Drama Review: Healer (2014)

Korean Title: 힐러
English Title: Healer
Rating: 8.5/10
Main Cast:
Ji Chang Wook as Healer/Seo Jung Hoo/Park Bong Soo
Park Min Young as Chae Young Shin
Yoo Ji Tae as Kim Moon Ho

The Plot:
A star reporter, a rookie entertainment reporter and all-around errand boy get entangled because some past secret. Can they work together and unravel the secret while heal each other’s scars?

Review:
“Healer: a drama that keeps exceeding expectations”

Experience the whole thing when watching “Healer”, isn't that amazing? That's the question I want to answer myself. As Ji Chang Wook fan, as JCW Indonesia admin, as soompiers, and as casual drama watcher. In the grand scheme of things not many drama can be better than “Healer”. For KBS it’s probably their best drama in 2014.

My expectations for watching this is actually to watch good drama with Ji Chang Wook in it. The drama itself is far exceeded that, making Ji Chang Wook into proper primetime leading man, the popularity that exploded overseas, the great storytelling and great acting. All in all, the drama itself sets quite high bar for any drama to surpass all of the points above.

The first episode maybe shaky and somewhat incomprehensible due to numerous characters introduced at the same time. Yet, the story gets better and still finishes on high notes, of which many dramas have failed to do. Therefore watching this maybe similar as to watch football, the first time you watch it you'd want to throw up from having to remember 22 players on the pitch, with their coaches and the substitute players too. but once you grow familiar, it's impossible to not get addicted and your addiction will be rewarded by interesting football match, high-skilled players, goals and ultimately a win. That's what football akin to “Healer”, interesting story, with a pool of talented actors, the story that progresses fast and always delivers and ultimately everyone gets happy ending.

Everything seamlessly falls into larger piece like pieces of puzzle that eventually combined into one beautiful puzzle. That’s what “Healer” succeeds to do. Better yet, even though the topic is actually quite heavy for drama, journalism, conspiracy and politics cover-up, they present it in light-hearted manner. There’s always a sprinkle of humor, be it from bumbling, not so bright policemen, Chae Young Shin, Do(u)ble S leader, Someday News staffs or even ahjumma and “Healer”.

Speaking of OTP, “Healer” is like shippers’ dream come true, a lovable male and female lead who make awesome pairing onscreen. It’s defenitely a refresher than most drama couple. Want drama couple without betrayal? Check. A drama couple without stupid misunderstanding? Check. A drama without overly evil second female lead or overly nice second male lead? Check. A drama with loads of skinships? BIG CHECK. This drama has more than enough skinships to satisfy your appetite towards the couple. From the start, the OTP is set to be Young Shin and Jung Hoo, no ifs and buts.

The only complicated love relationship is actually between Jung Hoo-Young Shin-Jung Hoo’s alternate identity aka Park Bong Soo. The (fake) love triangle is so fun! Because Young Shin basically know 2 people/identities that basically from the same person. Other than that, I also applaud Writer Song Ji Na and PD that take the skinships on “Healer” on the whole another level. Handporn? Hug? Kiss? It’s nothing, compared to the first 15 minutes in episode 15. That’s basically 15 minutes full of fanservice and Ji Chang Wook looking this good in his morning look.

So how the couple fares on objective assessment? They’re easy on the eyes, look good together, plenty of skinships and the good news is, there’s not once noble idiocy act by either side. That’s new to kdrama!

Move on to pro and cons section, I get headache just to think about it. I mean, I can write many wonderful positive things about “Healer”, but it won’t be fun without some constructive criticisms. Meanwhile I can’t oppose this drama blindly without some valid reasons. On the positive side, first of all, “Healer” is coolest drama right now.. Like a must-watch drama! You won’t be cool unless you watch “Healer”. And because of what? Thousands of people (maybe more) have proved it. Thousands of comments and posts on various blog, forum, thread, etc. The majority approves, so it must be because “Healer” has charms right? Everybody must be hypnotized by that charms. Secondly, while “Healer” has so many cliches just like other Korean dramas, like birth secret, childhood friends turned lovers, evil mastermind, etc it subverts and re-invent the tropes so it doesn’t look like just another drama. One standout point that makes it so different is actually the Healer himself, I don’t know if there’s actually a precise job like that, but now I want to meet someone like Healer. Thirdly, so many amazing and likeable characters in this drama. Even the villains are awesome characters, well, except the Elder. He’s probably the most boring character in this one. Other than that, I love how every connection with everyone in this drama doesn’t feel forced but feel natural. So when the good people finally fight against the bad people it feels organic and everyone enjoy each other’s presence, rather than annoy one another.

On the negative side, sadly I have to declare that I simply don’t find this drama as amazing/fantastic/fabulous as people claim. There are more than one eye-roll moments for me and either this drama lacks certain oomph or I’m just too ignorance, this drama just doesn’t do it for me. It lacks humor to be called romcom, and lacks angst to be called melodrama and obviously lacks any thrills to be considered action thriller. The mishmash just doesn’t seem to work seamlessly. One point I highlight here is the use of music and OSTs. In some action and chase scenes, the music choices are really bizarre. While I really appreciate the OSTs and the songs individually are nice, the OSTs as a whole is kind of forgettable and generic. It’s a drama about some night courier who possess martial arts skills, but none of the OSTs (except instrumentals) fit to the theme. I wish they could use some more upbeat music or thrilling score to accompany the action scenes. Lastly, too much OTP will kill you (literally). Actually not many kdramas, on Big 3 or cable, have as many skinships as this one, but then for me too much sweetness from the OTP also can bring harm to this drama. From episode 8, the focus is larger to the OTP than the rest and much to the hindrance to other supporting characters. For example, in some episodes the OTP scenes (together) take up as much as 25-30% of the screentime and that’s not counting their screentime when they’re not together. Hence we can only see snippets of Chae Young Shin’s dad, cafe ahjussi, Someday News staffs, detective, ahjumma, Kim Moon Shik, even Kim Moon Ho for a few minutes per episode or sometimes not at all.

So in conclusion, all things considered, “Healer” is a great drama but just lacks several things for me.

Ji Chang Wook’s review:

Newsflash: Ji Chang Wook scored career-defining role with “Healer”! Can you imagine “Healer” without Ji Chang Wook? It’s almost impossible to see another actor takes this role as it seems fit like a glove to Ji Chang Wook. “Healer” without Ji Chang Wook is unimaginable, but Ji Chang Wook without “Healer”, well, let’s say we won’t ever see him reach this new height of popularity if not because this project.

As always, Ji Chang Wook still wows me with his performance here. His passionate acting style makes him always strive to act better and act more. He’s always commanding in every scene, graces the screen with charisma and charm that makes people can’t take eyes off him. He can be sexy dangerous beast Healer, a passionate young man Seo Jung Hoo and a dorky cutie pie Park Bong Soo, not to mention numeorus disguises he makes, like being a researcher, a college student from Russia, an office worker, a policeman or a pizza guy. It’s always a joy to watch him transforming from one character to another, often only in few seconds or minutes. What’s more amazing, he can switch his charm and look in his eyes to match the new character/disguise. It’s not even a split personality/DID drama, yet we’re shown Ji Chang Wook in numerous characters and personalities and he’s capable to show them all with flair.

His best acting remains when he acts as Seo Jung Hoo and Park Bong Soo. I love him more in emotional scenes, but his comedic acting as Park Bong Soo also really good. In any emotional scenes, he never let his guard down, pouring every ounce of his emotion to his character and make it alive. My personal favorites are when Seo Jung Hoo confronts Teacher in episode 10 and when he meets Park Dong Chul in episode 16. While as Park Bong Soo I love it when he’s jealous with Kim Moon Ho, he’s jealous with Healer (his own self!) and when he doesn’t know a thing at kitchen or how to greet your girlfriend’s father. It seems so real that it doesn’t seem like acting at all.

On romantic scenes, I’m sure everyone knows how emotive Ji Chang Wook’s eyes are. He can set fire only with his eyes, I’m sure. He can also create chemistry with log so it’s no problem at all when he has to create chemistry with Park Min Young. It takes two to tango and a lot of practices too as Ji Chang Wook said in recent interview, so we can safely say their chemistry works because they work well together.

In conclusion, Ji Chang Wook once again proves to me (and a lot of his new fans) that he indeed can act very well and worth every second he’s in in the drama.

Written by: kanz
Pictures: JCW DC, KBS, Dramabeans