Discover Top Posts Tagged with #dr. jang

I really hate when my professors don’t reply to my emails. I should be your first priority. Respond to me, I’m not patient with these things.

#i understand horton #but you?#Dr. Jang #I trusted you.#college problems #I still love you anyway #Jang

Blood episode 15 recap kdrama

Blood 블러드 episode 15

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#Ahn Jae Hyun #Blood recap #Dr. Jang #Ga Yeon #Gu Hye Sun #Hyun Woo #Ji Jin-Hee #Jung Hae In #LUUVY #Park Ji Sang #vampires #vbt-01 #vth-16 #Yoo Ri Ta

Faith Episode 21

[Spoiler Alert!]

I'm so disappointed. So Dr. Jang Bin's inner power was not enough? Wae?? :(

#faith episode 21 #dr. jang #jang bin #philip lee

Kdrama 30 Day Challenge ~ Day 2: Favorite Male Lead Character

So, a doctor and a lawyer walk into a bar...Wait. Did I mention that the lawyer's a vampire?

I decided on a two-way tie of sorts for my favorite kdrama male lead character. Expect more ties in the future, because I am the dictator of this blog and can twist and bend the 30 Day Challenge parameters to my capricious whims. This irreverence for and manipulation of the rules to suit one's own agenda perfectly segues into my first pick, Dr. Jang Joon Hyeok (Kim Myung Min) from White Tower (MBC, 2007). White Tower, adapted from a Japanese show (which itself was adapted from a novel), is all about one man's rise and fall and the inner world of hospital politics. An indisputable star of the show, a perfect anti-hero brought to life by a maestro of an actor, Dr. Jang pulls you under the sway of his sheer confidence and yearning to be recognized for his talents, as well as his willingness to humble himself and beg to the powers that be (while stooping to dirty tricks and manipulation, without any sign of an ethical compass). This is a man who is more than willing to bribe and blackmail his way to the top, to deliberately destroy evidence, to marry his wife for her family's connections and then cheat on her in secret. He is both a puppet and a puppeteer. You feel for him, you identify with him, you root him on and shoot daggers at anyone who dares to step in his way, despite or perhaps precisely because of his antihero mantle.

Dr. Jang is comparable to a Greek or Shakespearean tragic hero, as his hubris winds up as his undoing. He also is ultimately a pitiable character because of his desperate need to prove himself to others, and this rises in part from early poverty. A lesser drama would have milked this kind of upbringing, mommy/daddy issues for all their worth in true makjang fashion, to hit it over our heads that our hero is oh-so-deserving of our sympathy and forgiveness despite all his despicable acts. What’s brilliant about White Tower and the character of Dr. Jang is that his inferiority complex and childhood issues are subtly, unpretentiously stated, such as in his quiet scenes with his mother. And the drama is perfectly fine with taking a backseat to let the viewer make their own judgments about Jang, to wrestle with their own conflicted emotions. In understanding a character like Jang, the kind whose actions you cannot completely condone but whom you find yourself rooting for nevertheless (though toward the end of the drama I discovered my allegiance surprisingly switching to his opponents, even as my love for this character never wavered), you come to reflect on the larger questions surrounding our collective humanity.

Prosecutor Min Tae Yeon (Yeon Jeong Hoon) from Vampire Prosecutor (OCN, 2011) prefers to err on the side of the law (with a few notable exceptions). He also shares a less-than-idyllic childhood, growing up in an orphanage (oh how I love kdramas' endless fascination with orphaned leads -_-). Who knows, that probably also compelled him to succeed, even if he does not go to Dr. Jang's extremes. But just in case you're missing the gaping elephant in the room here, he's a vampire AND a prosecutor. That alone significantly ups his "cool factor."

To make a long story short, he was turned into a vampire while trying to track down his sister's killer. He avoids the pesky bloodsucker problem by drinking only legally-obtained medical bags of blood in wine glasses (through a reliable supplier who also moonlights as a bartender, I kid you not) and continues to serve as a righteous prosecutor. Except now he sports the newfangled ability to gain the point-of-view of murder victims by drinking their blood. This comes sort of in handy (emphasis on the sort of). Meanwhile, he continues to solve the mystery behind his sister's death.

I approached this drama with very low expectations, laughing at the premise and thinking it was going to be campy fun, the kind of show where it's-so-bad-it's-good and one can rest easy by brainstorming fun drinking games that could go with the mind-numbing stupidity onscreen. Boy did this show surprise me. It was actually good. And Prosecutor Min is one dashing leading man. A guy who knows how to pull off the right amount of eyeliner is always sexy (don't try this at home, kiddos). And so versatile, he can be hot whether coupled with the female prosecutor or Dr. Hotbar. And no second male lead/third wheel competition here...he is the clear star throughout the show. Not drawn nearly as complex as Dr. Jang, but with enough layers to keep me satisfied and eagerly anticipating the second season. I haven’t liked a vampire on TV this much since Spike from Buffy.