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Pierce Conran

3.5/5 stars
Least cast: Park Bo-young, Yeon Woo-jin, Jang Dong-yoon, Lee Jung-eun
South Korea has a very rocky track record on mental health. The stresses of work and family responsibilities in its pressure cooker society are known to trigger health problems. But mental health issues, which have long been stigmatised in the country, are seldom acknowledged to the same degree.
Netflix’s healing drama Daily Dose of Sunshine, a stark change of pace for All of Us Are Dead director Lee JQ, seeks to address that with its tale of a psychiatric ward nurse, played by Park Bo-young (Strong Girl Bong-soon), who masks her own demons with a bright smile.


In this series adapted from Lee Ha-ra’s webtoon of the same name, Park is Jung Da-eun, a nurse who suddenly transfers to the psychiatric ward at the Myungshin University Medical Centre.
Her move is sparked by the fact that she cared too much for patients in her previous post. By focusing so much on individual patients, she unintentionally created an unbalanced workload for her fellow nurses.
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Da-eun has to learn from scratch at the psychiatric ward, which requires nurses to deal with patients in very different ways. Head nurse Song Hyo-jin (Lee Jung-eun, Parasite) guides her through what proves to be a tricky process.
She learns the ropes, figuring out how to approach people and interact with them depending on their specific conditions, several of which are focused on in individual episodes.
Her big heart and naive desire to help people in any way she can at first lead to similar problems as in her previous posting, but her selfless nursing style appears to be a better fit for this ward and she soon becomes a favourite of many of the patients.

Beyond her relationships with the patients, doctors and other nurses in the ward, there are also a few men in Da-eun’s life. There is her lifelong friend Song Yu-chan (Jang Dong-yoon, The Tale of Nokdu), and doctor Dong Go-yun (a scene-stealing turn by a goofy and endlessly charming Yeon Woo-jin of Thirty-Nine).
Yu-chan and Go-yun both have eyes for Da-eun, although neither realises it at first. They also both at times act as though they are patients of hers, as each suffers from mental health symptoms from which they seem to find relief when she is around.
Go-yun has OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), which compels him to crack his knuckles all the time. This gives him thick, inflamed fingers; this leads to a rather amusing running joke in his day job, which involves sticking those larger-than-usual digits up people’s rear ends.

Yu-chan’s anxiety disorder is more serious. He frequently gets panic attacks, which manifest themselves in a sensation of drowning. This caused him to quit his job as a salaryman. He now helps out at his parents’ fried chicken shop.
The love triangle that unfolds is an engaging one – but make no mistake, it takes a distant back seat to the show’s raison d’être.
Daily Dose of Sunshine’s exploration of mental health in Korea and its attendant stigmas is relevant and necessary.

Other recent shows have touched on it – Our Blues and Move to Heaven come to mind – and while the treatment of mental health here is deeper and more impactful, it remains broad and at times sentimental. Given the TV series is a commercial undertaking with a wide intended audience, this was probably unavoidable.
The show’s lively and empathetic depiction of mental health issues preaches understanding but displays some of the same naivety of its principal protagonist. By and large, environmental factors are blamed for the patients’ conditions, which makes them easier to digest narratively but does not necessarily conform to reality.
This approach to mental health extends to the soothing wind-downs to each episode. The nurses and doctors get to the root of whatever condition confronts the patient in focus and offer hopeful explanations about how their symptoms can be handled.

While occasionally cathartic, these mini-climaxes can also come off as didactic, as though the show has taken it upon itself to teach its viewers about mental health.
Given its good intentions, this is not necessarily a problem, but it is an approach that does occasionally sap the show’s narrative momentum.
Still, thanks to clever editorial choices and lively production design, the director makes the series an immersive experience that feels more cinematic than previous Korean medical dramas.

Park anchors the show playing the kind Da-eun, whose blindness to her own mental health issues provides the main narrative hook of the season’s back half. She is a gentle guide leading us through the show’s exploration of mental health in Korea.
Daily Dose of Sunshine is streaming on Netflix.


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Park Bo-young in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix.

Lee Jung-eun (left) and Park Bo-young as head nurse Song Hyo-jin and nurse Da-eun in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix

Park Bo-young (left) and Yeon Woo-jin as nurse Da-eun and doctor Go-yun in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix

Jang Dong-yoon as Da-eun’s lifelong friend Yu-chan in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix

Park Bo-young as nurse Da-eun in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix

Yeon Woo-jin as doctor Go-yun in a still from “Daily Dose of Sunshine”. Photo: Yang Hae Sung/Netflix

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This K-drama offers exactly what the title promises – a dose of sunshine in the form of insights into mental health and the stigma surrounding it in Korea
The drama, adapted from a webtoon of the same name, follows the story of a psychiatric ward nurse, played by Park Bo-young, and the patients she cares for


Park Bo-young stars as a psychiatric ward nurse in Daily Dose of Sunshine, a Korean drama series on Netflix that offers an empathetic exploration of mental health in the country.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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Review | Netflix K-drama review: Daily Dose of Sunshine – Park Bo-young leads empathetic exploration of mental health in South Korea