It’s been such a long time since I watched this drama, but then I still end up thinking about it quite often so I thought why not clear my head and write a review about it.

Since medical dramas are one of my favorites, I’m always looking for the good ones that would keep my attention without me getting bored or drifting off to sleep (which happens quite often nowadays). Good Doctor is one of those few that actually kept me interested for 20 episodes not even once allowing me to get distracted and think about something completely else. I remember how I always planned to watch it, mainly because of Moon Chae Won, but then I always kept delaying it for whatever reason. But when I finally did watch it, I was so amazed by it, it was almost like I was cast under a spell or something.

I still think about Good Doctor as a miracle because it taught me so much – about love, acceptance, friendship and basically just humanity. How important it is to actually remain a human being(!) when it comes to meeting new people, accepting them, helping them, loving them with our without their flaws, issues, struggles, painful past, etc. How many hardships one must go through until they can finally reach their goal. How one’s life can be full of struggles and despair and how important it is to just reach out a helping hand when everyone else wants to turn their back on them. There wasn’t one episode when I didn’t feel touched or excited or happy or all of these at the same time. Man, I was so touched 99% of the time and I was almost always crying. There were so many beautiful and touching scenes that I still end up remembering them just completely out of the blue. The side character’s/children’s own life story, the 2nd lead’s own trauma from the past (props to Joo Sang Wook he portrayed his character well and I loved to hate him in the first half of the drama lol), Park Shi On’s entire journey – it would be too long to count all of them. If I would have to pick only one story/scene I would definitely pick the little girl that was raised among dogs because her own aunt ignored and neglected her existence – the way Shi On treated her and how she at last told him that she loved him was probably the most beautiful, touching and memorable scene I can think of and I’ve been watching kdramas for so long and I’ve seen so many great and amazing ones - but I can't remember one that would beat this.

Good Doctor simply just owns my heart. Because it really did leave an impact on me, and it became my 2nd most favorite kdrama ever. I’ve seen episodes of the American version but I didn’t like it. Of course, it has its own strength but I couldn’t fully immerse myself into the story, not even once, whereas the original version might be flawed here and there but it actually does have a heart and the acting is so great. The child actors were all so talented I was actually surprised how all of them slayed their performance. I loved secondary charactesrs/actors – most of the time I don’t really care about the side characters but here I was actually engaged in each and every one of these characer’s development and story, even the ones I disliked. Moon Chae Won is so so amazing no matter what she’s in, she never ceases to amaze me (plus she has such a warm and nice personality off camera too.)
And Joo Won – this was the first time I actually got to see him in a drama even though I heard of his name many times and after I finished watching this drama I hated myself for not looking him up much earlier. He was so --- I don’t know if I can come up with new adjectives. He’s such a versatile and talented actor. As I’ve spent most of my childhood among children with autism of various grade due to my father’s work, I was completely blown away by Joo Won’s talent and exact portrayal of Shi On. He did very very well and he captured the conflicting emotions and proper mannerism of this character. He actually showed a very nice portrayal of autism with so much respect and care that made me love and respect him even more.

Sure, as said, this drama has flaws, but Good Doctor is that kind of drama that offers so much that I couldn’t care less about those flaws. Again, I loved the character development, the unique story line, the writing, the medical aspect of it (it was AWESOME, really) and I didn’t mind the love line between Shi On and Yoon Seo either, I think it was written and executed well and was timed well.

And overall, I’m just very thankful that I watched Good Doctor, because if I would have to pick one drama that left the most impact on me emotionally, Good Doctor would probably be IT.

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This drama stirred me up and left me with such an overwhelming and strange feeling - I’m not quite sure I’ve ever felt this way about a kdrama before which just makes it even more difficult to let go of the story and the characters.

I never would have thought that I was going to enjoy Bridal Mask this much since I’m not a big fan of action dramas (or even historical dramas, with a few exceptions) but Bridal Mask turned out to be a very nice surprise. It kept me entertained and excited all throughout these 28 episodes without ever feeling bored or tired of it. Most of the time I even forgot to breath that’s how deeply immersed I was in the story. The writing is great, the timing of the events and plot twists are very well calculated (although, tbh the identity of the original Gaksital was quite obvious even in the first episode lol) and the OST is one of the bests I’ve ever heard. I, the one who mainly gets bored when it comes to action scenes, was always eagerly looking forward to them since they were so awesome and well structured. Plus I got to learn some more about the history of SK at that time.

And yet, the characters (each and every one of them with their own background and side stories) and the character development itself got me the most. No one has remained the same, everyone went through great changes (positive or negative) from the beginning to the end. I loved how the bromance changed and faded away, until Kang To and Shunji became enemies. I loved Kang To’s relationship with his brother, I just wish there were more scenes with them since they had a great dynamic and were so interesting together both in the past and in the present. And even though there wasn’t that much focus on the romance aspect, I still enjoyed those rare fluffy moments between Kang To and Mok Dan. But mostly I just loved Gaksital, his story, his personality, his feelings, his hardships.
The cast just made it all so interesting and entertaining - and not just the main cast but the supporting characters, the villains, everyone did. There wasn’t one person I felt neutral about.

Shin Hyun Joon was great at the beginning, again, I just felt sorry that I couldn’t see more of him/his character. I’ve seen Park Ki Woong in Secretly Greatly before but I still wasn’t very familiar with him. Props to him for being a cool antagonist and a very convincing one at that. He portrayed Shunji’s feelings nicely, the process he went through from being a seemingly innocent teacher everyone liked to the monster he slowly became.

Han Chae Ah was honestly better than Jin Se Yeon - the latter had moments when her acting was pretty good but otherwise she didn’t quite live up to the rest of the cast. She’s not that bad imo as people make her out to be, but Han Chae Ah’s acting was definitely more interesting to watch.

And finally, Joo Won. A million words wouldn’t be enough to describe how I feel about him. He’s one of the best and most versatile actors I’ve ever seen. Good Doctor was my first drama with him as the lead, so I already knew that he was going to be great, but man, his acting was MIND BLOWING. Everything about him is outstanding - how he uses his voice, his expressions, the way he can convey literally ANY EMOTION, how he acts even with his eyes, how utterly charismatic he is, how much chemistry he has with everyone he does a scene with. He completely pulled of the anti hero - he’s equally great at being the villain and the protagonist as well. And he would have totally deserved that Top Excellence Award for what he did in Bridal Mask through those 28 episodes. Although I enjoyed everyone’s acting Joo Won really killed it as Gaksital/Kang To. Heck I would give 100/100 for only his acting if it was possible.
Honestly there’s really nothing about this drama that I disliked. It was intense, action packed, emotional and jaw dropping all at thr same time. And that last scene... that was honestly one of the best endings ever. I had chills and have been feeling overwhelmed by it ever since I finished the entire drama.

It’ll take me awhile to get over Bridal Mask but a part of me already wants to re-watch it. I most certainly will. It is now one of my favorites and honestly one of the best dramas I’ve ever seen for sure.

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Despite having read mostly bad reviews, I was actually looking forward to watch the Grand Prince (mostly because of YSY) and hoped that I might still like it. Unfortunately, it really did turn out to be relatively average. It had its potential but never fully lived up to it – the love triangle, the twists and turns were executed so meekly that I caught myself drifting off to sleep or getting distracted more times than I’d like to admit. Then again, there were a few moments when there would be an interesting scene and I’d feel hopeful again, but this feeling never really lasted long enough.
The “2 brothers love the same girl” storyline with a bunch of intrigues has been used countless times, yet had the writing been better it could have been an interesting and much more entertaining drama. 20 episodes were simply just too long for how slow paced the actual plot was, so that the ending turned out to be kind of anticlimactic as well. It started off as intense (especially after that cool intro which I loved) but then my excitement soon faded away after the first half of the first episode as the plot slowed down.

The characters were all very one-dimensional with one single motive and without any actual depth or significant character development. This was probably the greatest weakness of the Grand Prince – it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either. The characters weren’t interesting enough to make me feel involved since I couldn’t care less about their hardships either (mostly because half of the drama was useless and forced to fill the time). The same goes for the supporting characters – none of them caught my attention enough to make me actually engaged. The acting was okay – probably because of how meek the characters were the three main actors didn’t have that much to work with. The chemistry between Yoon Shi Yoon and Jin Se Yeon was nice though and they looked cute together. The OST was the only thing that I really loved, it had some great pieces especially the instrumental versions.

Overall, the Grand Prince didn’t quite meet my expectations. It could have been really great despite its overused plot, but sadly it remained just one of those dramas that were good to watch once but wouldn’t really become memorable.

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