Doctor Cha Jung Sook (2023)

Même en Corée, les femmes commencent à secouer le joug !

Au final j’ai beaucoup aimé ce drama malgré les avis très négatifs que j’ai lus ça et là ! On lui reprochait un portrait de femme soumise, sans personnalité, ainsi qu’une image caricaturale du mariage… 
Eh bien justement, c’est ce qui m’a fait l’aimer, ce drama, parce qu’il ne faut pas oublier que ça se passe en Corée, et pas chez nous, où les épouses ne se laissent plus tyranniser par les maris et les belles-mères depuis longtemps ! En Corée ces pouvoirs hérités du confucianisme sont encore très présents, et il est très plaisant, ici, de voir cette femme se sortir du moule où la société l’a enfermée, tout en étant capable de ne pas blesser ses enfants (mais ils sont grands !) et d’affronter les préjugés de ses jeunes collègues internes ! Je reproche souvent aux dramas leur lenteur, mais pas ixi, car il est évident qu’une pareille mutation ne peut se faire en trois coups de cuiller à pot ! Justement on voit très bien comment le docteur Cha prend peu à peu sa place, comment elle prend la mesure de ses capacités et comment elle fait des choix courageux qu’elle assume !
On a reproché au drama la romance avortée avec le docteur Kim, mais c’est justement un des aspects que je préfère : le docteur Cha a tourné la page des romances adolescentes, et elle ne décide pas de vivre seule, comme je l’ai lu (elle a ses enfants, bientôt petits-enfants, sa mère, son travail…) mais de vivre sans un homme et c’est une vision très moderne et assez révolutionnaire d’affirmer dans un drama populaire qu’une femme n’est pas infirme si elle n’a pas un homme derrière elle !

J’ai lu dans des commentaires qu’il ne fallait pas voir ce drama si on était féministe, or c’est tout à fait le contraire, c’est un féminisme heureux sans polémique et simplement courageux qui s’y démontre !

Les acteurs sont très bons, j’ai un peu été gêné par le côté clown que présente parfois le mari, Kim Byung Chul, dans un essai de comique léger où e ne l’ai pas senti à l’aise et qui était un peu forcé, mais c’est un détail.
Uhm Jung Hwa interprète très bien cette femme sans grand relief au début, qui va s’imposer sans pour autant casser la baraque !
Ce n’est pas un drama qui voue empêche d’aller dormir, mais il se suit sans ennui et les personnages sont emphatiques par le fait même de leur côté ordinaire proche de nous !

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Started off great but...

This started off great but ended very stupidly.

Story:
A woman trained as a doctor. Gave it up mid-way to raise her kids and become a housewife. Gets sick during her middle age. Once recovered, decides to resume her medical training and pursue her own dreams.

The FL was disrespected greatly and very much used by her husband and mother-in-law.
Her two children take her for granted at the start of the show.
There's a lot of pushback to her resuming her medical training. Her husband works as department chief and her son is also a first-year resident and none of them are happy to have her join their hospital. The daughter, a high school senior, is used to having all of mommy's attention and devotion and is unhappy at the prospect of having to heat her own dinner while mommy does something for herself for a change.

Despite the challenges in having been gone from the medical field for so long, having just recovered from a liver transplant, and having to deal with her family's disapproval, our FL sets forth to become a fully licensed doctor.

She has struggles, but she overcomes them. That's the medical side of things.

Then there's the family side.

We discover that the ML, the husband, is having an affair with a woman who used to be his girlfriend in medical school.
(Back then they'd broken up because the ML and FL had had a one-night-stand which resulted in the FL getting pregnant with their son so they had to marry. )
This "other woman" is also a doctor at the same hospital.
And the cherry on top? The ML and other woman have a daughter who's the same age as the daughter of the ML and FL (conceived when the ML and other woman meet during a medical conference in the USA several years after the ML and FL had gotten married).

To round off our cast we have a dashing, handsome, and rich professor doctor who performed the FL's liver surgery. He takes a liking to her, and helps her out in small ways while she's his patient. And when she returns to the hospital as a resident he does his best to be kind and encouraging- the only person around the FL who gives her that. It's obvious to see that he "likes her" likes her, but he's always respectful since he knows she's married.

The series focuses on:
1) The FL's growth as a doctor: slow but steady, with its share of challenges and setbacks, which she overcomes.
2) The FL's son and daughter growing up a bit, eventually coming to see their mom in a new light, and ending up being very supportive and loving.
3) The FL, the MIL, the son and the daughter finding out about the affair.

Spoiler & Ending: The kids take mom's side. The couple gets divorced. The FL ends up opening her own medical clinic and being a happy single doctor. The ML ends up pining after the FL, having broken up with the other woman.

While this may seem like a "happy ending", I'm angry that the romance we were teased with (between the FL and the dashing professor) never materialized. Why put it in there at all? If the goal was to showcase a strong woman living alone, fine. Focus on that without introducing the romantic aspect of the second ML. It's rude to the viewers. And also, not in keeping with the FL's character. She definitely responded to the SML on multiple occasions. She liked him and connected with him. I can accept her wanting to become settled as a doctor first, before pursuing a relationship. To come into her own and recover from her divorce. But to turn him down, and say she wants to be alone forever? Zero sense. She's a warm person. A good mom. She likes people. And her friends would have pushed her to meet someone new. She'd been living in a sexless marriage for 10-15 years, with no emotional support either. The entire situation, and its resolution, was so completely stupid and implausible. They ruined the ending for me.

Not worth a re-watch (except for some funny scenes in ep 1-2 that always make me laugh-basically the only comedy in the show).

PS: The daughter of the other woman and the ML also got a raw ending. She deserved better. And the other woman? A total idiot. Her character makes no sense to me. She basically gave up her family and their financial support just for the sake of having this baby and being a single mom. But instead of moving on and creating a stable home for her child, her obsession with a med school boyfriend (who cheated on her!!!!!) caused her daughter decades of pain and potentially cost her a stepdad and solid family life had her mom made better choices. Dumb and stupid of the other woman. I expected more from her. And the daughter deserved better.

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