The reason I watched this K-drama on streaming Netflix two years ago was because of its two male stars, Seung Hun Song (When A Man Loves, Summer Scent, Autumn In My Heart) and Jae Joong Kim (Triangle, Postman To Heaven). Especially after seeing Postman To Heaven I wanted to see what else handsome Jae Joong Kim had done after that movie, and my search led me to the time travel romance Dr. Jin, Time Slip (2012). Seeing that sexy Seung Hun Song was in the lead role clinched it for me, although I must admit I headed into it with some misgivings because the plot wasn't exactly original: it was based on a Japanese manga and the Japanese had already done their own version of the story for television, plus the far superior time travel romance Faith starring Lee Min Ho had come out the same year and had a very similar plot, only the doctor who traveled back in time in Faith was a woman, and here in Dr. Jin, Time Slip, the doctor traveling back in time is a man. Later, I learned that the male writer of the bomb Temptation was the same writer who wrote Dr. Jin, Time Slip and he had never penned a hit show and often included material he knew would infuriate part of his audience. In Temptation it was approving of adultery, and here in Dr. Jin it was having a man's brain operated on and a fetus removed from his head and put into a glass case to study. Yuck! "This is off to a weird start," I thought to myself. "Did they kill it through abortion?" Shudder.

The Story: Jin Hyuk (Seung Hun Song) is a neurosurgeon who is supposed to be a genius, with a surgery success rate of close to 100%. He wants to become engaged to his girlfriend Min Ah (Park Min Young, City Hunter) who is also in the medical profession, but she finds him objectionable on several levels; he is too cold a person in her eyes, and very selfish, so she puts him off, but then after an argument between them she runs into a road and has an accident, witnessed by Jin Hyuk. (This plot device in K-dramas is just about as old as the Bible ... LOL!).

Jin Hyuk feels guilty about how he had caused her grief and some weird time warp hits him (on a rooftop, no less! why are Koreans obsessed with filming scenes on rooftops???), and he ends up back in the Joseon era and is captured by soldier Kyun Tak Kim (Jae Joong Kim) and meets a young woman who looks exactly like his girlfriend in the present day, named Young Rae.

Seung, oops, I mean Dr. Jin: are those early Joseon era earplugs
for an MP3 player, or an archaic stethoscope?

Kyun Tak was supposed to marry Young Rae and of course becomes jealous when he sees the growing attraction between his prisoner and Young Rae. Yada Yada Yada - even by this time you should realize this is all going to be predictable. Throw in those love triangles, misunderstandings, insurgencies between the peasants and noble class, and various injuries and illnesses that the modern doctor tries to treat without the necessary instruments or medications, and you basically have this show in a nutshell. Yawn. I really don't want to go on and on about it, but basically (spoilers) the girl in the Joseon era dies, Jin Hyuk returns to 2012 and his beloved wakes up from the coma and now the personal growth Dr. Jin has experienced through his time travel makes him a more compassionate, less selfish person, and his girl loves him.

Break open the soju and celebrate! You just wasted 22 hours of your life with a poorly written, unoriginal and boring script, seeing your favorite actors being sold out by a loser writer with mental problems.

If you are going to take The Trip To Boredom (instead of to Bountiful) regardless of my warning, at least you can fill your eyes with ogling two gorgeous male stars, Seung Hun and Jae Joong. The actress in this one has never done much for me; I've never understood what Lee Min Ho even saw in her to want to date her for awhile after City Hunter. Anyway, their relationship didn't last long, so no big loss.

Here's some pictures from the drama that I've collected to show off the eye candy. Too bad the story itself was tedious and dull and didn't serve the actors well at all. Faith is so much better, watch that instead; the actress Hee Sun Kim paired with Lee Min Ho in Faith has MUCH better acting chops than Park Min Young, although she has gotten better as an actress since making this flop.

Seung Hun Song and Min Young Park in a back hug pose ... doesn't Seung look like he could play an Apostle?



Jae Joong, with two of the prettiest eyes in the world ..... I'd mail him a letter to heaven any day!



Wouldn't any man smile to be this close to a woman's chest?

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