God's Quiz 3

신의 퀴즈 3 (God's Quiz 3) is the third season of popular OCN Originial series God's Quiz and aired from May 20th to August 12th 2012.

Story: As in the two seasons before Han Jin-woo and a team of medical experts continue to solve cases involving rare diseases. But the new detecting in charge, Bae Tae-shik, and Jin-woo just won't get along and tend to end up arguing often. As they solve different cases, Han Jin-woo seems to change a lot while getting involved with a rather specific case on his own.

Cast: Let's say that there are some actors that appeared in the first seasons as well. Except for Ryu Deok-hwan as Han Jin-woo - that change of hairstyle though - there are Choi Jung-woo as Jang Kyu-tae, Park Joon-myun as Jo Young-shil and Na Yoon (or Kim Dae-jin) as Kim Sung-do left. I think I've commented on their acting enough already but especially for Ryu Deok-hwan this season was a good opportunity to show a completely different side of Han Jin-woo and therefore his acting.
New in the main cast of this series is Ahn Nae-sang as Bae Tae-shik and he's just what you imagine a veteran detective to be like, especially when it comes to his instincts. But especially at the end of this season you can also see a rather soft side of his character caring for the members of his team like he would care for a family.
Another new addition to the cast is Park Hee-bon as Lee Ran (pronounced as Iran which made me randomly laugh during the first episode). While I thought her character was too bubbly especially in the earlier episodes, I wonder about her background story. It's not like the audience gets that many hints when it's about a character that doesn't appear all the time. And we can't forget about Han Seo-jin as Yoo So-yi. While she's not one of the main characters, she becomes more important in Ep. 8 I think because - without her and Sung-do the team probably wouldn't have known about the case at all.
Oh, and Ko Gyung-pyo has to be mentioned as Seo In-gak since the last two episodes wouldn't make sense without him at all. I knew him because of Flower Boy Next Door but this series shows a completely different side of his acting which is indeed good.

Soundtrack: As it is rather typical for OCN series, the soundtrack is a lot shorter than those for the first seasons and the main focus is put on the story. Though OCN definitely knows how to use instrumentals to highlight the atmosphere, I sometimes miss the songs one would start to love. But that's just a general side note and I seriously loved the fact that Hlin performed a song again, this time called "비밀 (Secret)". Though I personally enjoyed the soundtrack a lot, those who prefer listening to 'real' K-Pop might not like it that much.


After all I found this season to be good, especially Episode 4 hit me harder than I expected any episode of this series could but especially the first episodes until Episode 5 and episodes 10 to 12 were interesting but in the middle I found myself yawning from time to time. Sure the cases were interesting but I know that they can do better. Also it's a shame the comedic part added mostly in Episode 1 with Detective Bae and Dr. Han not getting along at all and arguing in a funny manner disappeared.
Oh, and I just need to get rid of this weight but - I hate extremely religious people. All the talk about God and an alternative in season 2 already bothered me but this time there was this Episode (I think it was Ep. 8?) and I wanted to just skip the whole episode.. but then again not everyone might be that annoyed by that talk.
9.5/10 therefore is my rating of this season, and though many people consider it the best, I'd still go for the second season as my personal favorite. It's worth a watch though and if you really don't like a few things there's still the opportunity to skip some scenes.

God's Quiz 2

신의 퀴즈 2 (God's Quiz 2) is the second season of OCN Original series God's Quiz and aired from  June 10th to August 26th 2011.

Story: Han Jin-woo and the team of Hanguk University continue to solve cases involving rather rare diseases. But it turns out that some diseases should be hidden behind simply causes of death for some cases and the SCD, a national agency, tries to stop the team from investigating desperately.
I won't go into this topic too much because things would be boring if I would tell you everything about this but the background story kinda reminded me of The Virus - but there were differences as well. It gave me goosebumps and this season did well in keeping up the level of suspense.

Cast: As for the cast, there were indeed some changes but many actors who took important roles in the first season were in this one again so I don't want to comment on their acting over and over again - maybe I will do that later. I still enjoyed seeing Ryu Deok-hwan as Han Jin-woo. As a character, he became more complex in this season and I just wanted to find out why things turned out the way they are. Yoon Joo-hee as Kang Kyung-hee was awesome in this season as well, her character didn't really mature, that's not the right word, but her acting seems more confident than in the first season - and usually less cold. Another actor remaining in the cast is Choi Jung-woo as Jang Kyu-tae and I know why I'm talking about him as 'everyone's favorite ajusshi'. Though he loses the image of a caring father in this season, his acting was on spot and believable and I actually loved how he still tried to follow his principles after all. Park Joon-myun also appeared again as Jo Young-shil, and though she still doesn't belong to the main cast I did like her acting though it seemed too emotional sometimes. It's just that I know people can be like that from time to time and I suppose the writer wanted her character to act like that.
Way more important in this season than in the first became Na Yoon as Kim Sung-do who's trying his best to support Jin-woo no matter what happens. His acting was on spot, this is what one expects friends to be like to be honest and everyone should have at least one good friend like him.
Now this might be a spoiler but Ahn Yong-joon is back as Jung Ha-yoon as well! How is this possible after the first season? Well, you'll have to find out on your own but his acting turned out even better in this season. And I honestly think so because there are two sides of his character shown in here that couldn't be more different and making the audience believe in the different characteristics. Judging by his ability to manage that well I'm looking forward to seeing him in other series.
Someone I didn't mention in the cast for first season because he didn't appear to frequently is Choo Seung-wook as Detective Park Do-joon. Since he became more and more important in this season (I loved him in the last episode) I needed to mention him on here. Such a cool cop.
Talking about differences in the cast we actually notice.. we have a new character, Min Ji-yool, a profiler, played by Lee Seol-hee in this season and though one might hate her at first it turns out that  her support in fact isn't that bad. Acting or not, her cold character actually opened up and the audience suddenly starts to like her somehow.
And instead of Dr. Nam whom we've seen in the first season, this time Dr. Cha is responsible for most of the forensic work, played by Kim Se-hyun. It's hard to really judge his acting since most of the time it just feels like he's following orders - which might be true at the end of the day.

Soundtrack: Can we please talk about Hlin performing "Redd" for the OST of this season? Hlin are a band I mostly compare to Nell and when I heard the song I admit I thought about Nell at first when hearing the song but I love it. 10/10 just for this song. There's a song by Untouchable included in the OST as well called "Question" which I didn't really like at first but then I definitely grew attached to the song.


After all I found this season to be more emotional than the first one and therefore had to give it a better rating. Since this is nearly perfect, no one should be surprised about the overall 10/10. A great cast showing their abilities, well-written and sometimes really deep stories and at least the last three episodes were perfect and kept my heart beating faster and faster. All in all a great season and I'm curious as to what might follow in the next season(s).

God's Quiz

신의 퀴즈 (God's Quiz) is a South Korean drama series that aired on OCN from October 8th to December 10th 2010. It was followed by so far three other seasons.

Story: Genius medical doctor Han Jin-woo starts working at Hanguk University in the department responsible for medical and forensic analysis. The department has its own unit for investigation of strange death cases. Working together with a team of experts as well as detective Kang Kyung-hee who is the connection to the police force he solves crimes. But Jin-woo has to deal with some strange pains and gets threatened by someone so he has to solve his own case as well but unintentionally causes some more problems that put the whole team into a dangerous situation.

Cast: Ryu Deok-hwan is a rather young male lead actor for OCN as Dr. Han Jin-woo. His acting was pretty well done in my opinion, it wasn't obviously faked - it seems as if he's really in pain. While he also manages to portray the innocent and somehow playful young man well. Yoon Joo-hee as Kang Kyung-hee turns out to be someone he enjoys playing around with though she always tells him to stop playing. Kyung-hee is a rather cold character at first and doesn't seem to be someone the viewer would like but just a few episodes later I found myself actually sympathizing with her. Even if I would like to, I can't say anything bad about Yoon Joo-hee's acting.
With Choi Jung-woo as Jang Kyu-tae there's an ajusshi in this drama everyone I've met so far seems to love, including me. He seems once again like a mentor and almost a caring father in this drama.
Park Joon-myun is in this series as well as Jo Young-shil, a character who seems to care a lot about manners and respect. Though her character isn't around that often one cannot help but like her during the last episodes, and I honestly think Park Joon-myun did a good job playing this role.
One of the rather funny characters in this series, Kim Sung-do, was played by Na Yoon. He seems to discuss complete nonsense with Han Jin-woo from time to time (thinking of Episode 6 *cough*) and is also somewhat known because of his love for adult movies (or could we say porn?) but somehow lightens up the atmosphere in the office.
Park Da-an as Go Yoon-jeong to me seemed to almost have a crush on Jin-woo. It might be only about me, her acting was well done, but I couldn't figure out whether she liked Jin-woo or not by now and I've finished this season. But then again there is a chance she might only be a caring person.
Ahn Yong-joon as Jung Ha-yoon seems to be the perfect psychopath villain in here and I think that psycho-gaze suits him incredibly well. Except for not quite understanding why exactly he turned out to be a 'monster' (said in the series, I know, but I'm not sure if I really understood because - Jin-woo developed into another direction. Circumstances? Parenting done right/wrong?) but it was actually believable and he gave me goosebumps..
Lastly I feel like I need to mention Kim Gun-woo as Nam Joo-nam. He doesn't have too much screentime which I find rather sad because I see some potential but as far as I could figure out he did well as the somewhat lovable assistant.

Soundtrack: I wish I could tell you more about the soundtrack but wasn't really able to find out that much about it until now myself. Maybe I will edit this section later on because I've finally found out something. I can only tell you that I liked the music overall, it was always well used in the situations and especially the instrumental/orchestra pieces once again caught my attention.


Overall God's Quiz seems to be a solid series and therefore deserves to be rated with a 9/10. Now to those of you who might have noticed that my love for OCN Original series is actually overflowing and almost all of them got higher ratings than this one I feel like I need to explain why.. I think it's just similar to The Virus. While I do enjoy watching this mix of medical and crime it doesn't really trigger any emotions unlike other series. It might be because of me not being into medical stuff this much or mainly because I prefer my crime series rather romance free but this is just an idea..
I can only compare my reactions but Special Affairs Team TEN, especially the second season, brought me close to some kind of mental breakdown. Other series like Missing Noir M basically cause a huge emptiness after finishing one episode and I usually need at least 30 minutes to calm down and realize what kind of emotional rollercoaster ride I just endured. Compared to especially those two series I found myself rather emotionless watching this. It made me laugh, it sometimes made me feel sorry for certain characters but not to the extent I've experienced before.
However, it is possible I will change my opinion watching the other seasons. Nothing is impossible and overall I really did like it.