Beautiful Mind

    Ok, I have to say I love this one even more than Blood...and I definitely love it more than Doctors...which is why I cannot in the life of me understand why they had to cut down the number of episodes for Beautiful Mind because its viewer ratings were lower than Doctors...I mean, both dramas had a main lead who's a neurosurgeon...and Beautiful Mind had more intense medical scenes, a psycho-thriller kind of genre and dealt with more ethical and medicolegal issues...how can that be less interesting and exciting than a love story between 2 neurosurgeons? And it's not like Beautiful Mind didn't have romantic scenes...I actually felt that the romantic scenes meant even more because of the disability which the male lead had...

    Anyway, I used to want to be a neurosurgeon...look how the mighty has fallen...but neurosurgeon or not, I wished I could be a doctor like Lee Young Oh (the male lead who developed antisocial personality disorder from being brought up as such by his adopted father who is also a neurosurgeon)...I know, I know...why would anyone want to be labelled a psychopath/ monster right? He may lack empathy and be unable to feel the pain and suffering of his patients, but he had such rational and logical thinking that he is able to diagnose diseases and conditions accurately...and because he feels no fear, he is able to perform surgeries with astounding accuracy and precision...I wish I can be such a good surgeon...

    His adopted father kept telling him that he's a monster and he is different from normal people when he was growing up..and that he had to learn how to pretend to be a normal person...but as far as I can tell, the only monster in their relationship is the father...and his colleagues and superiors at the hospital call him a psychopath, gossip about him and tried to terminate his service as a doctor because he was trying to expose a big cover up for malpractice involving a multi-million dollars stem cell research...all I see are monsters around him with greedy, selfish ambitions for power and fame...he tried so hard to be like a normal person...although he cannot feel emotions...but I think it was actually a good thing that his judgments were not swayed by emotions...so his morals are not tainted with feelings such as envy, jealousy, hatred, greed, selfishness, self-centredness and fear...how many times in my life have I wished I made decisions that were not influenced by my stupid emotions? I've lost count...

     So Lee Young Oh initially had a 'love interest' who is a neurologist...he even proposed to her and wanted to marry her...but she betrayed him in order to advance her own career...so I actually fail to understand why he is the monster who doesn't empathize with patients but she isn't a monster who betrayed her lover for her selfish ambitions ...just because she has 'feelings'? How absurd is that? Anyway, the main female lead wasn't the bitch who betrayed him (although I must say she was the pretty one)...the main female lead was actually a younger police officer who had valvular heart disease and was treated by a cardiothoracic surgeon whom she had a crush on initially...the actress isn't pretty and she didn't even fix her teeth like how all the other actresses did...but I digress...

      I actually loved how the romance between the psychopathic neurosurgeon and the obtuse idealistic police officer developed...there was a scene in the first episode where the neurosurgeon looked like he was trying to murder the police officer but in fact he was draining her pericardial effusion...yea, I know...only happens in drama...I think what I find enticing about their romance is how the male lead developed an affinity towards the female lead (read: fall in love) without him (and even her) realizing what's happening...but the ultimate proof of his oh-so-true-love was this (spoiler alert ahead): he donated one of his lung to the police officer as she was having pulmonary failure from pulmonary fibrosis...damn! I cried as hard as I did when Song Joong Ki 'died' in DOTS...maybe harder... but the best part is that to Lee Young Oh, it was just a mean to save a patient's life...only made me cry harder...I mean, how many humans with feelings will even think about donating an organ to a family member? what more a person unrelated to him/ her? If a guy were to do that for me, I don't care if he's a psychopath, I'll be with him...for good...I know, it doesn't make sense...real psychopaths don't do things like that...and lung transplant from live donor is illegal and will never happen in Korea (or Malaysia for that matter)...but that's why I love fiction...coz in fiction, everything and anything is a possibility...

     There are not many songs in the OST...and I only liked 'Dirt' by Bernard Park...it's a beautiful song for such a beautiful drama...and I think the ending for this drama is just perfectly beautiful...Lee Young Oh in his mental monologue said: I cannot feel your heart; I cannot even empathize with you, the only choice I can make is to love you.” But isn't that what we've been told all this while? That love isn't just about feelings? That love is about making the choice to stay with a person for better or worse and in sickness and health?

Blood

    I'm a sucker for vampire stories...so it's a given that I would love the kdrama 'Blood'...the male lead is a top hepatobiliary surgeon who happened to be a vampire...there's even a scientific basis for his condition...his parents were conducting some research on some virus named VBT-01 and they were both infected with the virus, which produces symptoms similar to vampirism...thirst for blood, light hypersensitivity (sunlight at dawn and strong UV light is lethal), superhuman strength, ability to grow fangs and claws, and ability to change the colour of iris...so the male lead was a pure-bred vampire as he was the offspring of a vampire couple (which according to the drama, is a mutation in itself)....combining the supernatural and science is so my cup of tea...

    Of course, this drama in its essence is a romance as well...watching a vampire slowly falling for a human is such a beautiful thing...to be honest, there weren't that many lovey-dovey scenes as they needed to put in the action and fighting scenes in a 20-episode drama...there were only about 5 scenes where the male and female lead were hugging each other...a few save the damsel in distress scenes and 1 kissing scene...oh, and one 'watching the sunrise while the male lead is dying' scene...and yes, i'm not embarrassed to admit i was bawling my heart out watching that scene...probably one of the most heart-wrenching scene I've watched for a long time...

    I love how the male lead who initially was this cold, unfeeling creature (at least on the outside) slowly and awkwardly became a warm-hearted human...there was a scene where the female lead was trying to imitate another couple playing the 'find me' game...which even I felt was pretty stupid and silly...so the female lead went into this flower bed and pretended to 'hide' and asked the male lead "where am I?"...and the male lead just answered "there"...the female lead reprimanded him for not playing along and he answered, "how can I not see a talking flower?"....cheesy I know...but still amazingly adorable... 

    So I found out that the male and female lead in that drama actually took their romance off-screen and are actually married in real life...that is pretty sweet in itself...i suppose the male lead was chosen because he did look good as a vampire...and i'm still wondering how they made him look even better in his 'dying moments'...coz initially i had some issues with his looks...i'm not sure if he had gone under the knife before but if he did, it looked like the surgeon didn't do too good a job...coz at some angles, his columella looked deviated...and his lips are slightly lopsided...but then again, who am I to comment anything...this guy is a model and actor...surely his looks are good enough to be this in-demand...

    It has become a habit to listen to the OST of the kdramas I've watched...and I must say I love the instrumental OST of Blood...the songs aren't too bad...but the instrumental ones really set the mood for the dark, mysterious scenes...and then there are those few sad and melancholic ones which I love the most...namely 'Vampire's Love', 'Love and Salvation' and 'Someone's Pain'...