Morally opinionated and emotional story with huge pacing issues

When it comes to the effects of terminal illnesses on patients and modern-day medical research, I haven't seen a lot of C-dramas exploring them in depth. Love is Panacea is a drama that attempts to bring attention to these niche topics by framing them around our main character's story. It tells us the importance of persistence and ethics in medical research and gives hope for the future with a realistic the process of "curing the incurable".

To give an introduction for Huntington's disease, it is a real-life rare neurodegenerative disease with no cure worldwide. People with HD develop uncontrollable "dancelike" body movements and may form problems with behavior, emotion, thinking, and personality. As of 2023, there are multiple promising research efforts into CRISPER, a technique to target disrupted genes, to develop a cure.

At the beginning of the drama, Su Wei An was an aspiring doctor when she found out she had Huntington's. She lost purpose in her life, started to live recklessly with low regard for her wellbeing, and developed a penchant for running away from her problems. We see how meeting Gu Yu Zheng slowly changes her: from persuading her to be in a relationship with him, to encouraging her to become a medial research assistant, to bravely facing the future side-by-side while developing a cure for Huntington's.

Su Wei An's feeling of hopelessness is extremely understandable: she lives with daily disappointment . That's why Gu Yun Zheng is even more impactful: he is persistent, sometimes even overly so, in pursuing what he wants. He was insistent on finding Su Wei An and asking about the reason for her disappearance. His willingness to give up academic prestige and change the direction from glioma, a well-funded and supported topic, to Huntington's, a little-known and difficult topic, is not something anyone is willing to do. His character relays an important message: no matter what struggles we face, never give up hope.

This extends into the way he approaches medical research, which is systematic and thorough, a direct contrast to people such as Du Yun Cheng, Wen Ran, or He Xiao Guang, who are willing to take shortcuts. We see them taking credit for other people's work and conducting careless medical trials leading to issues further down the road, such as table deaths.

Our main character, on the other hand, approaches problems without being underhanded. Both he and Su Wei An are extremely ethical scientists who stress the importance of following a process for research and development and ensuring public safety when treading unknown waters. I personally thought a strong characteristic of this drama, besides its expressive cast, was its portrayal of scientific development and the researchers' roles in progressing it forward. It provides a realistic depiction of the amount of time, effort, and dedication required to prove a small amount of progress (for example, Su Wei An proving that HDQ39 was not suitable for patients with hypertension). The cure developed by our two leads took more than 6 years of research and experimentation. These are seemingly small results in the sense that they yield very little return for the researchers.

Despite strong thematical messages and a compelling performance by most of the characters (Luo Yun Xi especially), this drama has its fair share of problems. The first few episodes in Lacaya were difficult to take seriously because of the poorly-done overdubbing and the ridiculous medical cases, to the point that I considered dropping the drama. Later, some of the villains were a bit too over-the-top and the portrayal of medical parts (surgical operations, medical equipment) were unrealistic and glossed over. Despite these issues, things progressed a lot smoother when they returned to China. There was more candy than sour grapes and I became more invested in the characters, so it became a more addictive watch.

The side characters, especially Su Wei An's mother (played by Cui Yi) and the second lead couple had great backstories, each providing a unique perspective on their lives without overshadowing the main couple or the main discussion topic. They provided the facets of people with their own concerns: medical assistant with a fear of surgical operations due to a table death, a girl who doesn't have a goal in life, and a mom who always smiles to provide stability for her family. These small stories touched my heart, especially the mom's.

The ending was exactly what we'd dreaded but ended on a realistic note with the hope that the researchers' long years of work could finally bear fruit and treat thousands of people in the future. As such, I am happy to give this an 8.5. Despite the issues, the actors' performances and the drama's high-level ideas struck a chord, and the drama itself brings attention to the researchers around the world working hard to develop cures against all odds. If someone told that "love is panacea" within the context of this story, I would believe it.

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