Romantic Dr. Kim aka Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim

I was feeling torn about continuing on with My Horrible Boss today as I knew it was going to be funny but also very angsty (probably not the right word) so I downloaded a few other first episodes on my Netflix app and tried out Romantic Dr. Kim while I was at the gym. Within two minutes, I was, like, wtf? because it was all BAD THINGS! BAD THINGS! when the description of it hadn't led me to believe that at all:

Boo Yong-Joo was a famous surgeon with the nickname of "Hand of God." He suddenly disappeared and nobody knew exactly why. Boo Young-Joo is now known as Teacher Kim and he calls himself the Romantic Doctor. He enjoys his life in seclusion. 

Kang Dong-Joo became a doctor to win somebody over and Yoon Seo-Jung become a doctor to be recognized by somebody. After they meet Teacher Kim, they learn about life values and comfort from love.

Um, yeah. After one episode, that doesn't sound at all like what it seems like. The show begins with a young Kang Dong-Joo at the hospital, where his father has just been admitted. However, a senator has also come and the doctors go to assist that man instead, even though his father was there first. His father dies. Dong-Joo basically loses it. He returns to the hospital later with a baseball bat and lays waste to some medical equipment. A Dr. (not the same one that didn't operate on his dad) comes out and disarms him, tranquillises him, and then patches him up. Guessing this is Dr. Kim. When Dong-Joo wakes up, that Dr. tells him to get back not with his rage, but by being better. Okay, Confucius.

Swoopy fast forward through time and Dong-Joo (played by Yoo Yeon Seuk) is now an intern at that same hospital after having been top of his class. The residents aren't fond of him because he refuses to run errands for them and they think he thinks too much of himself. One of the residents that he butts heads with is Yoon Seo Jung (played by Seo Hyun Jin...from the Beauty Inside though I completely couldn't place her at first...this character is so very different). She's in her last year of residency and Dong-Joo thinks she's hazing him by giving him all the "bad" patients in the ER, including one with a masturbatory aid...er...stuck in an unfortunate place that Dong-Joo has to remove. Gross.

But she performs some surgery wizardry, saving a guy by holding an artery closed as he was about to bleed out, and Dong-Joo is smitten. Though we only realise this after they have another "moment" when he backs her up in a risky call and they save another patient (though she gets in trouble for her unorthodox approach) and he grabs her and effing kisses her (out of nowhere) in a storage room. I had a serious WTF are you doing, man? moment and so did she, though she also obviously liked it...though she then pushes him away after they kiss some more. And tells him she's dating someone after he confesses he likes her and wants to sleep with her (wow, so forward for a Kdrama lead!).

That someone is Dr. Moon, who Dong-Joo sees picking her up from the hospital later that night. Then Dr. Moon proposes to her WHILE IN THE CAR at a stoplight (seriously? who does that?). Then they get in a car wreck right after he puts the ring on her finger. They rush to the hospital where Seo Jung looks like the more injured one but she tells Dong-Joo to see to Dr. Moon because he's the one that hit his head. So Dong-Joo, having had a verklempt moment after seeing the new ring on her finger, goes to find Dr. Moon...who he finds having an intense conversation with a nurse who had also seen said ring...obviously, he's been two-timing Seu Jung...then Dr. Moon collapses and dies. So much WTFery going on here. Then Seu Jung escapes the hospital during the funeral and goes HIKING with her broken arm and whatnot (?????) and falls and breaks/twists her ankle and is lying there all Oh WOE IS ME and thinking about how right before the car wreck, she'd told Dr. Moon about Dong-Joo's love confession and how her heart fluttered. Then she passes out or falls asleep and Dr. Kim (presumably) somehow randomly stumbles across her in the middle of the freaking woods and carries her out of there. End first episode.

Whoa. None of that was what I expected. At all. I mean, WUT. On the plus side, all of the acting was good. The medical stuff...er, mostly okay and very intense, though also a bit suspect. But, yeah, this seems way more angsty and crazy than what I expected to see. It's interesting, though. Not sure if I'll continue on with it now or save it for another time as I was hoping for something significantly lighter than this(!).