When I saw photo stills and posters, I thought “Healer” was a show that involves the paranormal. You know, a hero with healing powers and stuff. So I pretty much ignored it. I was too engrossed with Pinocchio at the time. And when I ran out of stuff to watch, I saw that Healer has already ended and I noticed how everyone seemed to be raving about it. So I checked it out. One of the best k-drama decisions I ever made.
(Disclaimer: This is, in no way, a professional review. I am no critic, so do not look for highly technical or “deep” critiquing here. That, my friend, is no fun at all. At least, for me.)
On a SPOILER ALERT scale of 1 to 10, I’m going to give a 7-strong warning. You’ve been warned.
No. of episodes: 20
Cast: Chi Jang-wook (Seo Jeong-hoo/Healer/Park Bong-Soo), Park Min-Young (Chae Young-shin/Oh Ji-an), Yoo Ji-tae (Kim Moon-ho), Kim Mi-kyung (Jo Min-ja), Park Sang-won (Kim Moon-sik)
SYNOPSIS: Healer is a reclusive night errand boy and courier who gets the job done. A series of events lead him to cross paths with the intrepid reporter of a small entertainment internet news company, Chae Young-shin, and top reporter and broadcast journalist Kim Moon-ho. Soon they find that, no matter how different they are, they are connected by a shadowy past. (~Jeffer)
THE DRAMA/STORY:
Seo Jeong-hoo has only one dream: to own an island where he can live in luxury for the rest of his life. He even has the island picked out; it’s somewhere off the coast of Panama. And he is already almost halfway to getting the money to pay for it.
So how does he earn money? As a night errand courier. He is quite famous, considered to be the best in the business. No one knows his face, and he is called “Healer”.
Job description: do “errands” for anyone who is willing – and can afford – to pay for his services. He does his commissions with a detached attitude. He doesn’t care who the client is, or why he is asked to do whatever is asked of him. He does anything from delivery to retrieval (and by that, I mean some burglary or theft) of goods (and humans), and any other odd jobs.
He has no friends; only a hacker he calls “Ahjumma” (aunt) whom he has never seen before, and a female biker-slash-stuntwoman-slash-aspiring-night-courier for a subordinate. This small unit is pretty much his exclusive circle. Oh, and there’s his mentor, whom he calls Teacher, who’s off somewhere in the Pacific islands in the beginning of the drama, to surface later on when things become confusing for our hero.
Things start happening when a retrieval mission goes wrong and Healer becomes privy to information he did not want in the first place. Soon he becomes implicated as a murder suspect.
But then things REALLY start happening when someone commissions him to track a young lady: Chae Young-shin.
Now Chae Young-shin is a perky and bubbly young woman working at a small internet company dealing on news about celebrities. So basically, she stalks celebs to get the dirt on them. But Young-shin also has her dream, and it is to become a serious and successful news reporter, like her crush and idol, Kim Moon-ho.
Her obsession takes a different turn when she catches wind about the existence of “Healer”. Her new goal: to find Healer and interview him. Now won’t that be a scoop!
Unbeknownst to her, however, she is being tracked by Healer, and was commissioned to do so by Kim Moon-ho. The connection among the three will slowly unravel as we go back fifteen years ago, back in 2000, among a group of 5 rogue journalists and friends. And a tragedy that tore them all apart, with Kim Moon-ho as the unwilling witness.
THE CAST/CHARACTERS:
Healer/Seo Jeong-hoo/Park Bong-soo pretty much ruined any other future role that Ji Chang-wook would take on. I don’t know how he could top this, but I hope he does. Maybe a Healer 2? (Wait, that’s still Healer.)
Ji Chang-wook made me believe in Healer, turning him into a multi-dimensional character. And we’re not just talking about the fact that he took on three characters in the drama.
One as the badass “I don’t care about the assignment, I just get the job done so I get paid” night errand courier who calls himself Healer.
Another as his Clark Kent disguise, the bumbling and cowardly Park Bong-soo.
And there’s his true identity, the loner and recluse Seo Jeong-hoo. How he switched effortlessly through this three characters is so much fun to watch.
Speaking of strong acting, Yoo Ji-tae is one hell of an actor. He’s pretty much the thread that kept the whole story together, due to the fact that he knew a lot more than the others.
You feel his pain and how burdened he is with the secret he’s carrying that he just.wants.to.let.out. At the same time, you also feel how torn he is between finally setting things right and going against his older brother, Moon-shik, who practically raised him.
He is so good at essaying these emotions, that when he finally caved and took that decisive step to fight back, I believed him wholeheartedly and was with him every step of the way.
Park Min-young… I liked her in Sungkyungkwan Scandal, although I confess to having paid more attention to the bromance going on between and among Yoochun, Yoo Ah-in and Song Joong-ki. I absolutely adored her here.
When I watch any show involving a strong alpha-male or male hero and a love interest, I often end up feeling a measure of dissatisfaction because, almost always, the lady falls into damsel-in-distress mode. That does not happen here.
Young-shin is one spunky girl with lots of personality. She has weaknesses, but she actually makes visible effort to overcome them. Her unflagging faith in Healer and Jeong-ho is heartwarming, and even her little moments of doubt make her even more likable. Because it proves that she’s not stupid and has her own mind, so allow her to make her own decisions on who and what to believe, thank you very much.
Even the support roles are noteworthy. Healer’s hacker-partner (is there a role that the actress Min-kyung can’t do? She’s awesome!); Young-shin’s protective lawyer-and-coffee-shop-owner father (watching their father-daughter interactions are a hoot); Oh Tae-won, Moon-shik’s ‘secretary’ and henchman, who also happens to be obsessive-compulsive. And there is Moon-shik himself, who is a villain that I actually ended up pitying. He’s a villain who does not even seem to be aware of his villainy, because at some point, he started believing his own lies to be true.
One of my favorites among the supporting characters, however, would be that of Teacher. Maybe it’s mainly because of how it was acted – both as his younger version and his older Teacher-to-Jeong-hoo version. The two actors were so good that I had no trouble believing that the young biker-guy grew old to be Teacher.
THOUGHTS:
A drama with so many layers, which is not unusual for Korean dramas, but the way the layers were piled on in this drama, and how they were peeled one by one, was very well-done.
I don’t think there was any “waste” of an episode in this drama. You know how others usually have one or two episodes that do nothing but act as fillers and to make the story longer for a week or so? None of that here. It’s lean, meaty, and so packed that not a single scene was a waste.
This show delivered a perfect mix of action, romance, angst, mystery, and intrigue.
I was actually surprised at the amount of affectionate/intimate scenes in this show. You rarely see this much amount of skinship in k-dramas, but this one had more than what was the norm. Personally, I think those scenes made them even more believable as a couple. I don’t ship easily, but I totally shipped Young-shin and Jeong-hoo.
The action scenes are well-choreographed and the interspersed comic and comedic moments were deftly delivered to add just the right amount of levity to the episodes. Jeong-hoo’s self-deprecating humor makes him more human, instead of the angst-ridden lone-wolf heroes we see often in this genre. And nothing is cuter than a jealous Park Bong-soo! 🙂
OVERALL
Spot on casting. Very good pace and editing. Many likened this to City Hunter (also with Park Min-young) but I haven’t seen that so…
Each episode is packed with so much emotions and thrills, and as we witness the secrets unfolding one at a time, we find ourselves rooting more and more for the hero and his posse. No talks of revenge here, because Seo Jeong-hoo, the Healer, is not wired like that. He’s just a guy getting to know who he really is for the first time in his life, and he wants to protect the things he realized he holds dear with his life.
Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
The ending had one thing unresolved for me and it is decidedly minor, but I wanted to see what happened to one of the key players of the story. A glimpse of his downward slide was not enough for me, I suppose. I wanted the whole nine yards (read: I wanted to watch him really, really pay.)
Watch it or not?
A RESOUNDING YES.
(Healer is a KBS production, and aired from December 8, 2015 to February 10, 2015.)
what a great movie the music the characters,actions all awsome
True. I end up recommending it to anyone who asks me for a good drama to watch. 🙂