Faith

It's taken me nearly a month to watch this 24 episode series. A month to watch a full day's worth of video. Thinking about it like that, it seems about right, but to me, and bearing in mind how quickly I normally get through a new series, Faith seems to have taken me a while. It's not because the story wasn't captivating, it really was, I just seemed to watch this in spurts of a few episodes at a time and then nothing for a good few days. I think I'm just not as enthralled by the novelty of watching a foreign television series as I used to be.

Faith is the story of a modern day plastic surgeon, Eun Soo, and a 14th century soldier, Choi Young. When the Queen is fatally injured, Choi Young is sent to the legendary Heaven's Gate to find someone who will save her, and ends up dragging back Eun Soo. They return to the past, and Eun Soo becomes the royal doctor after saving the Queen and generally impressing everyone with her super weird / modern medical thinking. The plot basically revolves around Eun Soo adapting to life 700 years previous to her own time, the establishing of Korean royalty free from Chinese influence and how pretty much everyone else wants the Heaven's Doctor for themselves. Obviously, the good guys win and everyone lives happily ever after.

 

 From Google.

In general, I loved this series. The sub plots were as interesting as the main plot, and it even made me want to look up about the real people these characters were based on. It turns out the King and Queen are considered somewhat of the Romeo and Juliet of Korea, and even though the Queen was a Chinese Princess, the pair reformed the Goryeo (Korea) government away from Yuan (Chinese) influence, making them pretty notable historical figures. They had a lovely sub plot, and it was really interesting to see their relationship develop. Obviously Choi Young and Eun Soo fell for each other, but it was the bad guys that made this series fun to watch. I just found the characters intriguing. Obviously, I loved the costumes, and the production quality was faultless.  

The only thing that did annoy me was the whole idea of certain people having access to inner energies that gave them, for all intents and purposes, magical powers. Choi Young, for example, had electricity, and baddie Gi Cheol did the whole iceman thing.   I would have either liked them to have missed out this idea, or made more of it. It seemed like they only really threw it in to spice things up for the majority of characters, especially our lead. What was the point of him having this ability when we only saw him use it a few times? The exceptions to this rule were the two bad guys on the far right of the picture, the woman that controlled fire and the guy that could hear stuff well ... and manipulate sound. It made sense for their characters.

I didn't like how Doctor Jang just died, it made me suspicious of foul play. Especially as I liked him because he was in Secret Garden. His character had so much potential, and his departure just didn't feel right. Maybe he got fired, I don't know. Oh, google says he got injured. That would explain it.

So, to sum up, would I recommend it? Yes. For any other reason than Lee Min Ho? Yes, he was a highlight, but I think I would have enjoyed the series regardless. It takes some concentration to watch, and its certainly not entertainment fluff the like of Boys over Flowers, but it was well done, interesting, and I learnt about Korean history. Everyone wins.

Next up is To The Beautiful You. YAY!! AH I'M SO EXCITED! It's the Korean, SMent version of Hana Kimi, with Minho from SHINee as Korean Sano. The charts are changing super quickly at the moment, but I'm so glad that this one is next. I may have seen this story twice already, but its OK.

I'm going to play spot the SM artist :)