킬미, 힐미 (Kill Me, Heal Me) is a South Korean drama series consisting of 20 episodes with a duration of one hour each that aired on MBC from January 7th to March 12th 2015.
Story: Cha Do-hyun suffered through a horrible incident in his childhood. He happened to lose all of his memories from when he was seven and eight years old due to the trauma - and created different personalities; Shin Se-gi, Perry Park, Ahn Yo-sub, Ahn Yo-na and Nana, all of them very different in nature. He went to America when he was 17 years old but was suddenly forced to come back after 11 years abroad.
Soon he meets Oh Ri-jin, a young psychiatrist. To not endanger his former psychiatrist, Do-hyun hires Ri-jin as his personal doctor who has to stay with him 24/7. As his memories start to return bit by bit Do-hyun understands how closely entangled his and Ri-jin's fate is while Ri-jin is busy hiding the fact that she is Do-hyun's personal doctor from her family.
Back in 2015 it was obviously DID season with two dramas airing the first episode within two weeks. However easy it might seem to compare the two, when I first started watching Kill Me, Heal Me it was a mess - the first 4 or 5 episodes are a total mess, poorly written, not because of the DID topic but just how extreme everything is. Luckily that got a little better later on. The storyline with DID seemed to be new to Korean viewers at the time, mixed with many totally different personalities and a lot of comedy it does have a certain charm. Some parts of the story were very well done, for example the background story explaining why different personalities were around. However, many of the light-hearted and funny scenes seemed forced to me, and I think especially Oh Ri-jin as a character was poorly written in the beginning. Towards the end I started to enjoy this drama more but it still wasn't the most exciting story I've ever seen.
Cast: Ji Sung as Cha Do-hyun. I did like his acting in the main personality, Do-hyun. As Se-gi, he was okay (that eyeliner looks terrible on him though). Nana was pretty much okay, too, but you don't see him often in that personality. After all I think especially Yo-na and Perry Park were incredibly overacted and I sometimes couldn't even laugh about it. Yo-sub seemed pretty much fine to me as well. So many personalities definitely were a challenge and some were great - others not so much but I see that maybe even the best actor might struggle with 7 totally different personalities in one drama so I would say he did well even though it was not perfect.
Hwang Jung-eum as Oh Ri-jin. Oh boy, I hated her in this role. I can't stand her voice when she's yelling and that happens a lot during the first few episodes so I watched it on mute. As for the rest of the drama, sometimes her acting was overdone as well, sometimes not so much. I mainly think that the way she had to behave according to the writing is responsible for the ridiculousness in some parts. In the end she delivered a solid performance even though I didn't quite like her.
Park Seo-joon as Oh Ri-on. First, I love the name Orion (it's pronounced like that), such a beautiful name! As a writer his character sometimes has is times of ridiculousness I think but it was still pretty much alright. I enjoyed his acting even though sometimes I wished he would behave differently or say things more clearly but of course you can't show all of the secrets right away so he had to keep quiet. I somehow liked him in the beginning and at the end but not so much in between though and I can't really explain why.
Kim Yoo-ri as Han Chae-yeon. You know, in the beginning I was happy this was a drama with a second female lead that was not manipulative, not jealous and not as bitchy as one could've expected according to other dramas. I was wrong and it annoyed the hell out of me. While I think she's not a bad actress I wonder why most of the characters I saw her play seemed the same. Maybe it's just the fact that she has a pretty face that fits those roles. She's not outstanding in this role though but it's not bad either.
Oh Min-suk as Cha Ki-joon. While in the beginning he seems to be the villain he's actually not that bad. I totally believed his acting even though I didn't quite like the way his character was written. I can totally see him as the son of a chaebol trying to protect his position and therefore searching for a way to destroy his opponents. I would probably say that he was the mose realistic actor in this drama.
Kim Young-ae as Seo Tae-im. When you watch the drama you will know what I mean when I say she is also one of those very typical K-Drama characters. I really enjoyed her acting, too, so nothing negative to say about the actress but I wish sometimes those chaebol characters would act a little bit more human and less money-oriented than they do.
Other actors in this drama include Shim Hye-jin, Ko Chang-seok, Choi Won-young, Kim Hee-jung and Park Jun-gyu.
Soundtrack: I sincerely LOVE 장재인(Jang Jae In)'s "환청 (Auditory Hallucination)" with rapper 나쑈 (NaShow). It is a really great song one can listen to a lot even though you might not be very interested in the drama so I sincerely recommend it. Another great song is "Healing Love" by Luna (f(x)) and Choi (Lu:Kus). I really recommend listening to these songs if you didn't know them until now.
5/10
I know I might not have said that much about my personal opinion on this drama but as you can see I didn't like it that much and I don't get why it has such high ratings. While it is not really a bad or uninteresting story at least the first 5 episodes almost had me dropping this drama because I hated every single thing about those episodes, except for the actors and the music. Well, I couldn't stand Hwang Jung-eum to be fair but mainly because of her voice. I still continued watching the drama though because I never drop a drama - I finish what I start no matter how much I hate it. And to be very fair, the story got better and better towards the end. But until you get there you might hate a lot of things. So if you really are a fan of the actors or want something that is mainly funny because it is ridiculous you might go through the episodes without problems.
I know my opinion is an unpopular opinion. Maybe it's because I prefer more mature dramas and at first I found so many childish points that show which audience this drama was supposed to appeal to that I was freaking out. But if you really enjoy love stories that are usually popular among most people you might like this. If you read more than one entry you might have figured out that usually the very popular, hyped dramas are totally not for me.
