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Pierce Conran

This article contains minor spoilers.
3/5 stars
Lead cast: Park Shin-hye, Park Hyung-sik
Latest Nielsen rating: 6.5 per cent


Traditional Korean dramas, often made up of 16 episodes, each 70 minutes long, can be lengthy affairs, but their stories vary in importance. Prime-time melodramas like The Penthouse are all about plot, as they drub us into submission with their whiplash twists and reversals.
On the opposite side of the narrative spectrum, we have healing dramas. These are shows with loose narratives that present characters detaching themselves from the stressful world around them and slowly learning to find inner peace before returning to society.
Doctor Slump midseason recap: Park Shin-hye, Park Hyung-sik carry the load
Doctor Slump is a healing drama, but it is not the kind of show that is content to play in just one sandbox. It is also a romantic comedy, cohabitation drama and medical drama – but is a poor exemplar of those genres given its lackadaisical plotting and lack of stakes, hallmarks of the healing drama.
Former school rivals Nam Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye) and Yeo Jeong-woo (Park Hyung-sik) meet again as adults at their lowest points and wind up living in the same building. There is some residual antagonism between them at first, but that dissipates once they realise they are the only people in their orbits who understand each other.
They get together early on, Ha-neul briefly pulls back, and by episode 10 they are an item again. That leaves six episodes during which very little happens.

Ha-neul and Jeong-woo enter the lovey-dovey stage of their relationship and agonise over whether to tell family and colleagues about their new status. Nonetheless, they all figure it out and are delighted for them.
Doctor Min Kyung-min (Oh Dong-min), Jeong-woo’s former tutor and Ha-neul’s dishonest boss at her former hospital, is revealed to be connected to the events that derailed their respective careers.
Kyung-min’s nefarious deeds, which included drugging Jeong-woo in university and playing a hand in the death of a Macau heiress in Jeong-woo’s operating theatre at the beginning of the series, are muddled by murky motivations. These make his eventual fall from grace feel anticlimactic rather than tragic, the note the show was going for.

Doctor Slump introduced itself as a series with ambitions to discuss mental health and the stigmas surrounding it in Korean society. Yet, save for occasional images of Ha-neul popping her pills and the odd catch-up with her psychiatrist, the show largely abandoned these themes after the characters played by its lead stars got together.
The themes come roaring back at the end of the show, reintroduced in a ham-fisted way as Ha-neul visits her psychiatrist, who makes her fill out a multi-choice mental health self-assessment. He pronounces her cured, as if she has passed a mental health SAT.
Leaving the clinic for the final time, Ha-neul notices all the other visibly depressed patients in the waiting room. Her psychiatrist confidently reassures her that they will all get better. Although Doctor Slump’s endorsement of mental health treatment is commendable, this parting message feels misleading.
7 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in March 2024
Mental health treatment is a journey and it is seldom as successful as it is depicted in the show. People can get better, for a time, and may relapse several times in their lives. But some people never get better, and it is important to acknowledge that that is OK as well. Mental health is not a test you have to pass.
Ha-neul is not a challenging character for Park Shin-hye to play. Equal parts cute and capable, vulnerable and confident, she is strongly reminiscent of roles that Park has played before, such as in Doctors or Heart Blackened, but her familiarity with the character gives the performance a balanced and grounded feel.
Somewhat less balanced is Park Hyung-sik’s showier performance as Jeong-woo. He leans strongly into the comedy, with an elastic set of expressions and an endearing willingness to appear foolish, but unlike his more stoic performances, such as in Happiness, the variety of tones on display here nudge Jeong-woo a little too close to the realm of caricature.

Doctor Slump was never less than a breezy watch, and there were occasional moments where it brought some spirit to stereotypical scenarios, such as when Jeong-woo and secondary male lead Bin Dae-young (Yoon Park) carry home their very drunk partners, Ha-neul and secondary female lead Lee Hong-ran (Kong Seong-ha), but ultimately superficiality won out over substance.
Doctor Slump is streaming on Netflix.


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Park Hyung-sik (left) and Park Shin-hye as Yeo Jeong-woo and Nam Ha-neul in a still from Doctor Slump. Save for a few scenes, the K-drama failed to address mental health as it was supposed to.

Park Shin-hye as Nam Ha-neul in a still from Doctor Slump.

Yoon Park (left) as secondary male lead Bin Dae-young and Kong Seong-ha as secondary female lead Lee Hong-ran in a still from Doctor Slump.

Park Shin-hye (left) and Park Hyung-sik as Ha-neul and Yeo Jeong-woo in a still from Doctor Slump.

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Kim Ji-won in a still from Queen of Tears.

Kim Ji-won in a still from My Liberation Notes (2022).

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Ryu Seung-ryong as Choi Sun-man in a still from Chicken Nugget. Photo: Garage Lab/Netflix

Ahn Jae-hong (left) as Ko Baek-joong and Ryu Seung-ryong as Choi Sun-man in a still from surreal comedy K-drama Chicken Nugget. Photo: Garage Lab/Netflix

Kim Yoo-jung as Choi Min-ah in a still from Chicken Nugget. Photo: Garage Lab/Netflix

Ahn Jae-hong (centre) as Ko Baek-joong and Ryu Seung-ryong (right) as Choi Sun-man in a still from Chicken Nugget. Photo: Garage Lab/Netflix

Ahn Jae-hong as Ko Baek-joong in a still from Chicken Nugget. Photo: Garage Lab/Netflix

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Joo Won as cursed photo studio operator Seo Ki-joo in a still from The Midnight Studio. While unoriginal and with some questionable special effects, this supernatural K-drama does provide diverting entertainment during its better episodes.

Kwon Nara as virtuous lawyer Han Bom in a still from The Midnight Studio.

Yoo In-soo as Go Sung-ho, one of the ghost assistants at the fantastical photo studio, in a still from The Midnight Studio.

Kwon as Han Bom in a still from The Midnight Studio.

Joo as Seo Ki-joo in a still from The Midnight Studio.

Netflix K-drama Queen of Tears: romantic comedy starring Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won about a feuding family has already lost steam

Kim Soo-hyun (left) and Kim Ji-won in a still from Queen of Tears.

Kim Soo-hyun as Baek Hyun-woo, an employee of a Korean family-run corporation who marries its heiress, in a still from Queen of Tears. The Netflix romantic drama started well, but is quickly losing steam.

Kim Ji-won as Queens Group heiress Hong Hae-in, in a still from Queen of Tears.

A still from Queen of Tears.

Kim Soo-hyun as Baek Hyun-woo, in a still from Queen of Tears.

Kim Soo-hyun (left) as Baek Hyun-woo and Kim Ji-won as Hong Hae-in, in a still from Queen of Tears.

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Kim Nam-joo in a still from Wonderful World.

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Kim Nam-joo as mother and professor Soo-hyun in a still from Wonderful World.

Kim Nam-joo (left) as Soo-hyun and Cha Eun-woo as Sun-yool in a still from Wonderful World.

Cha Eun-woo as Sun-yool in a still from Wonderful World.

Kim Nam-joo as Soo-hyun in a still from Wonderful World.

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Park Shin-hye gave a balanced and grounded performance in Doctor Slump, while Park Hyung-sik’s showier outing often veered close to the realm of caricature
The series promised to focus on mental health and the stigmas surrounding it in South Korean society, but it failed to do so, instead focusing on relationships


Save for a few scenes, Doctor Slump failed to discuss mental health and stigmas surrounding it in Korean society as it was supposed to – but the series was never less than a breezy watch.


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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: Doctor Slump – Park Shin-hye, Park Hyung-sik heal each other in muddled romantic comedy