The vengeful past of Han Jae-joon, played by actor Park Hae-jin, was revealed in SBS medical series “Doctor Stranger” on Tuesday, as the elite doctor took revenge on the founding family of Myungwoo Hospital. 

As a child, Han lost his parents in a medical accident that occurred in Myungwoo Hospital. The hospital head Oh Joon-kyu, Han’s boss and the father of his lover Oh Soo-hyun, refuses to acknowledge the medical team’s responsibility.

Moreover, he covered up the case in fear of failing to win a state permit to open a university hospital. The orphaned child grows up to become a surgeon at the hospital that killed his parents.

As a doctor at Myungwoo Hospital, Han successfully wins the favor of Oh Joon-kyu, up to the point where the hospital head wants the elite surgeon to wed his daughter Oh Soo-hyun.

Han begins by secretly turning in the hospital head’s eldest son to the police for embezzlement charges. When he finally tells Oh Joon-kyu who he really is, Oh becomes extremely shocked and falls down on the floor. The old man desperately reaches out for the telephone to make an emergency call, but Han removes the phone and coldly watches him suffer.

Thanks to the heartthrob doctor’s revenge, “Doctor Stranger” hit a 10.1 percent audience rating on Tuesday, topping its rival Monday-Tuesday shows, research firm Nielsen Korea reported on Wednsday.

“Doctor Stranger” is a romantic medical drama, starring Lee Jong-suk as Park Hoon, who was kidnapped to North Korea with his medical guru father and flees to the South after losing his father and one-and-only girlfriend Song Jae-hee, played by Jin Se-yeon.

In South Korea, Lee becomes a doctor at Myungwoo Hospital, as a colleague of Oh Soo-hyun and Park Hae-jin. 

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)