My Review of K-Drama - 'Faith' (The Great Doctor)

Faith / The great doctor 

This drama is of the historical, fantasy (time travel), medical and romance genre. 

Warning - There are spoilers ahead.  It's your choice to read or not to read ^^''

This drama is in fact my first historical Korean Drama; I watched a historical Chinese drama (Beauties of the King) before but this is my first time watching a Korean one.

But one thing I've seen in common in those two historical dramas is the high propensity to kill people; human life is simply undervalued in historical dramas; I'm not using the term 'undervalued' lightly here because there is really a lot of blood spilled from multiple deaths every episodes.  Historical dramas remind me that people from that long long...very long time ago sacrificed their lives easily as if they did not really expect to live long (which is not surprising judging by the conditions in which people from several hundreds of years ago lived).
As seen in the drama 'Faith' there is effectively an episode where the lead character 'Choi Young' is fighting with assassins and while waiting for them to attack he said something like 'for us living means not dying...'

How pessimistic do those words sound in the ears of developed nations today.  Those words really represent the extent to which people from those old times didn't expect much from 'living' (in this drama it's said to be 600 years ago to be more precise).

Overall, what I mean by this intro is that historical dramas represent a specific genre which might seem dark, heavy and depressing to certain people, although there are a few scenes which can make you smile.
Still, the plot and characters seemed quite interesting and original to me.

This drama takes us to the land of Goryeo, which is modern day Korea from around 600 years ago. Goryeo is the land where the main protagonist 'Choi Young' lives.  Choi Young is played by Lee Min Ho and despite his pretty boy looks, he did an excellent job in portraying such a courageous, tough and loyal character.

Choi Young is not a fictional character.  Choi Young is an epic warrior who really existed during the Goryeo era and has left his mark in the annals of history.

Of course this drama is not the real depiction of Choi Young's story but a fictive story built up around the character Choi Young.

In the drama, Choi Young is a strong fighter who leads a group of warriors called the Woodalchis.

The woodalchis can be recognized by the clothes they wear: dark blue garments beneath a grey armor as shown in the pics below.
Cool outfits right! ^^




The Woodalchis might not be the strongest warriors out there but they are brave and faithful to Choi Young and the King.  They are faithful to the point of giving up their lives while fighting the enemy to protect their king.

Woodalchi warriors even have their epic theme music (click link below):

Faith OST: 'I am Woodalchi'

Cool right! ^^




The story begins with the queen of Goryeo being gravely injured during an attack by assassins.  The queen is on the verge of death and the only solution to save her is to find 'the God's doctor'.  The King orders our hero Choi Young to go through the door (a sort of vortex) which according to them will lead to the God's world.  Choi Young obeys.  He goes through the door which lands him into the modern day (21st century) South Korea.  There he kidnaps a doctor specialized in cosmetic surgery after forcing her to perform a surgery before him to prove that she is God's doctor.  That scene was pretty intense and unexpected.  Choi Young inflicted the exact same injury that the queen had to a nearby person and forced the doctor to save that person.
To me the surgery scene looked really realistic (although they must be performing it on a dummy in reality ^^'').  Anyway I find the surgery scenes in korean dramas really believable and realistic but not scary (that's probably why I also enjoyed watching the drama 'Emergency couple' ^^).  The surgery looks so intricate and all that I feel like a little kid watching a magician performing a magic trick.  That's how amazing the surgery scenes look to me.

The drama is really cool and the adventure continues with the doctor being forcefully taken to Goryeo by Choi Young who sent an electric shock wave to push back the police force blocking his way.

That scene was pretty cool and it's actually the only scene when Choi Young uses his powers to its full extent.  After that he doesn't use his electric shock wave much...maybe because the special effects cost too much for the production team to reproduce.  After all this drama cost a fortune to produce.

After that Choi Young takes the doctor (Eun Soo) to the gate to return back to Goryeo where his king and queen are waiting for them.

The adventure continues with plenty of tumultuous events for our heroine Eun Soo and our hero Choi Young.


I hated the king at some point because of his lack of initiative and cowardice.  He was relying too much of Choi Young to help him.  Without Choi Young, the king would be dead meat.  Also, despite Choi Young's loyalty to the king, there were several times that the King doubted him and believed the enemy's words that Choi Young was a traitor.

During those times, I wished that Choi Young would just leave Goryeo with EunSoo and live in the 21st century Korea.

Just like in the manga Fushigi Yugi/The mysterious play in which the warrior Tamahome goes to the modern world with Miaka.

I guess that the drama would have taken a completely different turn in that case ^^ (a bit like the korean drama: Rooftop Prince).

Choi Young does remind me a little bit about Tamahome though ^^''
Both of them have the same cool look.

If someone were to cosplay Tamahome, I think Choi Young (lee Min ho) would look great as him.


See!!  >_<

Anyway this drama is a good watch.  I would recommend it to people who like to watch fantasy dramas.

The ending is a bit lacking though because it left me with a vague impression.  Ok the ending is a happy one, but they could have given a bit more details instead of just ending it with Choi Young and Eun Soo staring at each other from a distance.  There could have expressed their emotions more with a hug at least.  They have been waiting to meet each other again after several years after all...come on you should tear up cry and run into each other's arms...that was missing!! ^^'' aigoo...

When I think about it in the anime Fushigi Yugi as well the ending had them just staring at each other from a distance, but at least Miaka was tearing up at the sight of Tamahome because she was deeply touched to finally see him again.

Now enough of my complaints; I still do recommend this drama :)  Sorry for the spoilers but still Watch it! The actors, the filming crew, the scriptwriters and other staff put in a lot of effort, hard work and talent.