Live Up to Your Name (2017)

You'll cry with laughter and sadness

Filled with laughs and emotional scenes; a real roller coaster.
Characters develop so well, from arrogant to humble, cold to warm and enemies to friends.
Family misunderstandings, painful memories, traumas, love and loss ~ this drama has it all.
Heo Im (Kim Nam-gil) was a real life physician who developed his own techniques of acupuncture and wrote journals on the practice. Whilst there is a comedic theme through the series, his legacy is not undermined, whilst the drama also balances the use by complimenting with modern medicine; both have their place.
I loved the cast of characters and there are other true ones, such as Japanese general, Sayaka, who was actually a Korean named Kim Chung-seon.
I loved every aspect of this drama and whilst it was occasionally a bit far fetched and melodramatic, overall it was a joy to watch.

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It Keeps you Hooked on and The ending was done right

I think its my first review or maybe a review I am writing after ages. I found this drama after a long slump period but I am so happy that I found this. The story is about time-travel and enlightenment. Naturally it has the laughter and tears for you. Its a Medical drama so it has the Life-Death equations. The Script keeps you curious, though there were parts in ep 5 6 and 7 where I might have dropped the show the curiosity of whats gonna happen now kept me going.

The part that makes me the Happiest is that they left us with very satisfying Finale.....which is rather rare....So I absolutely Loved it

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I really tried to like this drama

A person who grew up with money constantly yelling at person who didn't grow up money to not work for money even though the person, who didn't grow up money, has already shown he cares about people.
Found the main female lead petty, self-righteous and judgmental and not in a cute way. It didn't seem that she was working for free. Still don't understand why the male lead didn't put some of the money and jewels in his pocket when he went to the hut on his first trip back to Joesen since he was on the run whether he was in staying or going back to the future (like how I did that?) and his primary focus supposedly is having funds to feel secure.

The female lead stops the male lead from getting modern training in his field of expertise so he get gainful employment and then drops him over and over again. So annoying. In the end I just couldn't take her character or the script any longer.

Th acting was really well done and I liked most the cast..

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Doctors review on medical drama !

I'm a doctor and I hate that they butchered all the nomenclature and procedures. FL says she is performing cardiac tamponade. C tamponade is a condition not a procedure. In one episode she says get the ABJ done. It's ABG. ML just performed acupuncture and treats pneumothorax. Friggin BS is that ? Where did the air go. Where ? She does tube thoracotomy for pneumothorax on one person that's somewhat sensible. ML treats cardiac arrest caused by blockade. Meaning MI with acupuncture. How ? How did the artery get cleared man. Electricity from the needle went and melted it off? This guy is oriental doctor for humans and animals too. But it's a drama and not real life so I'll let go of it.
This drama aims to propagate to naive people that oriental medicine is equal to modern day medicine, if not better. Misleading is an understatement.
Since beginning ML tries to tell FL something about the fallot's tetrology girl, that she didn't know. But in the end he doesn't say anything about it. So even put that scene if it's not useful.
But one thing that just got me hooked till I finished is their acting. Chemistry, meh!

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Not the best use of my time.

I really enjoyed the premise of the show, as the time travel aspect adds a lot of entertainment value and comedy when the characters were being thrown through time. However, I typically don't watch a lot of Asian dramas and I think the over-exaggerated reactions and sound effects were jarring and broke the immersion a lot. Also, there was a lot of potty humour (fart and poop jokes) which kind of missed the mark for me.

[more spoilery criticisms]

I was hooked for the first three episodes, but after a while I could tell that they were really trying to milk the misunderstandings portion of the show. Eventually it came to a point where I couldn't like the female lead's character anymore. For me, a lot of the to mains' interactions didn't seem very natural because of how much the female doctor would hyper-focus on negative aspects of the acupuncturist and ignore any time-travel hints (which is fine at the start but tends to get old pretty fast) for the purpose of taking control of the conversation. She also lost a lot of her doctorly-compassion for this guy by episode 5 which was really strange to me, considering he saved her life a couple of times and took care of her while she was in an unknown world. I think considering she got a taste of what it's like to be in a foreign land you don't understand, without anyone to rely on, it's extremely sad how quick she cast him aside when they got back (All because she saw him desperately trying to rescue his life's savings?). I know the scumbag/money-grubbing qualities of the male doctor character was pushed pretty hard at the start of the show but I think it made the writers lazy with the writing for the female character in that they thought viewers wouldn't find any fault in her actions, but, for me, any compassionate scenes she had were overturned by her dismissive actions.

[more spoilery complaining about episode 5]

I'm at the part where she stopped the guy from turning in his resume to the oriental medicine hospital director. Even though the scene was played for laughs, I thought it was really irritating how the lady surgeon wouldn't explain anything about the hospital feud or illegality of practicing medicine without a license, and just seemed to tell him to be content with going to jail, and that she didn't want anything to do with him. That lack of empathy and proper communication is so painful to watch.

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Fantasy is the genre I avoid the most. But as you see I really like this drama so much. It managed to capture my heart from the start and it continued so beautifully, then painfully. I always fall for these drama traps; when it start out light and likable then enters your heart discreetly and cause you pain.

This was my first time watching Kim Nam Gil (this review is from March 2020)…Kim Nam Gil’s acting amused me and made me so emotionally invested. He managed to play a laugh-out-loud funny character, but also the painful look in his eyes was no joke, his attitudes, his actions. Yeah he was the star.

The drama had a very interesting content; oriental medicine, and managed to not bore me like the usual routine of medical dramas. Also the time travel thing did not feel cliche, overdone, or badly executed. It was very interesting, fun, and meaningful. It was quite unique here.

The chemistry was very much there, but most importantly, the story was carried perfectly, without leaving any uninteresting holes or spots.

The music fitted the theme very well and grew on me. The OST reminds me of earlier dramas feeling in a nostalgic way.
The historical-modern interactions and attitudes were interesting.

It is not easy for me to like a female lead like Yeon Kyung. I don’t like female leads similar to her. But She managed to play a strong person but still a fragile and delicate female.

That is how it is supposed to feel. Yes it feels sad and happy, but not torturously, heart-wrenchingly depressing. This is how a kdrama is supposed to feel like.

Ah Kim Nam Gil is now one of my favourite actors.

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I hate one part of this whole drama. It had me crying for a whole dang episode! It turned out perfectly... hahaha I scared y'all huh? Kim Nam Gil played his character Dr. Heo Im was incredible. Kim Ah Joong who plays Choi Yeon Kyung is a strong woman for playing this part. The elder actors did fantastically well! I love travel time dramas and this one had me laughing, crying, and shaking my head. I didn't know what to expect. You can NOT miss an episode with this one and don't go all the way to the last episode to see what happens or you will ruin it for yourself. The visuals and I know the crew had to be busy working two sets of historical Korea to present day Korea. I love the medical uniforms they wore during the Joseon period. This is a must-watch. Thank you to all the crew that was involved in this drama. Thanking the producers and writers, this was a great story.

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To start I really wanted to watch something that I can binge on and Kim Nam Gil is in it, that was the plan when I was going into it. The first ten or so episodes were quite an easy watch thanks to the humour and easy-peasy story line full of romantic cliches: hate to love, love at first sight, the unreachable happy ending -feeling, humoresque episodes between the leads plus there was the time travel aspect to give more fun to it. It does not felt heavy at all even the dramatic parts were low key presented.
Then it became boring and I started to skip more and more mainly because the leads romance bloomed and it was cringeworthy and over-the-top mostly. The villain was quite pathetic, did not added anything to the whole show and I became disinterested in how it will end. The annoying tone of the male lead was particularly disturbing to me. At the end it failed to keep up with the first part of the series. The music was goodish.
To sum up I was glad that I even reached the end and had gotten over it. Not on my recommendations list.

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Time Traveling RomCom Drama

Watched until episode 5. At first, I was very curious on clash between western/modern medicine and the more traditional way of healing which is acupuncture.

Then it became a bit repetitive; the bickering, the travelling back and forth through time. I guess it's just not for me. So, I skipped and skipped a lot until I've decided to just dropped the show.

The actors were ok. The OST was ok too, nothing remarkable but ok I guess. Rewatch value not that high too. I guess this ain't just for me. But if you want a RomCom Time Travelling Drama, give it a chance maybe you'll like it.

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