Love Is Panacea Review

As I was about to start watching yet another drama, it was a toss-up between Love Is Panacea (治愈系恋人) and Rising With The Wind. Both were on air at the same time and I was having a hard time deciding which I should watch first. Finally, I decided to give Luo Yun Xi’s drama the priority as I was more interested in a medical-themed story than a business one which tends to be more common. However, I did have a tinge of regret as I continued watching one episode after another. You can find out why in my Love Is Panacea review below.

My rating: 7/10
Episodes: 34
Type: Romance, Medical
Aired: November 2023
Images Credit: Baidu

The Cast Of Love Is Panacea

• Leo Luo Yun Xi as Gu Yun Zheng / Dr. Gu
• Zhang Ruo Nan as Su Wei An
• Li Jia Hao as Fang Ming Fan
• Wang Yi Ting as Jiang Mu Ying
• Wang Shuo as Du Yong Song
• Shawn Wei Qian Xiang as Du Yun Cheng
• Ren Luo Min as Du Run Ze / Grandpa Du
• Yang Ping as Cui Jie
• Qian Di Di as Wen Ran
• Cui Yi as Zhao Mei Lan
• Zhao Meng Shu as Li Wan Tong

Main Characters

Gu Yun Zheng / Dr. Gu

Yun Zheng is a talented neurosurgeon and associate professor. He is a very confident man who knows his craft and has a serious attitude towards his work. He is single and his only interest is medicine although he has good looks.

Su Wei An

Wei An was a top medical student before dropping out of college. She sells Chinese alcohol in a poor foreign city. Wei An is money-minded with a determined intention to make as much as possible in a short period of time. She is smart and gutsy but can be reckless with little fear of putting her life on the line.

Supporting Characters

Fang Ming Fan

Ming Fan is a neurosurgeon who works as Yun Zheng’s assistant. He has a friendly relationship with Yun Zheng despite being his subordinate. Ming Fan is a nice and amiable guy.

Jiang Mu Ying / Jiang Jiang

Jiang Jiang is Wei An’s best friend and they went to school together. She is Wei An’s follower and loves being where her friend is.

Du Yong Song / Director Du

Du Yong Song is Yun Zheng’s father but they have a poor relationship. He is a doctor and hospital director. Du Yong Song is a hardhearted man who wants his sons to succeed in the medical field.

Du Yun Cheng

Yun Cheng is Yun Zheng’s elder half-brother but they have a distant relationship. He runs his grandfather’s pharmaceutical company called Jiehui which is also involved in drugs research. Yun Cheng was also Wei An’s senior at university.

Du Run Ze / Grandpa Du

Grandpa Du is Yun Zheng and Yun Cheng’s paternal grandfather. He dotes on Yun Zheng but doesn’t have as much affections for Yun Cheng and his mother.

Cui Jie

Cui Jie is Yun Cheng’s mother and Du Yong Song’s current wife.

Wen Ran

Wen Ran is Wei An’s ex-dorm mate and a doctor in the neurological department who is working in the same hospital as Yun Zheng. They used to study the same course at university. Her father is Professor Wen who is a respected doctor and researcher. Wen Ran is a hypocrite who is in love with Yun Cheng.

Zhao Mei Lan

Mei Lan is Wei An’s mother. She is a cheerful middle aged woman who is looking forward to her daughter having a boyfriend. She is a widow after her husband died in an accident.

Li Wan Tong

Wan Tong is a psychologist who has just returned from abroad to take up work at the same hospital as Yun Zheng. She is a very straightforward woman who becomes attracted to Yun Zheng at first sight.

Synopsis

Wei An is a Chinese national who is trying to make a fast buck selling alcohol in the dangerous city of Lacaya. She bumps into Yun Zheng who is a neurosurgeon on a short-term mission to impart his knowledge to the local doctors. Yun Zheng sees Wei An as an immoral opportunist and doesn’t have a good impression on her initially. But Wei An is actually a medical dropout who used to be Yun Zheng’s student.

After a few incidents, Yun Zheng begins to fall for Wei An. However, she has no interest to pursue a romantic relationship with him. Her behavior and readiness to sacrifice her life for others also make Yun Zheng suspicious of her true motivation. Wei An has a secret she is unwilling to share with others and that is she is genetically predisposed to Huntington’s Disease. This is a rare illness for which the cure is still under research. Hence, Wei An is prepared to have a short life and making money becomes her form of escape.

Wei An’s disease becomes an obstacle with her own growing feelings for Yun Zheng. So, she leaves Lacaya without telling him. When he finds her back in their home city, he still has no clue why she left him. Will Wei An finds the courage to open up to Yun Zheng?

Love Is Panacea Ending & Recap (Spoilers Alert!)

Love Is Panacea has a bittersweet ending. Wei An decides to be the first tester for the clinical drug she has a hand in developing together with Yun Zheng in Episode 33. Her Huntington’s Disease symptoms have started surfacing by then. Yun Zheng agrees with a heavy heart and also proposes to her. They have their wedding in Episode 34.

Many years later, Yun Zheng is giving a talk on the drug that he and his team have developed. The drug have passed all clinical trials and can now be marketed. Among the guests, a seat is reserved for Wei An but it is empty. After Yun Zheng has completed his speech, Wei An appears in his sight. She is smiling with light in the background. The scene then shifts to a beach where Yun Zheng is playing with his son. There is only 2 of them as his son gives a short narration that his parents are Yun Zheng and Wei An before the drama ends. The last few minutes imply that Wei An has died from her illness.

When Did The Leads Get Together?

Yun Zheng first kisses Wei An out of jealousy in Episode 6. He tries to express his feelings for her in Episode 7 but gets rejected as she thought she could join a clinical trial for her disease in Paris. However, she decides to remain in Lacaya when she learns that the research has been halted.

Yun Zheng confesses to Wei An again and asks her to be his girlfriend in Episode 9. She replies that she needs time to think about his request. They spend the night together during a camping trip in Episode 10 but she leaves Lacaya without telling him in Episode 11. Wei An is resistant to the idea of starting a relationship with Yun Zheng after she learned that her aunt has been diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease.

They meet again in Episode 14 in their home city but Wei An is cold towards Yun Zheng and consistently rejects him. But Yun Zheng continues to be persistent even after he found out that Wei An is genetically susceptible to Huntington’s Disease. In Episode 21, he tells her that he won’t force her to make a decision but that he will always be there for her.

They start dating in Episode 22 after an infectious disease broke out in a hospital wing and Yun Zheng is feared to have been infected. Wei An regrets not being with Yun Zheng when she had the chance and fears losing him then. She moves into his apartment in Episode 24 when she needs to prepare for an exam to become a research assistant in Yun Zheng’s lab under the hospital management.

When Did Others Know About Wei An’s Condition?

Jiang Jiang knows about Wei An’s condition in Episode 11. This is after she saw Yun Zheng’s suspicions about Wei An’s health. Jiang Jiang then went through Wei An’s belongings and found the test report. But she keeps it a secret on Wei An’s request.

Yun Zheng’s suspicions is further heightened in Episode 15 when Wei An’s paternal aunt is admitted to hospital and he learns that she is a Huntington’s Disease sufferer. However, Yun Zheng has no confirmation until Episode 19 when he bumps into Dr. Eliot at a medical conference. Dr. Eliot was the doctor who wanted to bring Wei An to Paris and knows about her condition.

In Episode 29, it is revealed that Wei An’s mother already knew about her daughter’s condition shortly after her husband’s death. She only pretends not to know and puts on a happy face since Wei An wants to keep it to herself.

Is There A Love Triangle?

Yun Cheng also has feelings for Wei An. In fact, he publicly confessed to her while they were in university but got turned down after which she dropped out of college to go abroad. When they meet again because of her aunt’s condition, Yun Cheng helps her a lot with the hope of gaining her affections especially after he broke up with Wen Ran in Episode 15. He and Yun Zheng are competing for Wei An’s love all along.

When Wei An seems to be getting attached to Yun Zheng, Yun Cheng confesses his feelings to her in Episode 24. But she turns him down. Wei An also tells Yun Cheng that she is already with Yun Zheng then and that she only regards him as her senior.

Li Wan Tong is also attracted to Yun Zheng and thinks that he has good genes that will be a perfect match with hers. She blatant pursues him but gets turned down each time. Li Wan Tong has a new target after meeting Dr. Eliot and gives up on Yun Zheng in Episode 19.

Is There Any Breakup?

There is no breakup between Yun Zheng and Wei An after they officially got together as a couple. There is only a disagreement in Episode 28 when Yun Zheng wants to switch his research project from glioma to Huntington’s Disease. Wei An fears that Yun Zheng may be blinded by love and that he could obtain higher achievement in his career with his glioma project. But Yun Zheng already has a clear plan on what he wants to do. The couple resolve their differences after talking things over.

Yun Cheng & Wen Ran

Yun Cheng and Wen Ran have been together for about 2 to 3 years. His mother is also pushing for the relationship to succeed due to Wen Ran’s family background. After Wei An returned from Lacaya, she gets in touch with Yun Cheng as she needs his help to admit her aunt into the clinical trial for Huntington’s Disease in Episode 12. Wen Ran becomes jealous and creates problems for Wei An.

This prompts Yun Cheng to ask for a breakup in Episode 15. In Episode 17, Wen Ran realizes that Yun Cheng already knew about Wei An’s condition much earlier which was why he invested in her father’s research into a cure for Huntington’s Disease. But Wei An doesn’t want a break up which forces Yun Cheng to reiterate his stand in Episode 18. He tells Wen Ran that he has never loved her. He got together with her because she threatened him into it in exchange for introducing him to her father for the research.

Yun Cheng hires Wen Ran to work in Jiehui in Episode 25 after she was fired from the hospital for plagiarizing Wei An’s work in the past. This is because Yun Cheng’s Huntington’s Disease drug project is at risk of failure and he needs her help. Wen Ran refuses to listen to her father not to trust Yun Cheng who has become increasingly reckless in trying to outdo Yun Zheng by resorting to criminal means to push the drug research forward. His excuse is he is doing it for Wei An in Episode 27.

Wen Ran finally realizes the extent of Yun Cheng’s criminal behavior in Episode 33 after overhearing his conversation with his assistant. She betrays him after talking to Wei An which got him arrested in Episode 34.

Why Yun Zheng Hates His Father

In Episode 29, Yun Zheng reveals his past to Wei An. His mother, Gu Xing Chen, died in an accident while working in Lacaya when he was 8. His father remarried. When his stepmother, Cui Jie, and her son, Yun Cheng, moved in, he went to live with his grandfather. His father told him that his mother had abandoned him which he found out to be a lie.

Among his late mother’s belongings which were passed over to him by her ex-colleague is a picture of his father, Cui Jie, and Yun Cheng. Du Yong Song had a relationship with Cui Jie before breaking up with her to marry Gu Xing Chen. This is because Gu Xing Chen shared the same social status as the Du family. But Cui Jie was pregnant by then and refused to abort the baby. When Du Yong Song couldn’t get a divorce from Gu Xing Chen after a few years, Cui Jie sent the family photo to her. Gu Xing Chen died in an accident after receiving the picture and learning of her husband’s affair.

Yun Cheng hears about this from Yun Zheng when he is arrested by the police in Episode 34 and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He realizes he is always unfavored by his grandfather and father because he was a tool in his mother’s scheme to marry into the Du family. In the end, Yun Cheng rather serves his sentence and rejects his mother’s offer to hire him an attorney. Cui Jie decides to leave Du Yong Song thereafter.

Du Yong Song tries to get back on good terms with Yun Zheng but the latter wouldn’t accept him back as his father. Yun Zheng also refuses to invite him to his wedding which leaves him disappointed and alone.

Second Couple

Ming Fan is attracted to Jiang Jiang the moment he met her. But she doesn’t see him as a potential suitor until she kisses him during a party in Episode 6 to avoid an unwanted advance by another man. Their ambiguous relationship turns serious in Episode 12 when she agrees to be Ming Fan’s girlfriend upon his request. Jiang Jiang wants to move into Ming Fan’s apartment and tells him so in Episode 24. They remain a loving couple all the way to the end of the drama.

Love Is Panacea Review – Good Story But Lacks Direction

Love Is Panacea is a little bit hard to review for me. This is because I like the story of a young woman who is a gene carrier of an incurable disease and she knows her physical movements and mental faculties will degenerate in the near future. It could have been a very moving drama with heart-wrenching scenes and a man’s undying love for her. But nope, that is not the direction of this production. Instead, the focus is on her rejection of the man who is pursuing her due to her health condition for more than half of the drama, and all the annoying characters with their unethical behaviors.

So, it will be good for those who don’t like tearjerkers. While the premise of the story may seem melancholic since we are dealing with sickness and death, you don’t need any tissues for this one as it is not a melodrama like South Wind Knows. On the other hand, it takes away the emotional aspects of the story that it becomes just another romance drama with jealous third parties and some drug research thrown in. Hence, I feel that this story could have been much better presented. Somehow, it didn’t reach its full potential to me which is a pity given the cast.

Annoying Characters

One thing you have to be prepared for when watching Love Is Panacea is the annoying characters with their thick face and jealousies. You have one who is blatantly pursuing the male lead because she is attracted to his great genes which is a perfect match for her own. It isn’t funny to watch despite the obvious exaggeration. The good thing is she is discarded from the drama once she has served the purpose of making the female lead jealous.

The other third party is full of toxicity with her jealousy towards the female lead. This kind of character used to be common (or maybe still is) in romance dramas whereby they will resort to dirty tricks to get back at the female lead for “stealing” her man. Basically, she is just irritating, petty, and childish in the drama that it is exasperating to watch.

Finally, the male villain is that typical jealous sibling who thinks everyone favors his brother over him. He is tolerable but there is nothing refreshing about this kind of character either. There is also not enough depth to his story to make him stand out as a villainous character. Overall, all these annoying characters become a significant part of the drama that the main theme of being a Huntington’s Disease gene carrier seems to have been lost at times.

Rushed Ending (Spoilers Alert!)

Personally, I find that the last episode is a little rushed. There is a lot to tie up towards the end. There are some fillers in the last few episodes which I think could have been cut down to give a more comprehensive end to the story. The way the villain is taken down is anti-climatic and simplistic. There is a time jump towards the end that viewers are not shown how the female lead battles her disease. There is only an implied understanding that she died which I guess is still better than Bright Eyes In The Dark whereby we are not given any real clue if the lead is alive or dead.

This time jump also minimizes the sadness over her inevitable ending. There are no depressive scenes to make us cry over her deteriorating condition and her eventual passing. Instead, the scriptwriter ended the drama on a positive note which is good for those who hate sad endings. But I think lengthening that last episode to give us some insights into her life after marriage and her courageous fight as the first subject in the clinical trial would be good. After all, it is a drama that uses Huntington’s Disease as its core theme. Unfortunately, we don’t have that. The time lapse ending is clean and simple but falls short in moving our emotions for a story of this genre.

Acting & Chemistry

I’m pretty sure that many are watching Love Is Panacea because of Luo Yun Xi. It is certainly good to catch him again after Till The End Of The Moon. He is a very experienced actor by now and hence, there is little to complain about his acting overall. As a neurosurgeon in Love Is Panacea, he can still turn on the charms effortlessly whether he is looking dead serious as a doctor or mushy as a lover. He simply appears natural in the role.

Zhang Ruo Nan is getting better and better to me. She fits the role of Wei An and you can sense her will and stubbornness to push love away because of her genetic condition. There are no over the top expressions despite the character’s emotional burden. The crying scenes are just right without them being under or overdone.

The chemistry between Luo Yun Xi and Zhang Ruo Nan is not too apparent at the beginning to me but gets better as the drama progresses. By the end of the drama, I think I wouldn’t mind watching this pair again in another project. Comparison will still be made with Bai Lu as Luo Yun Xi has great chemistry with her in Love Is Sweet and Till The End Of The Moon. The feeling is different with Zhang Ruo Nan but I can feel that they do bring out a lot of tenderness in their scenes together.

My Verdict – Decent But Nothing Outstanding

Overall, I would say that Love Is Panacea is a decent drama. There is nothing outstanding about it as the script fails to capture the essence of the story to me. It is not a medical drama despite having an incurable disease as its main theme. So, there are no realistic surgical scenes or the tension of saving lives. It is more of a romance drama and the process of falling in love, being pursued, and dating for a woman who always has this big issue of an incurable disease hanging over her head.

The problem though is that the romance isn’t exactly great or emotionally moving despite her condition. And forget about the kisses because they are worse than the ones in A Date With The Future which is already sorely lacking in passion. I guess you can say the kisses are the tender kind. Just don’t expect much because all you will get is just their lips touching. It is a little awkward to me for a romance drama like this one when there should be much more urgency and passion given their time together may be short.

So, for this Love Is Panacea review, I would give it a score of 7/10. It could have been a story with much more depth and soul. But with a so-so romance and significant side plots of jealousies and unethical drug research, the story loses substance. But it is still a decent watch with good acting from the cast. The Huntington’s Disease angle is also something different for a C-drama and that is probably worth a look as well.