Healer

힐러 (Healer) is a South Korean drama series consisting of 20 episodes that were aired on KBS2 from December 8th 2014 to February 10th 2015.

Story: Seo Jung-hoo is a night errand boy under the name Healer and he's known as one of the best in his field. One day, while completing an assumingly easy mission, he gets into trouble. Shortly after that Go Sung-chul, the man who Healer got something from, is found dead - and the Healer framed to be the murderer. Trying to clear his name he starts looking for the actual murderer. Before that, however, he has a longer order to find a girl and get her DNA.
That's how he meets Chae Young-shin, the bright and cheerful daughter of a lawyer but she has one weakness - she can't see violence happening.
The person asking for Healer's help was Kim Moon-ho, a famous reporter and Young-shin's idol. To find out more about Young-shin, Jung-hoo starts working at Someday News next to Young-shin who is currently investigating a story that might involve the people who also framed Seo Jung-hoo for the murder.
I'm not sure if I was good when it comes to explaining this story but personally I thought it was very interesting even though everything was very close together. How the characters were connected as well as the different parts of the story - 1980's, 1992, and today - were well done. As complicated as my explanation might sound actually it is not that hard to understand when watching the drama. One thing I really enjoyed about the story and the way it was written was that it doesn't lose the action and/or excitement around episode 16 like many other dramas do that just clear up the whole stuff. Even in the last episodes were some things I didn't expect and it was a great finale for a good series. The love story was for sure in the center of this drama but it still wasn't overdone and not too cheesy even though in a few episodes I personally got bored. The lead actors' chemistry made it better though.

Cast: Ji Chang-wook as Seo Jung-hoo. I somehow liked his character but also disliked some parts. He's a good actor, no doubt, I willingly admit that! Now the change in his character irritated me a little bit though. From a logical thinker trying to survive in this world to someone who's incredibly driven by emotions. I see where the writer was coming from but throwing rational thinking out of the window didn't really seem to fit the character we are introduced to in the beginning of the story. I believed the actor but something about that just seemed off.
Park Min-young as Chae Young-shin. As an actress, she seemed perfect for this role, and I mean it. But her character sometimes was difficult to me for understand. While there were always a lot of people around her father's house that taught her things she didn't use those normally. Now as she can't see violence it makes sense but despite of the ability to fight back verbally it makes her seem like the kind of helpless female again and I totally didn't expect a character like hers to be like this. It just seems strange and made me wonder why they didn't turn her into the weak female right away like Korea usually does.
Yoo Ji-tae as Kim Moon-ho. The rebellious journalist was just brilliant and by far my highlight in this drama! I loved Yoo Ji-tae's acting and believed every single line he said. Why he tried to keep something from Young-shin, the relationship between Moon-ho and his brother, the interactions with the colleagues - I know why he was in this drama and I just loved it, I don't know what else I can say.
Park Sang-won as Kim Moon-shik. Do you know the feeling when you see an actor all nice in a drama and you just can't buy it? Yes, that was me with Park Sang-won so in the end I wasn't really surprised about his character actually being one of the antagonists and quite manipulative. As much as I hated his character, the acting was totally awesome!
Kim Mi-kyung as Jo Min-ja. I've actually seen Kim Mi-kyung in smaller roles in countless dramas before and she's in a bunch of dramas I'm still planning to watch as well. In this drama I really liked her in the ridiculousness of her character that sometimes lightened up the mood by some funny comments or her singing. She somehow fit in here but I would've loved to know a little bit more about her history.
Do Ji-won as Choi Myung-hee. I quite enjoyed her in this drama even though I got quite confused trying to calculate the age of the characters because she doesn't look much older than Yoo Ji-tae but much younger than Park Sang-won in my honest opinion. She's still a gorgeous woman though and a good actress. Her acting felt real and I really enjoyed her in this drama.
Other actors in this drama include Park Won-sang, Park Sang-myeon, Oh Gwang-rok and Woo Hee-jin.

Soundtrack: This actually is one of the best experiences for me with this drama. The instrumentals really do a great job highlighting the atmosphere. I can't point out a specific piece as I don't know what they are called (I will find out about that though because it is really great). As for the songs by bands/singers, it is surprising at first to find Michael Learns to Rock on the OST. A danish band and a Korean drama? That's a rare combination but since I first listened to it I absolutely adored "Eternal Love" so it's not surprise I caught myself singing along way too often. The other song I really liked for some reason was Ben's "You" even though it does have a typical K-Drama-OST feeling to it.


9.5/10
I know I usually claim to have issues with very popular dramas and I still think that it is a problem for me but just like Healer there are exceptions. To me, this drama is not one of the best I've ever seen but I still enjoyed it a lot. The main weakness, to me, was the lack of differentiation between love and passion when it comes to the character of the Healer. And I think some characters just disappeared within the last 5 minutes. I don't think we were told what happens to Choi Myung-hee and Kim Moon-shik? I guess he gets punished and they got divorced but it's nothing the viewer knows for sure. Now I finished this drama last night and I still have those things on my mind; and the question whether I missed that part or whether it wasn't there in the first place.
Anyway, it is a solid drama with a mix of action and romance and if you like this mix I'm almost sure you will like Healer.

A small treat for the Ji Chang-wook fangirls at the end.
 

Reset

리셋 (Reset) is a South Korean drama series that aired 10 episodes on OCN from August 24th to October 26th 2014.

Story: Cha Woo-jin is a prosecutor who lost his first love Seung-hee because she became the victim of a crime. After that he devoted himself to violent crime cases and tends to solve them with the help of a special hypnosis. Being able to get the criminals to tell the full and true story that way his success rate is quite high.
The female high school student Jo Eun-bi becomes involved in one of his cases. She reminds Woo-jin of Seung-hee and he decides to protect her and prove her innocence together with Section Chief Han and Officer Ko.

Cast: Chun Jung-Myung as Cha Woo-jin is a character that is so typical for OCN dramas that I can't do anything but like him a lot. The charismatic strong male lead with good intentions fighting evil while he himself has a dark past he just wants to forget. The acting was really good, he did portray the very rational parts just as good as the parts of the character that were lead by his emotions. Kim So-hyun portrayed both, Jo Eun-bi and Choi Seung-hee, in this drama. As the clear female lead it is somewhat unclear what exactly her relationship is with Cha Woo-jin since they have a good chemistry but a huge age difference that would complicate things and makes me believe that chemistry was intended but not as much as there was.
Park Won-sang as Officer Ko was a good friend to Cha Woo-jin and helped him protecting Eun-bi even when one of his rather illegal secrets was revealed and it almost got him killed. The acting of a character that knew he did wrong but still works for the state and the prosecutors' office impressed me a bit to be honest and he definitely brought the character to life and offered good views to understand him.
Shin Eun-jung as Section Chief Han is a female who doesn't have any children. And the way she starts to interact with Eun-bi after some time makes one feel like they are mother and daughter and in that way they do have a great chemistry in this familiar way. Again as a character with personal issues I think Shin Eun-jung was able to portray her character well.
Song Ha-yoon deserves an honorable mention as Choi Yoon-hee. The younger sister of Seung-hee who fell for Woo-jin and can't let go even though he told her 15 years later that he still couldn't let go of her sister. A tragic and sad story for her but eventually the acting was good, too, so it did not bring anyone down.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack in this one was good but not that outstanding. As usual also there isn't a quite huge OST so that makes things a little more difficult to judge. Anyway, it is not a bad point.


So in total I rated this one as a 9/10. The only things I can criticize are some minor issues for me.
It doesn't really make sense they always go out to investigate alone - which is the reason for most of the dangerous incidents I would say.
The soundtrack was okay but it could've been better. However, it is not really a deal breaker for me.
The last point is the fact that Eun-bi's character changed a little bit too fast in certain aspects. Of course they didn't have much time which is why I'm willing to forgive this but it is something I'm thinking about.
Recommend this to crime and thriller fans who are not too much into ghosts/vampires but can handle people hypnotizing each other.