# Doctor Prisoner (2019)

> A wrongfully ousted surgeon takes a job inside a prison and cultivates its powerful inmates to take revenge on the hospital that expelled him.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/74052

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 32
- Episode runtime: 35 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, thriller
- Created by: Park Kye-ok
- Network: KBS2
- Cast: Namkoong Min, Kwon Na-ra, Kim Byong-chul, Choi Won-young, Park Eun-seok, Lee Da-in, Lee Min-young, Lee Jun-hyeok
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9863766/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, calculating, cold, intense

## What critics say

Reviewers broadly found the single season a tense, well-acted revenge drama, though its plotting was seen as uneven at times.

## Synopsis

Doctor Prisoner is a South Korean KBS2 drama that aired in 2019 as a single season of 32 episodes. Na Yi-je, a gifted surgeon, is wrongfully accused of malpractice at a university hospital and cast out of the profession he built his identity around. Rather than rebuild quietly, he takes a post inside a prison, where he sets out to win the trust of its most powerful inmates and officials. His goal is singular: revenge on the hospital that discarded him. Each episode is built from scheming, negotiation and quiet manipulation as he trades favors, exposes lies and tests allies against rivals in a fight for influence. The story moves between two worlds, the walls of a prison and the corridors of a hospital, and both are shown as places where reputation, money and fear determine who survives. The tone is tense, cold and calculating, driven by corruption, betrayal and the cost of ambition. Viewers who enjoy patient, intricate plotting, moral ambiguity and the strategic reversals of revenge thrillers will find much to engage with here.

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