Faith (South Korean TV series)


Faith is a 2012 South Korean television drama broadcast by SBS from August 13 to October 30, 2012, on Mondays and Tuesdays at 21:55 time slot for 24 episodes. It is about a modern-day plastic surgeon, who is kidnapped and travels back in time to the Goryeo period, 700 years in the past. There, she falls in love with her kidnapper, a warrior who is the leader of the royal guard.

Title

The title Sin-ui, can mean faith, as in belief in justice. The Hanja means Divine Doctor, but in Hangul it also means divine healer or great doctor.

Synopsis

After King Gongmin of Goryeo marries the Yuan princess Noguk, they return to Goryeo. On the way, they are attacked and the queen is fatally injured. According to the advice of his royal advisor, the king orders royal bodyguard Choi Young to pass through a mystical portal and find the "heaven's doctor". Choi Young travels to the future and brings back Yoo Eun-soo, a modern-day doctor from Seoul, who saves the queen's life. He makes a promise that he will return her to her world, but the scheming royal advisor persuades King Gongmin to force Eun-soo to stay as she can be useful to him.
As Eun-soo accustoms herself to her new surroundings, gradually she and Choi Young fall in love with each other. But problems arise as others become fascinated with her as the "Heaven's doctor", and Eun-soo becomes a pawn in the political power plays between King Gongmin, the Yuan overlords, the sociopathic nobleman Ki-chul and Prince Deok-seung, King Gongmin's uncle. Constantly risking his life, Choi Young thwarts numerous attempts by Ki-chul and Deok-seung to kidnap and possess Eun-soo, which almost resulted in the death of the king and queen.
Choi Young brings Eun-soo to the portal before it closes so that she can travel back and bid farewell to her loved ones and join Choi Young permanently. Ki-chul attacked them and Choi Young suffers a life-threatening wound. Ki-chul then drags Eun-soo to the portal, and Eun-soo enters it hoping to save him by gathering medical supplies from the future. When she passes through the portal again, she finds herself in an era a hundred years before Choi Young's time. There, she spends a few years waiting for the portal to open again, while leaving hints for her future self. One day, "heaven's gate" opens again and Eun-soo enters, only to find herself again back in modern-day Seoul. She re-enters the portal and travels to the time period five years after she left Choi Young, a time during which he has brilliantly won a number of military battles and reclaimed lands of Goryeo. Finally, she and Choi Young reunite.

Cast

Main

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Ratings

In this table, represent the lowest ratings and represent the highest ratings.

Production and trivia

"Faith" was '90s drama queen Kim Hee-sun's comeback project, her first TV appearance in five years after her marriage and childbirth.
The production of "Faith" was riddled with problems. The initial budget was 10 billion won but the series got its budget slashed, and was pushed back multiple times because of the leading actor.
The drama was announced in 2009 with Lee Joon-gi as a main lead. However, the actor had to be replaced because he was drafted in the army. Born in 1982, Lee would normally have time to enlist until the end of 2010 but he received his papers early, shortly after beginning his new film project. This forced him to drop "Faith", as well as his horse-racing movie Grand Prix, which had already begun shooting. Lee had tried to postpone enlistment to finish these two projects by the end of the year, but was unable to do so.
He was replaced by Kang Ji-hwan who, however, had to withdraw after a request by the Entertainment Management Association because of his ongoing contract dispute and legal fight with his former and current management companies. The antagonist, Kim Seung-soo, also left, with the majority of the original cast at that time. This was a severe blow to the budget, as 10 million won had reportedly been spent on promotion with Kang as the lead.
Actors like Oh Ji-ho and Lee Sang-yoon were considered for the main role, before finally deciding for Lee Min-ho. It seems that at that time the story itself was rewritten to some extent. A released trailer with Kang Ji-hwan showed a different atmosphere, much darker, more epic and dramatic than what was finally filmed.
Filming for "Faith" began on May 24, 2012 and it aired from August 13 to October 30, 2012. The ratings were mediocre but rarely dropped below 10%.
On October 19, a little before the end, the news was published that Lee Phillip, sustained an eye injury and had to pull out of the drama. The injury did not arise during drama filming, but because he was scheduled for surgery next week he wouldn't be able to continue shooting. Many viewers agreed that "It's too bad that he leaves so close to the drama's finale without getting to be a part of it. On the other hand, it's both fortunate for the drama and a damn shame for him that he's barely a presence in the show to begin with, despite the setup hinting at a much meatier role".
The writer Song Ji-na uploaded the original script on her website and it was obvious that there were considerable changes in the final product, some of them because of lack of money. However, Faith had financial problems almost from its start and they didn't finish after the drama wrapped. Six months after the end of its airing, many of the cast and crew of that drama had not been paid. The acting, editing, and producing salaries which hadn't been paid amounted to 1.7 billion won. Drama producer and direction Kim Jong-hak, whose credits include Eyes of Dawn, Sandglass, Daemang and Legend, was accused of double-contracting the Faith OST rights in the fall of 2012 became the subject of a police investigation for embezzlement and breach of trust. Kim was sued in February 2013 under the charge that he had embezzled 2 billion for personal use and summoned by police for ongoing investigation. He took his own life on July 23, 2013, by carbon dioxide, in a gositel room. This tragic death and many of the "ills" of Korean dramas have been attributed to the outsourcing of production to independent companies which struggle to cover the exorbitant cost of writers and stars.

Awards and nominations

International broadcast

Due to the pan-Asian popularity of lead actor Lee Min-ho, Faith was sold to 6 Asian countries including Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, with 90% of the total pre-sales amount of coming from Japan.