Healer Review (2015)

Drama Rating: ***
Personal Rating: Enjoyable

Story:
Healer is a night courier, a mysterious for-hire messenger who runs various tasks for his clients. Chae Young Shin is a budding reporter working at a third-rate entertainment news company looking for her first big scoop. Both their lives begin to turn upside down when they meet Kim Moon Ho, a famous reporter, who is digging up the truth of what happened in 1992.

*Spoiler warning*

Plot/Script:
Screenwriting: B-

This series felt like what City Hunter should have been (ironic given Park Min Young was the lead actress for both).  Most of the series was well planned and executed and the emphasis on the emotional aspect was fairly well done.  The main disappointment was with the ending which left plenty of loose ends that never got addressed (what happened to the 'Farmers' for example?) and didn't really give much closure to a number of the side threads.

Characters:
Ji Chang Wook as Seo Jung Hoo: B+
Park Min Young as Chae Young Shin: B
Yoo Ji Tae as Kim Moon Ho: C+
Park Sang Won as Kim Moon Shik; B-
Ki Mi Kyung as Jo Min Ja: A (delightfully memorable scenes)

Ji Chang Wook & Park Min Young chemistry: A-
Overall cast chemistry: B

Park Min Young has improved immensely from her days in City Hunter, being much more relaxed, assertive and confident than before. In fact, she and Ji Chang Wook have a lot more chemistry going on and make a great on-screen couple.  I have to say though that Ki Mi Kyung though definitely takes the cake for her wildly quirky role as Jo Min Ja.

Music:
OST: C+

The music was rather off for this series. While there were some good songs in the soundtrack, the music generally didn't go well with the onscreen action in a number of scenes.

Verdict:
This drama had both things going for it and against it.  In terms of writing, it was generally pretty good but crashed out at the end with a fairly hefty lack of explanations and a number of loose ends. Cast-wise, Yoo Ji Tae was the only one who struck me as being weaker than the rest with his strange facial expressions and demeanor when he needed to portray different emotional states (though he was certainly not as bad as Mike He in Go Single Lady). The music arrangement also felt incoherent and didn't seem to be too well thought out nor written with the scenes in mind.  Overall, a slight disappointment but I did enjoy Ki Mi Kyung's performance immensely!