By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
May 25, 2018
☆☆☆☆
Seo Jung-Hoo/Healer/Park Bong-Soo (played by Ji Chang-Wook)
Chae Young-Shin (played by Park Min-Young)
Kim Moon-Ho (played by Yoo Ji-Tae)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.
“Healer” is that rare TV show that doesn’t lose momentum as it races to the finale.
A smart, 20-episode series that was well cast, it offered intrigue, action, comedy and a bittersweet love story that ends in such a way that the viewer is left assured that the couple stays together forever.
This is also one of the few Korean dramas I’ve seen where the lead characters aren’t involved in a love triangle (though there is a sub-plot where unrequited love between secondary cast members plays a role).
To date, I’ve given two K-Dramas (“My Love From Another Star,” “Moon That Embraces the Sun”) and two Korean films (“Once Upon a Time In High School,” “Miss Granny“) perfect scores. “Healer” gets that grade as well — not because there weren’t a few flaws here and there (there were) — but because it was overall such a compelling drama to watch … and one that I wish hadn’t ended as soon as it did.
I could write pages, summarizing each episode and analyzing the good (and the relatively few bad) parts of this series. But what I really want to get across is the feeling that the characters evoked. At times, my heart ached so much for them — even one of the villains.
Jung-Hoo (aka Healer, a mercenary who never kills) and Young-Shin are both broken. Each lost their parents early in their lives. She was adopted by a loving family, only to have her adoptive mother die, too. After his father died, Jung-Hoo’s mother left him in his grandmother’s care so that she could re-marry. And when his grandmother died, he was on his own.
This kind of careless abandonment sounds crazy to many of us. But one of Korea’s shameful practices is emphasizing bloodlines at the expense of children who are already in existence. It is unfathomable to me that a parent would marry someone who didn’t want to include a child from a previous relationship. But there are children placed in orphanages, not because both parents are deceased, but because the parents wanted to remarry.
Accustomed to being abandoned, Healer’s dream is to earn enough money to move to a South Pacific island by himself.
When Healer is hired to find crucial information about Young-Shin’s background, he doesn’t expect to fall in love with her. But he does, and goes undercover as a meek reporter named Bong-Soo to keep an eye on her.
Young-Shin is a mess. She’s a senior reporter at Someday News, a second-rate entertainment tabloid. Because celebrities won’t do interviews with the publication, she resorts to disguising herself to try to trick the subjects into giving her a juicy quote or two. She stumbles onto a sex scandal that involves a politician who is well on his way to becoming Seoul’s next mayor. His unwilling mistress is a fledgling actress, who’s being forced by her pimpy agent to have sex with powerful men. After Young-Shin rescues her from committing suicide, the actress agrees to tell her story to Someday.
It is an open secret in Korea that some young women are forced to service their benefactors in the entertainment world. There was a real-life scandal when “Boys Over Flowers” actress Jang Ja-yeon committed suicide mid-way through the series, leaving behind a suicide note that detailed all the prominent men who had abused her sexually and physically throughout her career.
Thinking that Bong-Soo is who he claims to be, Young-Shin takes him under her wing, sharing her know-how and bossing him around a bit. While she enjoyed mentoring him, she also was protective of him. When the two were attacked by a gang of thugs, she told him she would stall for time while he escaped. Of course, he would come back as Healer to rescue her. But she didn’t know that.
Then there’s Moon-Ho, a dashing broadcast reporter who has become a celebrity in his own right, thanks to his fearless reporting (and handsome features). His smiles belie the melancholy of someone who wants to make things right, but knows he can’t without hurting the ones he loves.
Soon enough, the trio will find their lives intertwined. And watching the progression of how the relationships progress between the three is satisfying, especially after Moon-Ho’s older brother, Moon-Shik, enters the picture.
I won’t lie. Park Min-Young and Ji Chang-Wook (pictured above) pretty much personify genetic perfection. Their being so easy on the eyes certainly added to the pleasure of watching this K-drama.
Aside from some scenery chewing by the hired thugs, the acting overall was stellar. Kim Mi-Kyung, who plays Ajumma — the Healer’s hacker and handler — was excellent (as she has been in every drama I have seen her in). Ajumma is abrasive, intelligent and eccentric. I enjoyed how the writers slowly revealed how she came to be who she is. When I figured out why she was knitting, I felt my heart hurt for her.
WTF:
Taekwondo black belt and K-Tigers star, Tae-Mi, has a supporting role as Healer’s sidekick. I liked her role and was thankful that the writers didn’t try to pit her against Young-Shin.
But I have to wonder what the wardrobe department was thinking when they dressed her in a jacket with the Confederate flag on it. Yes, this series was made primarily for Korean consumption. But the Hallyu movement was already in full swing at the time this was released in 2014 and Korean dramas were being exported to countries around the world, including the United States.
Meta Moment: In Episode 9, Moon-Ho offers to send Young-Shin overseas to study abroad, to keep her safe. She laughs and says that’s an old line that sounds like it’s from a drama.
Airdates: Twenty hour-long episodes aired on KBS2 from December 8, 2014 to February 10, 2015.
Spoiler Alert:
As children, Jung-Hoo and Young-Shin were playmates. Though Jung-Hoo’s father was accused of killing Young-Shin’s father, he was not a murderer. He had witnessed the killing, but was betrayed by Moon-Shik — and his treacherous benefactor — and the police department that covered it up. While the early episodes make it seem that Jung-Hoo’s mother abandoned him, it appears that she left him in the care of his grandmother after Moon-Shik threatened the child’s safety.
Moon-Shik had unrequited love for Myung-Hee — Young-Shin’s biological mother. Myung-Hee agreed to marry him after her husband died, but told him that she could never fully give him her heart. When she learns that he knew Young-Shin was alive and pretended otherwise, she tells him that she now knows why she could never love him — she had never fully trusted him.
After Jung-Hoo clears his father’s name — and his own — he and Young-Shin work together as reporters, just as their fathers had done Whether he fully leaves his Healer days behind is left open to debate. But my guess is no.
Before becoming Healer’s handler, Ajumma was a detective for the police force. Torn between work and family life, she finishes overseeing a sting operation instead of racing to the hospital, where her young child died without her. Her husband never forgave her. She found solace living and working alone, knitting small items that we can only assume are meant for the memory of her son. Kudos to the scriptwriters for handling her backstory in deft a way that wasn’t maudlin.
📺#HEALER is that rare series that doesn’t lose momentum as it races to the finale. It’s 1 of only 3 #kdramas that I gave a perfect rating. The feeling the characters evoked was so authentic that at times my heart ached for them. My review⏯https://t.co/cjKIcjJ3ND #JiChangWook pic.twitter.com/Nla1P0wT2P
— Jae-Ha Kim 김재하 (@GoAwayWithJae) May 26, 2018
© 2018 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved
I love and will contnue to watch it. It was fantastic.
Loved this movie.
Healer is still my favorite Ji Chang Wook and Park Min Young drama.