“Doctor Lawyer” (닥터 로이어)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
December 18, 2022

☆☆☆☆
Jan Yi-han (played by So Ji-sub)
Geum Seok-yeong (played by Im Soo-hyang)
Jayden Lee (played by Shin Sung-rok)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

Full disclosure: I’m sharing a few notes after having watched 9 of the 16 episodes. I’m likely done with this series. Here’s the thing: I try to finish every K-drama that I start, but life is too short to force yourself to watch something (unless you’re writing about it for work, of course). FWIW, I also dropped the American black dramedy “The White Lotus” — which everyone is raving about — after two episodes, because it just didn’t hold my interest.

Mild Spoilers ahead…

There are parts of this series that are well done. The plot is intriguing. Yi-han is a skilled surgeon who is a ghost doctor for the chairman’s incompetent, milquetoast son. He puts in years of work waiting for the pay off. But there is none. Instead, he’s set up by the chairman, who apparently controls everything in South Korea. After Yi-han’s patient — who happens to be his girlfriend’s younger brother — mysteriously dies after a successful heart transplant, Yi-han is set up, prosecuted and imprisoned.

Since he can’t practice medicine anymore (or can he?!), he switches careers and becomes an attorney who specializes in dealing with criminal medical cases.

OK, all of that was fine. And the series stars one of my faves, So Ji-sub, who shares great chemistry with leading lady Im Soo-hyang, who plays a prosecutor. So why did I drop it?

One big reason is Lee Geung-young. Who? Oh, you’ve seen him in a ton of K-dramas, including “Vagabond,” “Again My Life,” “Vincenzo” and “Hyena.” He often plays the seemingly kindly 60something silver-haired man who turns out to be evil. In real life, he was arrested in 2002 for having sex three times with a minor, who he had promised a role in one of his upcoming films. He was arrested and given a suspended sentence of 10 months in prison with two years of probation, and 160 hours of community service.

Has he rehabilitated? I have no idea. But what I do know is that his acting skills aren’t good enough to make up for his past. His speech pattern is annoyingly stilted. Actually, all three male leads share that same speech pattern on this show. When So, Lee and Shin Sung-rok are in scenes together, their dialogue is unnecessarily theatrical and labored, making this K-drama feel more like a daytime soap opera than a medical murder mystery.

Anyhow… If you’ve finished this series, let me know whether you liked it or not. As I always say, a review is just one person’s opinion. There is no right or wrong when it comes to judging something subjectively.

Airdates: Sixteen 70-minute episodes aired on MBC from June to July 23, 2022.

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