I know right. I just can’t resist watching dramas starring Joo Won. I’ve seen him wearing the white gown before in Good Doctor and it’s definitely one of his greatest performances. I would love to see him again as a genius surgeon hence, I watched Yong Pal.
 |
| Yong Pal (Courtesy of KBS) |
The series features the third year resident Kim Tae Hyun who works in Hanshin Hospital. Tae Hyun, despite being a skilled surgeon has no such power to be in a more secured position. He’s still paying up his students loans and has a sickly younger sister to support. To earn more money, during the night, he hides under the name Yong Pal to attend to gangster and criminals whom in need of medical attention as such people can’t get treated publicly in a hospital.
 |
| Joo Won as Kim Tae Hyun/Yong Pal |
Tae Hyun got involved with the corrupt physicians taking care of the hospital’s twelfth floor designated for VIPs. He joined the team in charged of Han Yeo Jin, the chaebol heiress of the Hanshin Group. His half-brother who takes the position of the chairman after her father’s death, keeps her in coma inside the twelfth floor “restricted area” to covet her inheritance. Tae Hyun, desperate to fund her sister’s operation abroad, woke up Yeo Jin and agreed to help her leave this room where she was kept asleep for three years in exchange for money for his sister’s treatment.
It starts with that, then to Yeo Jin’s fight to raise to power again and regain what’s hers from the beginning, then to her revenge for all the people who locked her up in that damn room. Of course, the love story developed in the background.
Omo, how cute Joo Won is trying to adapt himself to her chaebol world. Hahaha. Come to think of it, I haven’t really seen him portrayed a son of a wealthy family with all the maids and employees calling her master or such. Haha.
And I just have to say this, I find it really awkward to see Chae Jung An portrayed her character in this drama. Seems like her cool Arlene (Han Yoo Joo) image from Coffee Prince is still in me.
Joo Won won his first Daesang for this drama but hmmm…it’s not that he doesn’t deserve it, he just had other good portrayals that are definitely better than this one. I mean I’m a fan of him and he really is a great versatile actor (even better than Kim Soo Hyun) but really these drama awards thingy are getting ridiculous year by year. His performance as Yong Pal is excellent but I would definitely prefer Gaksital or even Park Si Yeon. They’re more on the daesang-level.
Or maybe I’m not really against the idea of him winning Daesang but Yong Pal, the series itself winning the Drama of the Year and Best Screenplay awards (in two separate ceremonies). It’s not bad but it’s just too much chaebol thingy. I just can’t. Hahaha. And the last few installments are kind of messed up as well. With 18 episodes, it felt a bit lengthy.
I just love Joo Won, still.
P.S.
We have that beautiful wind mills too. Maybe not by the hills but I think ours, by the sea, are even lovelier. #It’sMoreFunInThePhilippines.
