[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Dr. Brain" Episode 1

Se-won (played by Lee Sun-kyun) is an autistic doctor. Maybe the right word for it is that he's on the spectrum. Sure, the early childhood scenes show Se-won undergoing tests that seem to point to autism. Also some scientist appears to be doing evil tests on his brain or something? But in practice it's hard to tell what's going on with Se-won. He comes off more as an uncommunicative jerk than someone with a neurological issue.

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Anyway, Se-won is engaged in ethical research regarding the transference of memories from animal to animal. Immediately after a single successful test with mice, Se-won decides that it's time to start doing unethical human experimentation. On himself. No explanation is given for why he's in such a hurry. The cliffhanger almost gives an explanation, yet the implication is that Se-won was driven to the task by the hallucinations caused by previous memory transfers, not that he was doing the transfers to get at this specific person's information.

Everything about the story structure in "Dr. Brain" is off. The narrative jumps between being an autism story, speculative fiction, film noir, and even horror, with little obvious impetus for the sudden genre shifts. The tone remains consistent throughout, but is incredibly dull. Lee Sun-kyun seems to think that playing an autistic character just means speaking in montone and being rude all the time.

Most of the other characters are just as bad in the rudeness department. Se-won has an entire laboratory filled with colleagues who apparently still haven't gotten used to his lack of social skills. Se-won is first approached by a detective, then actual police officers, who ask vague useless questions they can't really be bothered to explain. Very basic elements of the backstory remain unclear right until the end and are presented as if they were plot twists, and not stuff that should have been explained half an hour ago.

"Mr. Brain" is an exercise in patience. It's just about impossible to tell whether anything about the story has an actual point. The pacing is awful, and it's genuinely difficult to care about anything that happens to Se-won. I can see the webtoon roots a bit, in that several five minute portions feel like paragraphs with exclamation marks at the end- the platonic ideal of webtoon plotting. But with Lee Sun-kyun's flat performance and an uninspired soundtrack, the most important elements of a motion-based adaptation simply aren't being properly utilized.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Dr. Brain" is directed by Kim Jee-woon, written by Kim Jee-woon, Kim Jin-a, Ko Yeong-jae, and features Lee Sun-kyun, Lee Yoo-young, Park Hee-soon, Seo Ji-hye, Lee Jae-won-I, Teo Yoo. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/11/04~Now airing, on Apple TV+.