, seeing as I am a person that doesn't enjoy rewatching things that much, so I have decided to judge this based on how much I predict I would enjoy it in case I did rewatch this drama. I have based this 8 on the sole reason that I think if I had to watch Se Yeon's character for 20 more hours I might get slightly put off this drama for real. 
Overall: 9/10 - I think this drama is another Korean Drama classic. Besides the action packed story and great actors, it explores much more than the mere relationships between doctors or patients. It pushes the boundaries of what we think medicine is and makes us question corruption inside the government. It will forever be a drama that I remember dearly, even if some aspects of it lacked a little (Lee Jong Suk and Jin Se Yeon's relationship). I do apologise for the excessive talk on the Jin Se Yeon character, but it is honestly the only flaw I can point out in this drama.

Leia Mais

The beginning is one of the best!!!

I rewatch it a month ago...
I enjoyed it more because i knew what was coming.
The story is interesting, the separated lovers and the endlessly effort to reunite. I didn't like the plolitics, wish it has more "hospital" time, more interesting ways of showing the awesome skills of Park Hoon.

A little long to me, could be cut to 10 or 12 episodes.

I think the end is ok, a little rushed for me.
I don't understand Park Hoon decision of living in a remote place and a remote hospital Is he going to waste his ans Hang Seung Hee skills?

I was completely addicted in the first 8 to 10 episodes! But after that, they did dragged a little: don't understand the 16 episodes formula. Few dramas deserve so many episodes and most of them tend to drag the story.

Overall, this could be a master piece but it fail to deliver...

But, if you like beautiful and true love, a plot with lots of twists and mistery, great moments of suspense, excitement, specially in the O.R., them please watch it!

Leia Mais

"Doctor Stranger" a.k.a "The missen opportunity".

Doctor stranger was a drama i went into and started watching with pretty high expectations. Right from the beginning of the drama, i was really into it, i thought it was really interesting and i honestly thought "this must be the best drama i've ever watched". But as the series goes on, it just goes downhill.

Now, i don't think doctor stranger is a bad series, i really don't. I think the idea they had for this drama, is really cool/interesting. The whole thing about communism and North-korea, it's just a really interesting concept, and it was too...for the first 5-6 episodes, after that the series sort of falls flat and becomes really repetitious. There was a lot of surgery scenes and a lot of scenes where Park Hoon was trying to convince his ex-girlfriend that she was his ex-girlfriend, I also found myself disliking her more and more as the series goes on, and by the middle of the drama, i was hoping that he'd just forget her and date "quack" instead. Some people say they think it gets better towards the end, i honestly don't think so. I absolutely loved the OST to this drama though. Bobby Kim-Stranger, I think that song especially, fits really well with the drama. So my overall thought are that Doctor stranger is that K-drama that could've been amazing. If they had just put in a bit more effort with the scriptwriting, it would've been great. But i will say the acting was great (Lee Jong Suk did great and i loved his character), the storyline (the idea of the drama) was great and the music was great.

I hope that someone will come out with a drama that has the same concept as Doctor Stranger, just better.

Leia Mais

I started watching this drama because because of Jong-suk so I had a really good expectation. And I was both thrilled and disappointed. Thrilled because the first few episodes were really good I wanted to watch more but also disappointed because at some point, the story just went downhill. Also, I had hoped for Hoon and Sora`s romance but come on now. When I was watching episode 16, I was already looking forward to the day this drama would end because it was such a pain to watch the rest. If there is something that`s worth redeeming is the characters. They really delivered.

Leia Mais

Growing up not really been shown love (from parents), it's strange he grew up to be so loving, sweet and dedicated.
The story was really fun to watch. specially the parts where he was annoying Dr. Oh. who later on fell in love with him.
his strange & very loving personality make everyone around him understand that he's the true meaning of being a doctor. his sense of fashion was eccentric compared to other doctors..he, being a genius yet childish.
Im just disappointed he didn't end up with Dr. Oh. their chemistry was good. I don't know if its just me who felt like they had a mutual feeling.
I didn't like his partner the acting was very flat. I like Dr. Oh more, aside from being prettier.
Overall the story was never boring, fun, and very exciting to watch,

Leia Mais

Prolonged

This show is what you would call "prolonged"
In the beginning, when I found out that the story contained both political and medical concepts, I thought it would be so interesting and thought that the time that was given for it might have been too short but little did I know
For starters, this is one of the first shows that I have ever watched that had a weak male lead and I thought it would be a bit unique cause it was the normal strong clique male leads but then the female lead came in to cause confusion.
The confusion the female lead caused was fine but I thought it was a little too much as I began going back to be sure of what I am watching.
despite all these, the writers then decided to delay the storyline or prolong the ending.
the show had a really good story but somethings that were not supposed to be dragged were dragged while somethings that were supposed to be dragged were not dragged but were rather rushed.
concerning the leads, the male lead was so fantastic. He was down to earth humble not to mention when he smirks. such a charmer.
for the female lead, I thought she was a two-timer as she really confused me and it really pissed me off.
but for the first time, I wished the male lead ended up with second female lead. I just thought it would have made much more sense.
i feel if anyone ever dropped this show, it would be because they got tired of waiting and not because the storyline was not good.

Leia Mais

Well... I don't even know where to start...
First of all I am pretty late with this review given the fact when this drama got released whoops, but I don't really care since I need to get this off my chest. Anyone who is interested can read it.
This KDrama was my first medical drama hooray and a very good one I have to say! The medical stuff definitely won't disappoint you in this drama! It was good, everything was so well explained and I had hope with every surgery, feared about the patient's life and of course was sad when something unexpected happened. SO if you love medical dramas this is a must and if you haven't watched any other medical drama before -just like me - it's actually also a must watch because wow. (side note: there was way more blood then I thought there would be though)
The main story was amazing. Just wow. My favorite episodes: 1&2! I kept watching this drama and always had to think about the first episodes. That's when the story started that's when you thought: Wow, how can they even make this end well? I can't state if they did end it well even though I've just watched the last episode I'm really unsure what to think about it. I read many reviews saying this drama had a good start but failed in the middle and I have to say I agree. The first episodes were just wow. And as the story continues I was curious all the time because holy shit there were so many plot twists. That's what made this drama extremely good but sadly... some of those went to the wrong direction and the last episode for example was nothing like the first. It's a sad turn indeed but in my opinion not reason enough not to watch this drama.
As the storyline continues we get to know the characters better or not better? With every decision that was made by the characters I began questioning if I judged them right in the first place. And also, I don't know if I'm just pretty stupid but sometimes it was hard to tell who were the 'good' guys because like I said the characters actions always ended up differently and they had such a depth which was amazing. I'm only talking about the 4 main actors now but actually every single character lived through such a development it's amazing. Just for the character depth I am going to say: watch this drama.
Actually I feel like I am praising this drama WAY too much but here's the point: The cast did such a freaking good job. No wonder there was such a depth. I'm amazed cause sometimes I just couldn't understand why any person would act the way they did and it made me furious but happy at the same time. How was it even possible to act such deep characters? I don't know, but it happened.
Next point, the OSTs. Well damn the situations were already critical enough no need for background music but obviously it did a very good job with making me even more nervous or even more sad which I thought wasn't possible anymore.
Now my negative points: even though the start was very good and the plot twists were exciting too... it got unrealistic towards the end. Very unrealistic. This made me so sad because I enjoyed how it started but the end was nothing like the start.
And let me say something to the romance freaks as well: first of all I AM ONE myself that's why I think I can kinda judge this aspect. It was... twisting. Honestly you would know the main pairings in the beginning... or not? Maybe he isn't going to end up with his first love? No way, of course he will, that's what all kdramas do... wait he really isn't going to end up with her but with the other girl, isn't he? Those were my questions through the whole show and to be very honest until the last episode I had hope for my pairing but sadly I kind of was the second female lead. I obviously won't tell you with whom I hoped 'Doctor Stranger' will end up but it was really interesting to watch how the tables were turned over and over again.

All in all: I'd really recommend this drama IF you love medical and romance but be aware this won't end up as you wish. I think I can speak for pretty many people that the ending was just disappointing. But all other aspects were reason enough to keep going and my biggest motivation to watch this drama was 1. the patients and 2. I wanted to know who the main pairings were because damn I lost some hair because of the romance in the drama. The story started so good and alone the start is reason enough to watch this drama. That's just my opinion though.

Leia Mais

This is the first kdrama I've watched after 10 years. LOL!!??? So why this above all the dramas? Well, since I didn't know which is which, I started depending on facebook posts, you see, some people post short clip (usually the best clips) of a certain drama, so I have seen a clip of this drama, and I got hooked to watch it.

If I had watch this without watching their best (or one of their bests), I might have dropped watching it after the 1st episode. The first episode was a bit dragging. But things turned out well after it.

I really love their scene where Lee Jong Suk saved the father of the girl. The scene is very dramatic, and it was acted out really great. Lee Jong Suk is very appealing and gorgeous. I liked his hairstyle, it suited him more. His role as a doctor looked natural to him. Also, he is so charming and breath-taking whenever he got close to Kang So Ra (Dr. Oh).

Medical cases are very insightful. I loved all the cases they had, and I was really amused on how they handled it.

The plot is very great. Though looked dragging at first, it is really worth watching. I love how things ended for everyone, though I had wished Lee Jong Suk would end up with Dr. OH??. I really liked Dr. Oh. She's very beautiful, and I liked her acting.

Hope to see more of Lee Jong Suk's drama. I've watched almost all of them, and they were all great.

Leia Mais