Yong Pal (2015)

Interesting start.....Boring end

The cover of this drama really caught my eye. I have dropped this drama twice before at episode 1. After years I came back.....I'm glad I gave it a third chance. The first episodes were very good, especially the story and the action of ML character. That's also what keeps me from watching all to the end. The second couple also had a good love story, but it's sad that the love story ended so fast for them. How much I wish that there was a separated drama for their love story.

Acting: I started this drama because of Joo Won. I really liked his acting in Good Doctor, so I had high expectation. He did a great job here too. I like when he acts a 'special/mystery' person, his character Yong Pal. He acted cool and makes me want more of his action drama's or as an action doctor.
Kim Tae Hee' s acting felt disappointing for me. I mean she can act, but I guess this character didn't suit her and I didn't see a lot of expression from her as someone that wants to make her enemies payback for there crimes. I have seen her acting in many dramas before. She is very good at princess type of characters or sweet romance characters. Here I find her acting too bland as the FL character. Everytime I watch her part, I can think of a lot of beautiful South Korean actress play this character more suitable than her.
The supporting casts did a good job. I really like Chae Jung An and Jo Hyun Jae as an Onscreen Couple and their love story in this drama. More than the lead couple.

Music was good especially the song A Nightmare by Yong Joon Hyung and Heo Ga Yoon.

Rewatch: I really like the beginning of the story and the story of the second couple in this drama. So I will rewatch selectively.

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Yong Pal definitely had potential and I was very excited about it after finding out what it was about. It seemed like something different so I decided to watch.

While the story was good, it didn't have enough time to develop. I felt like everything was rushed and that they didn't wrap it up very well. The biggest problem was that the female lead had major character issues and she wasn't ready to be in any romance until she solved them. Her relationship with the lead mainly consisted of her using him and then throwing him out when he became useless. I understand that that was how she was raised and that in a way she was just doing what was natural to her, but in the end, the issuse were never solved and I felt like their relationship was very shallow. It made me sad that they ended it like that because with a little more time in the drama it could have improved drastically. In short, I feel like the romance aspect was a total disaster.

While I didn't like some of the characters, I was very impressed with the acting and it was amazing to watch these talented actors bring the story to life. I have seen some other dramas with Joo Won but I was suprised at how well I liked him for this role.

Even though I feel like this wasn't a great drama, it never got boring or slowed down and I kind of liked that. It was really exciting to watch and it was entertaining so if you are looking for something interesting and fast paced to fill your time then I would say, "Go for it!" but if you are looking for a really well done drama with an amazing romance, then this may not be for you... I really enjoyed watching this drama but I will not be watching it again.

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Modern day "Sleeping Beauty"

A very unique storyline that failed in convincing me of the romance. The revenge aspects were certainly persuasive and I appreciated that the writer tried to keep some consistent themes throughout the drama i.e., revenge is a cycle, circumstances are what drives a person's actions, etc.

Yong Pal was a character that could do no wrong. He was so perfect that it was hard to endear myself to him. Similarly, all the other characters were so unlikable that I didn't really like any of them either (other than some fantastically written supporting characters) and therefore was not invested in the ending. At the end I really didn't care whether or not there was a happy ending.

Same writer as The K2 and if you've watched The K2 you'll see very similar vibes especially in the beginning of the drama. This makes me think the writer is very good at laying out unique storylines and a fast moving plot but cannot write in any romantic development. Cute romantic moments between the leads were hard to watch because it was so unconvincing to me.

I still gave the story a somewhat high rating because of its uniqueness. Kim Tae Hee's character is interesting as a female chaebol and I only wish to see more of that in today's dramas.

Overall, don't watch this for the medical stuff or romance but watch it for an engaging plot where a perfect man rescues a perfect (on paper anyway: looks beauty brains) woman and have a fairytale perfect romance. No fights between this couple! Their challenges lay in ideological differences and external circumstances. Not realistic but that's what we watch kdramas for!

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a surprisingly good time

I think the current overall rating on MDL of 7.8 really isn't fair, but to each their own I suppose. In my opinion this drama was a good time and honestly surprised me by how much fun I was having with it.
I thought the pacing was well done and it kept up the momentum throughout almost the whole drama. I do think the first half was more exciting and fun, but I did enjoy the second half too.
I liked the role reversal of Taehyun being the sort of helpless one and being the one insisting on forgiveness while Yeojin was the one who wanted revenge. I also liked that all of Taehyun's acts of kindness came back to save them in the end.
I think that while this drama was really fun and enjoyable, there's also a drama that is ACTUALLY about a gang doctor in here. I think that would've been an excellent drama, and it's too bad that we didn't and won't be getting something like that.

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Rushed ending

Short: Really nice pace, really good characters, has some clear evolutions in the story making it feel like it's moving at a decent pace throughout... and then just stops. Totally feels to me like this 18 episode story was meant to be 20 and they cut it, so while it has an ending, it just isn't satisfying at all.

Detail:
I was hooked on this one throughout, Kim Tae Hee and Joo Won are both excellent and they are surrounded by a great cast as well. The story has an interesting premise and moves along at a nice pace throughout so it was always interesting but i'm left at the end of it just feeling like the story ran off a cliff and suddenly stopped as soon as they could possibly do it - it's like the final seconds close out the loop, the [final thing] happens and boom - credits.

I always prefer a nice run-out to my stories, let's see them live their best lives now that they've worked hard to get there.

I don't really have anything else to be sore about on this drama, if it had a decently closed off ending this would have been at least a 9 if not a 10 for me but I hated that rushed ending.

To be clear, it DOES have an ending, it DOES have closure, it's just supremely rushed which undid the great work and pacing prior.

So i'm conflicted about recommending it as a watch - on the one hand, it's great fun and I really enjoyed watching all the characters, but on the other - if you're like me and you like the long run-out endings be prepared to be checking your netflix player to double check you didn't just run out of internet or something :)

I did note with some amusement that near the start, she transfers 2 million USD to him that needs a password to release that he'll get once he gets her out of the hospital... and at no point at all during this did she ever actually do that - it's like that whole thing was just forgotten about because it was inconvenient, instead he ended up relying on another source to help his sister (because that was more story-angst-ridden :) ).

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The drama started out strong; it was suspenseful, exciting, and made you root for Tae-hyun and Yeo-jin, the two lead characters. However, as the drama went on, the show became less medical drama and more of a drama about corporate antics/manipulation and companies trying to out-manoeveur each other. To be very frank, I started to become pretty bored of the show at the halfway point and I had to drag myself through to the very end. To make things worse, the Tae-hyun character seemed to be become quite useless and toothless, compared to his gung-ho stunts and cockiness (in a good way) at the start of the show.

The love story was really not very convincing, but OK, I rolled with it anyway.

The ending felt like the writers had run out of ideas and just decided to write a WTF-worthy ending for us.

On the technical and behind-the-scenes aspects of the show, the first episode featured a few really bad editing screw-ups, including terrible, terrible CGI. Joo Won also looked extremely exhausted by the end of the drama. Very obvious that the live-shoot system caught up with the show by the end of it.

A plus point is that this show features strong female characters, who aren't simply helpless damsels-in-distress crying out for the male characters to rescue them.

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So , how to describe this in a few words so it won't take to much time to read or to write , predictable and rushed , I guess these are my words for it .
If this drama was stupid from the begining I would've gone with this mindset , but it started well , a doc who saves gang members for money at night and when the day stars anew he is a very good surgeon that makes other people go rainbow colors with envy , throw there some romance and intrigue and there you have it , a really nice easy going show , but no , they had to make into a stupid revenge story that really doesn't show us anything new , people die , people get hurt and that ' people die when they are killed ' ( Emiya Shiro , Fate Stay Night , great guy , but not  one with words )  or as in this ' masterpiece '  they really like to kill themselves , like that stupid ass of a brother of hers .
With this things said , we are not done with the bad parts yet , the negative side of the characters , the bad guys were such a mess , no character , no deph , no nothing , absolute zero , honestly speaking after watching Remember , War of the Son , Nam Gyu Man ( evil dude ) was the best at his role , but he was not the only one , all of them were good , it made you think that this is what they do everyday and they were getting paid for it to appear in the show , if you compare them to this side , well really , there isn't that much to compare .
Ok , the last bad part , the rushed ending , if it couldn't get any worse than this , well it did in the end . The last two eps were catastrophically  bad , all of a sudden Yeo Jin trusts everyone , including doctors , her damn snake of a secretary even her sister in law , that if you read up until now , she , Yeo Jin , killed her husband AKA ' big bro ' , really ?? From the queen of aligators ( self proclaimed ) to that embarrassing state of hers .
As an optional , that guy from the states , american version of Yong Pal , what the heck did he do ? Nothing , he ordered for some scissors and that was all , a great doc indeed , and all the drama for what ? They done the operation rather easy , pff ...
The only good part of this drama was the begining and the main lead , he kept it from going really under , even so he was a shadow of what I saw in Good Doctor .

PS : Why did I compare this to Remember ? Because it had some similar plot ideas and that it was the last one I watched .

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Vale a pena insistir

Eu lembro que tentei assistir este drama na epoca que foi lançado, porém por alguma razão, que não foi exatamente falta de ânimo, acabei dropando ele. Eis que me surge a ideia de rever e finalmente terminar, e ainda bem pq não me arrependo.
É verdade que existem algumas coisas que nos frustram, mas é possível compreender essas coisas se tivermos um pouco de neutralidade e nos colocarmos no lugar das personagens. Este drama, pra começar, não tem uma típica mocinha super alegre, otimista, etc. Temos uma mocinha que é forte e fofa ao mesmo tempo, é bonita e poderosa, é consciênte do seu poder e não tem receio de usar isso, ela faz bem um tipo badass que, se fosse um protagonista masculino, certeza que muitos caíriam de amores, mas como é uma mulher, fica parecendo que ela está sendo exagerada, mal agradecida ou o que for. Na minha concepção, porém, ela não é nada disso, e eu consigo entender o porquê de cada escolha que ela fez. Eu no lugar dela tb guardaria muito rancor contra quem me fez tanto mal, e teria uma grande chance de eu querer me vingar tb.
O mocinho é interpretado pelo Joo Won, e isso define minha razão principal pra assistir o drama, pois amo o trabalho desse ator, ele realmente faz muito bem seus papéis, sou uma fã tem tempo. Nesse papel ele começa o típico mocinho dúbio que não é tão apegado a uma boa moral, e ele é disposto a fazer qualquer coisa pra salvar a irmã doente, e isso inclui ser omisso/cúmplice com crimes que ocorrem tanto fora quanto dentro do hospital. Mas, como já é de se esperar, ele logo nos mostra um coração lindo e sorrisos que nos fazem suspirar. Eu realmente amei a personagem dele, assim como o fato de que ele se manteve um médico do começo ao fim, fazendo cirurgias a cada oportunidade e nos lembrando o quão talentoso ele é.
As atuações são ótimas, principalmente do Joo Won e da mocinha, que é oq mais importa né kkkk. A enfermeira chefe é uma atriz de meia idade que eu amo todo trabalho que ela faz (lembram da hacker que ajudava o Healer?) e como essa mulher já trabalhou meu deus, o currículo dela tá imenso kkkkk. A trilha sonora é algo q não costumo resenhar mto, mas achei linda, as vezes tenho a impressão q as ost dos dramas mais antigos eram melhores, mais emotivas talvez, mas pode ser apenas uma impressão minha kkkkk.
O casal é lindo, fofo, cheio de química, e a gente torce muito por eles. Não é um casal comum de dramas, sabe, até mesmo pq nem se trata de um romcom, oq eu acho ótimo pq estou enjoada de comédia romântica. Aqui a mocinha é rica, badass, mas também fofa, e o mocinho é gentil, trabalhador, muito inteligente e atencioso. Eles são um casal inusitado q começa na amizade e naturalmente entram num relacionamento, é bem gostoso de acompanhar o desenvolvimento deles.
Algumas personagens secundárias são muito peças chaves tanto para o bem quanto para o mal (e às vezes para ambos). A esposa do vilão (irmão da mocinha) levará minha maior crítica de personagem fraca e incoerente. Eu gostava dela no começo e via um potencial de personagem feminina forte e empoderada, mas com o tempo ela foi dando meia volta nisso e se tornando odiosa.
O vilão e irmão da nossa bela adormecida é sem comentários. Um lunático por poder e dinheiro, disposto a trair tudo e todos, a matar quem quer que seja, enfim, mta sujeira. No entanto, quando mostram um pouco sobre a infância dele com a irmã, eu até que lamento por tudo e por quem ele acabou se tornando. A relação dele com a irmã podia ser das mais lindas, mas não foi.
O vilão não é apenas um, existe uma corja de outros políticos e poderosos que dão nojo do começo ao fim. É aquele bando de falso um com os outros, que na frente bajulam quem tem poder e nas costas falam mal e ficam planejando golpes que vão dos mais simples até os mais criminosos e asquerosos, como oq acontece na reta final.
Por outro lado, há personagens de apoio aos mocinhos que compensam bem, eles são maravilhosos. Como o gangster velhote que o Yong Pal ajuda, o segurança do Yong Pal q aparece acho que no meio do drama, as enfermeiras então, sem comentários pra elas. E temos também uma peça chave na trama, que é governanta da mansão, que tb tem mais destaque a partir da metade da trama.
A reta final é um tanto tensa e corrida, tem partes tristes e partes que não entendemos pq não aconteceram de modo diferente, mas é melhor nem pensar muito, pra não se frustrar, e seguir em frente até o final pra ter o merecido alívio de tudo kkkkk. Bom, com isso eu acabo dizendo que pelo menos não é final triste, porém achei corrido e confuso, sabe, parece que faltou um episódio pra fechar e eles tiveram que correr kkkkk. Mas ok, final fraco, mas não frustrante.
Enfim, como uma mensagem moral da história, acredito que o drama nos mostra fortemente que dinheiro e poder talvez não sejam coisas tão boas assim quanto imaginamos. Talvez ter dinheiro sim, mas o poder é perigoso pra quem a gente ama e pra nós mesmos. Muitas vezes me peguei pensando sobre a mocinha: "mulher, vende suas ações na empresa, pega a grana, aplica e vai ser feliz" kkkkkk. Mas é claro que não é tão simples, há questões como a confiança que o pai depositou nela, o contexto social e político no qual ela cresceu, tudo que foi sacrificado no caminho, enfim, não vou julgar. Porém, nessa eu tô mais com o Yong Pal, e prefiro uma vida mais simples e mais tranquila, tendo dinheiro suficiente pra viver bem e não passar vontade de viajar, comprar algo mais caro, etc. Tá ótimo. "Eu não preciso de tanto dinheiro, graças a Deus", acho que o drama nos faz pensar assim kkkkk. Muito recomendável.

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It's the fact that I really wanted to like this drama that made me the most disappointed. It got everything but a good storyline. To be fair, it would have been on the same level as other action dramas if it would've made me care. However, it was both predictable and swallow. I could skim through hours worth of scenes and still know exactly what happened in-between. The pilot was nothing spectacular to begin with but I expected the series to save itself, which it didn't. The supportive characters, wait, who were they? They didn't even get me thinking about them in the least, they were uninteresting and insignificant to me as a viewer. But here I am, not even caring about the main leads, so what did I expect? You can't make a drama out of a dragged plot and not even add a single character arc. It could've been a masterpiece if it would have given me something to care about, but instead I have been jumping through scenes since the very first episode.

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Yong Pal starts off well, but ends with a bad aftertaste.

I got into Yong Pal because years ago a friend told me it was good [if I'm into medical drama]. I didn't have time then, but after seeing Joo Won's performance in Good Doctor I decided to give it a try.

The base story of how Yong Pal is Yong Pal is really good. I really loved the action until the part about the Miss Young Ae rescue and it's just until there. I think the addition of the love story was too much for me to handle, a bit cringey. I just hope it just remained a medical series all throughout with the bits of power struggle. I think Joo Won carried so much in the drama for me to actually stay with it until the end; I kind of felt really bad with the ending when I finished it, like "Okay...?"

The acting of the cast was mostly handled by Joo Won. Augh. Poor dude. It's like Kim Tae Hee's face was trying so hard most of the time, but she still can't manage to convince me.

The music was really good. It's keeps your heart racing, especially with the action parts.

Lastly, there were too many filler flashbacks. I remember spending time skipping a lot of parts while watching because I know the parts already.

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