Daily Dose of Sunshine Review: The Vulnerability of Being Human

I’d never been a big fan of hospital dramas until I started watching J- and K-dramas. It was through The Good Doctor (KBS2, 2013), Hospital Playlist (tvN, 2020-2021), Life (jTBC, 2018), and so many others that I developed an appreciation for medical shows.

But the human mind is something that has always fascinated me — especially since I’ve had first-hand experience with a few mental illnesses. I’ve seen and felt how people can suffer because of something invisible to the eye and not easily curable with surgeries or pills.

When Daily Dose of Sunshine popped up in my “New and Popular” list on Netflix, I was thrilled. A show about a psychiatric yard? That’s not something that you hear about every day. I counted down the days until its release — November 3rd, 2023 — and, after crying, laughing, and squealing through its marvellous 12 episodes, I can tell you: it not only met but surpassed every single one of my expectations.

Is Daily Dose of Sunshine one of my favourite shows now? You bet.

But Daily Dose of Sunshine is far from being just one of my favourites. It was nominated for three Baeksang Arts Awards this year (Best Drama, Best New Actress, and Best Screenplay). And just last week, it was awarded Best Drama and Best Actress (the eternally adorable Park Bo-young) at the 3rd Blue Dragon Series Awards.

This review contains some spoilers. Read it at your own risk. You can also pin our (spoiler-free) summary at the bottom!

Where Does Netflix’s Daily Dose of Sunshine Come From?

Daily Dose of Sunshine (or literal title, “Morning Comes to Psychiatric Wards Too”) is based on a Kakao webtoon of the same name (I couldn’t find any official translations in English) by Lee Ra-ha, a former psychiatric nurse herself who created the story based on her real-life experience working at a hospital.

Created for Netflix and directed by Lee Jae-kyu of All Of Us Are Dead fame, the show tells the tale of Jung Da-eun (Park Bo-young), a young and kind nurse who decides to transfer from the internal medicine department to the neuropsychiatry ward of the hospital where she works. As the story progresses, you get to see her grow and adapt to her new role as well as follow the lives of the nurses, doctors, and friends that surround her.

The Overall Structure of The Script

The beauty of Daily Dose of Sunshine resides in its ability to make us connect and relate with all its characters. At first, it makes you believe that this is an episodic tale. We meet patient after patient, and they are all shown through Nurse Jung’s eyes. We see her as a neurotypical, healthy young professional, trying to understand them, empathise with them, and share their pain — and that ties us to both her and the patient. Of course, if you’re a working mom, a struggling student, or an unemployed young woman/man, you will automatically see yourself in certain characters too. They are portrayed so realistically, so beautifully, and in such a raw way, that it’s almost impossible not to put yourself in their shoes or recognise yourself in their struggles.

But, as the story progresses, you realise that this isn’t an episodic show. Just like the illness we are talking about, an invisible thread links all episodes and establishes a fantastic arc that represents, visually, how we are all susceptible to mental illnesses, and yet, we all carry (consciously or unconsciously) a social stigma that is still very much around.

The story clearly defends the idea that mental illnesses are part of everyday life and can affect anyone, at any time. Being the positive, uplifting tale that it is, it says that, most importantly, they can be treated and cured. It’s okay. You’ll be fine. However, doctors can also make wrong judgments, and some conditions are particularly tricky. Halfway through our journey, tragedy strikes, and Nurse Jung suddenly isn’t the person we got to know in the first six episodes.

How to Completely Capsize a Script: How Daily Dose of Sunshine Turns Its Story Upside Down

Cinematic magic happens right here: that bubbly, empathetic perspective disappears, and we’re now looking at the world through the eyes of a person with depression. Nurse Jung’s family, friends, and colleagues both fail to notice or mismanage the situation. The famous “she just needs time,” “there’s nothing wrong with her,” “get yourself together” — all those clichés keep popping up here and there until she’s taken to a hospital.

Nurse Jung is now Patient Jung, and that compassion that guided the beginning of the story is twisted and turns into denial. Aptly foreshadowed in the very first episode, we now see that one might be as understanding as one wants to be, but a mental illness still carries a stigma. A psychiatric nurse can’t be a psychiatric patient, can she?

Park Bo-young finally gets the space she needs to make her performance shine, distancing herself from her usual acting range and really showing how far her talent can go. Her performance, alongside a script that truly pulls us into the plot and makes us the main character, brings pain and frustration as we now experience first-hand what she only witnessed from the outside during the first half of the show.

How the Visuals Help Drive the Point Home

The hospital she’s treated at isn’t as colourful as the one she works at, a very clear visual cue to the difference in perspective from nurse to patient. Even better, it’s beautiful to see, as Nurse Jung accepts her situation and gets treated, how the cold tones of the rooms around her become progressively warmer — until she regains her health and actually sees the world the way it is.

Actually, this show is great at representing that internal struggle that arises from a mental condition visually. VFX is used very, very well throughout the story — and gives colours and shapes to things that cannot be seen but are undeniably felt.

Let’s say that the plot really covers an entire day: we start in daylight, following the warm-hearted tale of a dedicated nurse. Then, we get to the dark night, in which we feel the difficult everyday fight of a mentally ill patient. Finally, we reach sunrise again: Nurse Jung needs to come to terms with her condition and re-integrate herself into society. The stigma we mentioned before is here once again, but this time, it doesn’t come from Nurse Jung but from the world around her. She’s now the target of that stigma that she once unconsciously carried. Once again, the show deals with it in a heartwarming, inspiring way, one that made me cry like a little baby.

Beyond Nurse Jung: How Every Single Character Matters

Even though the heart of this show is Nurse Jung and her journey, there’s so much more to it. The Myungshin University Hospital Psychiatry Unit is composed of a fantastic group of characters that give life to the story. Their professional relationship is touching — you can’t help but think to yourself, “That’s exactly how a workplace should be”.

The legendary Lee Jung-eun plays the wonderful Song Hyo-jin, the head of the department who is a sort of “work mom” for her juniors. Jeon Bae-su plays the caregiver Yoon Man-Cheon, the one “all paths lead to” — he’s the one character you cannot help but fall in love with. Lee Yi-dam’s Nurse Min Deul-Re probably carries the heaviest subplot in the Daily Dose of Sunshine universe. She’s the “opposite” of Nurse Jung, and it’s lovely to see how the two of them make the other see things they had never considered before.

Another supporting character that deserves a mention here is Kim Seo-wan (Noh Jae-won), Nurse Jung’s patient, who plays a much bigger part in this tale than we initially expected. The relationship they develop is pure, loving, and respectful. The bond between them goes beyond words, and how they change each other’s fate is another thought-provoking aspect of this script. Jae-won plays a very difficult role here with such charisma that Seo-wan becomes a fan-favourite character as a matter of course.

What About the Romance in Daily Dose of Sunshine?

There’s also a tad of romance to the story that gives it an extra charm. Although they toy with the idea of making the childhood friend, Song Yu-chan (Jang Dong-yoon), the potential romantic partner of the lead, that love triangle doesn’t really carry much weight. His feelings don’t affect the main lead at all. His character here reminded me of Jang Dong-yoon’s role in A Poem a Day (if you haven’t watched it, what are you waiting for?), but he’s a million times more mature here. Yu-chan has his own struggles, which are very well portrayed by Dong-yoon, and his storyline is strong enough on its own even if you take the romantic aspect away.

Dr Dong and Nurse Jung

Our lovely lead is wooed by the equally (if not even more) lovely Dr Dong Go-yun, one of Yeon Woo-jin’s best roles in the past few years, in my humble opinion. His Dr Dong is adorable and funny, and sets a decent example of a male lead. He also has his own problems and questions, but it’s just so charming to see how he falls head over heels in love with Nurse Jung, how he respects her boundaries, and how he tries to help without trying to be a “heaven-sent saviour”.

At the end of the day, Dr Dong is the most empathetic and understanding of them all. He sees and accepts people just as they are, and he, first and foremost, wants to help them heal. Their romantic tale, with its ups and downs, leads to one of the best scenes of the show in episode 10.

A Healthy Relationship: Dr Yeo-hwan and Nurse Min

You are going to find an incredibly healthy example of a romantic relationship between Nurse Min and the psychiatrist Dr Hwang Yeo-hwan (Chang Ryul). Sweet and gentlemanly, he’s crazy in love with a girl who doesn’t let herself be loved because of her distorted sense of self. He sees that, supports her, and guides her towards, let’s say, “recovery” too. Most importantly, he pushes her into a journey of self-discovery, self-love, and self-respect, which leads to Nurse Min embracing who she really is and becoming truly independent.

Lee Yi-dam plays the role of Nurse Min with such grace that she was nominated for Best New Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards. That comes as no surprise: she did an exceptional job here.

The Magic of Daily Dose of Sunshine

There are a couple of dramatic beats to the story, but worry not, the story never becomes overly melodramatic. They never throw a pity party for anyone, and they don’t romanticise mental illness. Not at all. The combination of an excellent script, skilful directing, and powerful performances makes this story feel alive and real. Healing, spellbinding, and thought-provoking, Daily Dose of Sunshine inevitably gets under your skin.

If you let it, Daily Dose of Sunshine can change and soothe you. It makes us question ourselves and develop a more discerning eye towards the world around us. More importantly, it makes us think about a topic that, despite being much more present now than it was in the past, is still not talked about enough. A must-watch for anyone who wants to let go of their own prejudices and understand mental illnesses a bit better. Or anyone who likes a good, solid story, really.

You can watch Daily Dose of Sunshine on:

No time to read the entire review? Looking for the spoiler-free version? So why don’t you pin our summary? Just click it to pin it!

You can click here for a complete list of the winners of the 3rd Blue Dragon Series Awards. And below, you can watch Park Bo-young’s moving acceptance speech. Besides thanking the director and cast, she adds at the end, in proper Nurse Jung fashion:

If there is anyone who is spending a really dark and long night, I hope that you don’t get too worn out, hang in there to the end, and see the morning.^[1]

Have you watched Netflix’s Daily Dose of Sunshine? Share your ideas in the comments!