A whole bunch of stills for MBC’s new medical drama Hospital Ship have been released, giving us our first look at the band of baby-faced doctors who go from island to island to treat its inhabitants in need of medical attention. Most of these stills feature our two leads, Ha Ji-won (The Time I’ve Loved You) and Kang Min-hyuk (Entertainer), looking hard at work in their doctor’s coats, but we also get some very pretty character shots of the rest of the main cast.
Ha Ji-won will play surgeon Song Eun-jae, a no-nonsense type who has been the breadwinner for her family since she was young. She is described as “beautiful but cold” and has a hard time empathizing with people, and dealing with emotions in general. Sounds like the various encounters with the islands’ residents is just the thing she needs to tap into her warmer side. Or maybe it’ll be her fellow doctor Kwak Hyun, played by Kang Min-hyuk, who opens her up with his “warm spirit” and superb empathetic abilities. Of course the physician’s her diametric opposite; it’s like a law in dramaland.
They’ll be joined aboard the Hospital Ship by Kim Jae-gyul, a doctor of Oriental medicine played by Lee Seo-won (The Liar and His Lover), and Cha Joon-young, a dentist who will be portrayed by theater actor Kim In-shik. Girl group AOA’s Minah rounds out the cast as the bright nurse Yoo Ah-rim. Personally, I’m just thankful that Ha Ji-won doesn’t look too mature next to the rest of the cast, or at least it’s less jarring than I feared it would be, ‘cause they’re all quite a bit younger than she is (she was born in ‘78, and the rest are all ‘90s babies). Not sure how much of that is due to them looking sufficiently grown-up enough to be doctors, or if Ha Ji-won’s actually just found the fountain of youth. How is she almost forty?!
I’m quite excited to see how this unusual moving clinic setup will turn out, since taking doctors out of the hospital might get rid of those hospital politics I have zero patience for. I’m also hoping for some heartwarming interactions between the boat-bound medics and their islander patients, and especially how they’ll melt the ice queen surgeon’s heart. MBC’s Hospital Ship will take over Man Who Dies to Live on Wednesdays and Thursdays starting August 30.
