An eccentric, immature psychologist, a nurse who wears supershort shorts all the time, and Park Shin-yang (Neighborhood Lawyer Jo Deul-ho)—SBS’s Flying Trapeze sounds like a hoot! Recently, confirmation news came in that Park Shin-yang would indeed star as the “bizarre doctor with a hippo-like body,” and that SBS has put this drama on its schedule for late fall.
Flying Trapeze is based on a Japanese novel by award-winning writer Hideo Okuda that was adapted into numerous other formats: anime, television, theater. At its core is Park Shin-yang’s character, Dr. Irabu (who was played by Hiroshi Abe in the Japanese drama): He’s an irascible stubborn psychologist who challenges his own patients and loves administering injections. Keke, after Neighborhood Lawyer Jo Deul-ho, I can already imagine Park Shin-yang adapting perfectly into this oddball role.
Throughout the drama, he’ll face a variety of different cases, and by helping his patients find the source of their illness, he learns to feel happiness. I’m loving some of the descriptions of his patients already. One is a mid-level mafia boss whose knees knock in fear when he sees sharp objects. Another is a veteran acrobat who suddenly begins to fall every time he’s on the trapeze swing (he’s the one that the title refers to). And finally, we have a young doctor who feels an obsessive compulsion to rip the wig off his father-in-law’s (who also happens to be the hospital’s CEO) head.
SBS’s Flying Trapeze will air starting in November in Reunited World’s current time slot, after While You Were Sleeping ends its run.