Iryû: Team Medical Dragon 

Ryutaro Asada, a renegade but brilliant surgeon, was being framed for a misdiagnosis and let go by the North Japanese Hospital. He went into exile and lived in a seaside shack when he was ... See full summary »

Stars:

Kenji Sakaguchi, Teppei Koike, Sadao Abe

Cast

Series cast summary:
Kenji Sakaguchi	...	Asada Ryutaro / ... 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Teppei Koike	...	Noboru ijuin / ... 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Sadao Abe	...	Arase Monji / ... 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Tetsuhiro Ikeda	...	Kihara Takehiko 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Ittoku Kishibe	...	Noguchi Keno 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Kuranosuke Sasaki	...	Fujiyoshi Keisuke 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Mari Natsuki	...	Kito Shoko 43 episodes, 2006-2014
Izumi Inamori	...	Aki kato / ... 34 episodes, 2006-2014
Asami Mizukawa	...	Satohara Miki / ... 23 episodes, 2006-2014
Kazuki Kitamura	...	Kirishima Gunji 22 episodes, 2006-2007

Storyline

Ryutaro Asada, a renegade but brilliant surgeon, was being framed for a misdiagnosis and let go by the North Japanese Hospital. He went into exile and lived in a seaside shack when he was visited by Akira Kato, assistant professor of the Faculty of Cardiac Surgery at Meishin University Medical Hospital. Despite being a female doctor, Akira managed to become an assistant professor. She was ambitious and set her goal to be promoted to full professor by succeeding in a surgery using the Batista technique - an extremely difficult type of heart surgery - and to write a paper on it. A year ago, Akira witnessed Ryutaro's skills when he was an NGO doctor and was impressed enough to seek his assistance in the Batista technique. This drama exposed the difficulties encountered in the rigid Japanese medical professions in treating patients whereby decisions made were based more on protecting the hospitals than the patients.

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Plot Keywords:

latex glove | surgical scrubs | surgical mask | surgical gown | surgery | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

13 April 2006 (Japan)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

User Reviews

One of the Best Medical Drama from Asia

Based on a comic by Akira Nagai, and Sakataro Nogi, "Iryu - Team Medical Dragon" is a story about Ryutaro Asada who has stupendous talent when it comes to performing difficult surgeries, and a team of technical staff that supports him during those procedures. So far three seasons has been aired, and a fourth is scheduled to air in 2014.

Ryutaro Asada ( Kenji Sakaguchi ) is a surgeon who used work as a volunteer field surgeon ( MSAP ) in war torn countries. Him and his team was known as Team Medical Dragon for their superior surgical skills. Shortly after returning to Japan, Asada gets recruited by doctor Akira Kato ( Izumi Morimura ) who've heard about Asada at the field hospital during the war. She recruits him to be the first surgeon in Japan to perform a difficult heart surgery know as the Batista procedure. Kato is an ambitious assistant professor who's vying for professorship at Meishin University Hospital. Her plan is to use Asada's talent to gain her professorship at the hospital. First he's not interested, but as the situation progress, he changes his mind and joins Meishin University Hospital. There he meets the head of surgery Dr. Takeo Noguchi ( Ittoku Kishibe ). Noguchi rules his department with his cunning and an iron hand. From the start Asada who's interest is saving patient's life, and Noguchi who's politically motivated to uphold the hospital's reputation don't see eye to eye. There's all sorts of amoral practice going on at the hospital such as trying experimental drugs on late stage cancer patient without telling the family about its side effects. Asada is not interested in these practices, and starts to find similar minded comrades who's not seen as promotable material within the hospital. This crew of similar minded staff becomes Asada's first team at the Meishin hospital.

The talent gathered in making this drama succeeded in making it one of the best medical themed drama to come out of Asia. Kenji Sakaguchi is spot on as the super doctor Ryutaro Asada. Teppei Koike, Ittoku Kishibe, Asami Minagawa, Sadao Abe, Izumi Morimura, Mari Natsuki, and other supporting casts also puts in outstanding performance to make this drama compelling, and exciting. Honorable mention goes to Teppei Koike who's acting ability helps to bring the drama up a notch or two on each of the episodes, and also Ittoku Kishibe who puts in his gritty performance. Interestingly enough, both Koike, and Kishibe started their career as a musician. Koike is still one half of the music duo called WaT, and Kishibe used to be the bassist for the biggest Japanese Rock band of the '60s "The Tigers". Rumor has it that Led Zeppelin's bassist John Paul Jones upon seeing Kishibe's performances while he was visiting Japan commented " That guy who was playing the bass was unbelievably good. I seriously thought he might be better than me. I wanted to meet him, but never got the chance" (Player magazine 1981). Kishibe still frequently performs as the bassist when his old band mates performs on stage.

The plot of this series was most realistic in the first season. Starting with the second season, situation of the patient's medical condition started to escalate to the level of implausibility. This somewhat detracted from the realism in the subsequent seasons.

A fine drama with excellent performance by the casts makes this series recommended for viewing by all Asian drama fans.

7.5/10