Neighborhood Lawyer Jo Deul Ho Review

Title: Neighborhood Lawyer Jo Deul Ho

AKA: My Lawyer Mr. Jo / Neighborhoor Lawyer Mr. Jo

Genre: Law, Legal, Family

Episodes: 20

Broadcast period: 2016-Mar to 2016-May

Cast: Park Shin Yang, Kang So Ra, Ryu Soo Young, Park Sol Mi, Kang Shin Il and Kim Dong Joon.

Jo Deul Ho (Park Shin Yang) lives as a beggar ever since he was betrayed by his chief. He lost his wife, home and position as a well-known prosecutor at the high court. He has no ambition left nor any wish for revenge, as his only reason to stay alive is so he can see his daughter get married when the time comes.

Everything changes when he runs into Lee Eun Jo (Kang So Ra) who is chasing a pickpocket. When finally catching the pickpocket he is surprised to find out that the pickpocket is his fellow orphan Kang Il Goo (Choi Jaw Hwan) from the same orphanage. At first Il Goo refuses to see Deul Ho, but soon warms up to him, only to pass away shortly after. Il Goo’s death leaves Deul Ho enraged and he decides to get to the bottom of the murder, which leads him back to schemes and corruption he had faced before, and had lost. This time he is determined to have justice prevail…

This drama I watched as it aired due to the quite interesting screen play and intriguing story. Though I found 20 episodes to be pretty long I have to say that the overall drama is really good. I remember Park Shin Yang from SIGN and I loved him there, so this I had to watch. I was quite annoyed at Kang So Ra’s character, I found her to be over acting. I haven’t really watched much of her dramas, but this is not something I would pin her as a good actress for. Generally, the female cast was just so typical and fairly dull, except for Hwang Suk Jung – the one that acted as Mr. Jo’s assistant – she was quite fun.

The drama is pretty typical as a Korean law/romance drama goes, but other than that I liked following all the legal stuff. I wasn’t really interested in the coupling or other things like that. So I enjoyed it.

To sum up, a typical Korean drama with a little bit of 2010s.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts

SIGN Review

Title: SIGN
Genre: Medical, mystery,
Episodes: 20
Broadcast period: 2011-Jan-05 to 2011-Mar-10
Cast: Park Shin Yang, Kim Ah Joong, Uhm Ji Won, Jung Gyu Woon and Jun Kwang Ryul.

Yoon Ji Hoon (Park Shin Yang) is a pretty arrogant and rude forensics doctor, but he is very righteous and hates to lose. When leader of the boy band VOICE mysteriously dies, he is put to do the autopsy, but strange things happen, and for some reason is not allowed to do it. The vice-director Lee Myung Han (Jeon Kwang Leol) decides to do it, which is not only weird but something unusual for such a ’typical’ case.
Go Da Kyung (Kim Ah Joong) works for the police, and is assigned for this case, but is shortly after ignored. For some reason the higher ups refuse her to continue working this case, and on top of that she is criticized by Ji Hoon.
One year later, after stealing the corps, and making Da Kyung join the autopsy, Ji Hoon is degraded from his post into the southern district, he meets Da Kyung again, different this time she has become a forensics doctor, and for some reason idolizes Ji Hoon. But the past of the unsolved ’idol death case’ keeps haunting both of the, so they decide to investigate in secret.

This drama has three things I don’t like: tons of conspiracy, constant showdowns, and well corpses… Besides that, it’s pretty good. The story and cast were better than expected, though it somewhat was weird.
The reason my heart rating is so much lower than my star rating is, I really really don’t find conspiracy entertaining, which this drama is completely packed with. People may like it, because it is interesting, and for some reason the world loves when the lead actor suffers…

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥ / 3 out of 5 hearts