Doctors is a K-drama from 1997.
You would think that a drama this old is bound to be cringy and unnecessary. There are definitely melodramatic factors about it that we can live without nowadays. But watching it now, I would say that this drama still thrives, mostly due to the bold choices it made in terms of storytelling. And one of those bold choices is the characterization of the male lead Kim Su-hyung.
Let’s put this out there first of all because there is no way around it: Su-hyung is a jerk.
He might be a talented doctor and a lady-killer, but he is rude to anyone he deems unworthy of his attention, takes his older brother for granted, and treats Min-ju terribly for most of the drama. He is basically the doctor version of BBC’s Sherlock Holmes.
(Just to clarify: Su-hyung doesn’t physically abuse Min-ju. By “treating her terribly”, I mean he constantly provokes her and shows her zero appreciation.)
Su-hyung is given these traits by the drama on purpose and he is by no means a dream male lead.
Then episode by episode, his layers are revealed. He is a passionate doctor who puts his job on top, skillful and is arrogant about it. He is also reckless, vindictive, manipulative, and loves to push his own limits even in the operation room. And most of all, Su-hyung has serious trouble expressing his feelings. I mean it, this guy’s got issues.
He loves Min-ju and his brother fiercely but he constantly treats them like crap and never misses a chance to make things worse. When family drama hits, Su-hyung directs all his energy to convince himself that he hates his brother and goes out of his way to hurt every single person who cares about him, even Min-ju.
The drama, by building its main character so, presents you with the question: can someone like this redeem himself? (by doing something other than looking great in overcoats, that is.)
*SPOILERS from this point on.
The final arc of the story is when Su-hyung’s life changes drastically.
Regina, a kind girl his brother loves has heart failure and is set to die unless she gets a heart transplant. Su-hyung, on the other hand, finds out that he has been struck by cancer. Yay, drama…
Having learnt that life is about much more than his own big head at this point, Su-hyung now faces a major dilemma: he can continue to go on with his treatments and hope that he’ll live, or he can donate his heart — which is the one organ in his body that hasn’t failed — to Regina, and she will live for several more years.
But in order to save Regina, Su-hyung has to die. As in, RIGHT AWAY. Before the disease spreads to his heart.
Needless to say, Su-hyung’s decision is the latter. Here the drama highlights the core quality in Su-hyung – not good, not bad, just something that defines him – which is his willingness to test the limits. And his sacrifice speaks to all the other characters: I’ll do what I think is right and leave the interpretation to you.
We can argue that Su-hyung donates his heart to run away from his own physical pain at the time. We can also say that this is the moment where his qualities as a doctor shine the brightest and his capability to love and sacrifice is clearest.
Jang Dong-gun’s acting certainly contributes a great deal to the character’s nuances. In Su-hyung’s final scene, there is the mad courage of a doctor who is about to save his patient in a way no one has ever attempted before. Like, seriously, it’s a literal heart. There is also the trembling fear of a man who’s delivering his own death.
By the way, Su-hyung also springs on Jun-ki at the last minute that HE would have to be the one to perform the operation which requires him to remove the heart of his little brother. Talk about being an insensitive jerk till the end.