Judy here. I've been watching Deep Rooted Tree (also know as Tree with Deep Roots) and recognize the main lead as Han Suk-kyu who was also the lead in Dr Romantic (all 3 seasons.) Boy, he can act! In Deep Rooted Tree he plays King Sedong from the 1400's and of course you recognize that name as the guy who invented the Korean Alphabet, Hangeul. This Kdrama is pretty heavy and dense but provided me a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible invention of a totally new language. (In all honesty I was completely lost and befuddled by the story line for about the first 13 episodes but I'm trying to appear more scholarly than usual so am just calling it 'dense' here.) Anyway, Han Suk-kyu is completely believable as the King. I also feel this peek into the history of Hangeul will help me in my Korean lessons.
Add that performance to his performance in Dr Romantic and you have one solid, mature actor. As the gifted surgeon in Dr Romantic he guides all the young doctors and again pulls off the character perfectly. Wise, humorous, empathetic, and insightful....and it looks like his 'normal' personality.
Naturally I have no way of knowing if these characters are actually reflective of who he really is... If they're not he's a great actor. If they are like the real person, then I'd like to get to know him!
Pat here. Have you thrown off Lee Byung hun aka Mr. Sunshine for this new guy? Are you okay? Do we need to contact Kdrama Anonymous?
Han Suk-kyu
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who is sometimes lost! Thanks for the tip.
Hi Judy! Passing this along because it might be helpful to you--when I get lost in complex k-drama storylines, I often go to the dramabeans recaps after (or sometimes during) watching a particularly confusing episode. It's often a great help in decoding characters, history, and storyline. I don't read ahead, but reading "behind" can be helpful to my comprehension!