Yong Pal

This Korean drama is centred on Kim Tae-hyun, a skilled surgeon at a Seoul hospital who owes money to loan sharks after borrowing to pay for his sister's ongoing medical treatment. To help pay off these debts he makes 'house calls' to help criminals injured during their illegal activities... when on these jobs he is known as 'Yong Pal' and Yong Pal is wanted by the police. This is the least of his problems though; at work he is promoted to the Twelfth Floor, where VIPs are treated. Here he learns that the chairman's sister, Han Yeo Jin the rightful chairwoman of the company, is being held in an induced coma; worse still it appears that she is about to be killed. He determines to free her.

I thought this was a really impressive series. It provides plenty of drama with numerous exciting scenes, a romance and quite a few comic moments... something for everybody. As the story develops there are some good twists and turns; some of which are genuinely surprising. Those who don't like medical scenes will finds themselves watching several scenes through their fingers as there are many gory surgical scenes. The characters are fun to watch, even the bad guys who veer into pantomime villain territory with their amusing forced laughter and wicked glances. The secondary characters are also good; most obviously the hospital nurses. The cast is solid; most obviously Joo Won and Kim Tae-hee as Kim Tae-hyun and Han Yeo Jin respectively. Overall a really solid series that I'd certainly recommend to fans of K-drama.

These comments are based on watching the series in Korean with English subtitles.

A surgeon has an illegal sideline of operating on criminals away from hospitals and the police, he is not a bad man but does this to pay for his sisters treatment whilst she waits for a kidney transplant. Corrupt managers at the hospital find out his sideline and use his talents to cover up the wrongdoings of their rich clientele. Whilst working for them he discovers a shocking secret about a comatose rich heiress being isolated on the top executive floor of the hospital. It is a series with an interesting plot and is well acted particularly by the female cast but sadly would have benefitted from fewer episodes. Worth a watch though I felt the plot moved either too slow or too quick, but could have been much better with more action and romance and less needless twists and turns.

A love story about a talented pauper & a rich powerful sleeping beauty.

A typical kdrama with all sorts of betrayal thrown in this romantic medical drama.

There is not much scenes that involves the 2 leading characters together but when they are together, you can feel their love, so beautiful. It's a drama that's full of the rich & powerful abuse the leading actor who has to moonlight in addition to keeping his resident at the hospital. Everyone uses him to get what they want through blackmailing & exchanging favours. Money & Power do buy people especially talented one!

All he wanted is to earn enough money to get help for his sister but he never gets a break. Everybody wants something from him. After so many episodes, he finds a small amount of happiness & respect from the gangsters boss.

Wish the ending could be a little longer & a little more romance nevertheless, surprisingly good.

There are lots of good kdramas, but only perhaps a dozen or so which really stand out as better than the rest. While this one doesn't get that much credit in many lists of top kdramas, I think it is in that top dozen. It's got plenty of intrigue and suspense, lots of medical operating room gore, money driven power plays, and a very nice romantic story anchored by the beautiful Kim Tae Hee. This is a drama well worth watching.

This series could have been on par with Mr. Stranger series but they wasted so much with how they managed the series. Let me start by listing the things I believe did not help the series at all. When you watch the series, and you should, how scenes ended and how they moved from one scene to the other felt very disconnecting. They poorly used a great soundtrack and managed to ruin scenes due to unfathomable logic. In a kissing scene, for example, as the scene climaxes, they switch to a different song in a heart beat instead of using one song as it builds up to that moment. There is also a feeling that there is a soundtrack but it isn't there because they failed to correctly showcase it in scenes that affect the story line. Unfortunately, the lead actor Joo Won failed to connect with me at a deeper level. To portray a feeling of being devastated, how much you tear up can decide the intensity of the scene and when compared with his queen Kim-Tae Hee, who perfectly conveys the correct degree, he fails miserably. I'm not blaming him for that, but I'm more disappointed in the team working behind this series who managed to ruin it. When I recollect the kissing scenes alone, the camera angles alone they chose purposely hide the kiss. A key display of affection that we all wait for leaves us dissatisfied. I was hoping that this series will provide something on par with Dr. Stranger when it came to surgeries but it failed as well. The ending left me wanting. There were a few things unresolved in my opinion.