Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Are You Human Too?
( 너도 인간이니? / Neodo Inganini?)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello! I’m back with another review. I didn’t take me very long to finish, but I did take breaks in between because I also started my new intensive job, so my drama watching activities will be limited to the weekends for the coming months.
Are You Human Too? was on my list for a while, mostly because of Seo Kang Joon, but I also knew the female lead and I generally like stories about robots and I was interested in what way this would be different when compared to for example Absolute Boyfriend and, the robot-themed drama I watched previously, I’m Not A Robot.

First of all, let me give a summary of the story.
The story starts with Dr. Oh Ro Ra (played by Kim Sung Ryung), an well-established professional in brain science and artificial intelligence. She is working on a new project that involves creating robots that are identical to humans and she’s trying to raise interest from the public for this. One day, her then 7-year old son Nam Shin is taken away from her. Ro Ra’s husband, who was living apart because his company demanded that of him, is reported to have committed suicide and Shin needs to be taken to his grandfather immediately to be raised as an heir. Although Ro Ra struggles and actively tries to stop this, she is inevitably separated from her son and not allowed to see him again.
In her despair and longing for her son, Ro Ra starts her personal project and creates an android after the direct image of Nam Shin. She calls him Nam Shin I. As her son grows up in real life, she keeps updating the robot’s growth and visual changes as well until she reaches his adult version, Nam Shin III (played by Seo Kang Joon). They live together in Czech Republic.
In the meantime, we are introduced to Kang So Bong (played by Gong Seung Yeon), a tough girl with a past in boxing. Due to an injury she had to stop boxing and this took away the one thing she knew she could do. After feeling like her life was taken away, she became casual about everything and figured she might as well make money out of whatever she can. So while acting as a bodyguard for PK Group’s heir Nam Shin, she also accepts money to take secret pictures of him. When she is found out by Nam Shin himself, he publicly slaps her in the face and this goes viral, resulting in her profound disliking of him.
To be clear, the original human Nam Shin grows up to be a royal prick. He treats everyone like garbage and only shows some affection to his assistant and brother-like figure Ji Young Hoon (played by Lee Joon Hyuk).
One day, Nam Shin manages to escape his security and flies off to Czech (later it’s clarified that he’s tracing after a lead about his father’s ‘suicide’) and he accidentally meets his robot version. Petrified from shock, human Nam Shin is run over by a truck and falls into a coma. Ro Ra and her friend David (played by Choi Duk Moon) take him home to care for him before they return to Korea. In the meantime. Nam Shin III is prepared by Young Hoon to take Shin’s place in the company until he wakes up. When Nam Shin III returns to Korea to take Shin’s place, the first thing he has to deal with is Kang So Bong, who still has the urge for revenge after being publicly humiliated by him.
Eventually, she finds out about him being a robot and their relationship changes. Nam Shin III is, unlike his human counterpart, very polite and friendly to people, despite his lack of emotions or senses. It’s difficult to dislike him. Just as So Bong’s feelings start to bloom, the real Shin wakes up and everything is shaken up again.

The funniest thing about this drama, and one of the unique things, is that the actual main male lead is initially the bad guy. We don’t get any empathy for Nam Shin, at least I didn’t. Even after being reunited with his mother, he isn’t willing to just accept that she’s back in his life again. I personally found this a bit weird, because he was the one who made his mother leave him in the first place (he was forced by his grandfather to chase her away) but still he treated her like she left him out of her own free will. He only changes for the better at the very end of the series, but the first half he is unconscious and when he wakes up he’s only just mean to everyone and tries to sabotage everything. I think this might have been the first time in a K-Drama that I didn’t have any sympathy for a main character. Of course, Nam Shin III on the other hand is the ideal son-in-law. Especially after the real Shin wakes up, it really puts things into perspective since Nam Shin III turns out to be a better ‘person’ than the human Shin.
This is of course used to confront Shin with his ridiculous behavior and makes him even more agitated.
Also, the main couple of the drama is Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III, not Nam Shin himself. Whatever problematic issues this may cause, and no matter what people will think, So Bong seems to be eventually okay with the fact she fell for a robot and doesn’t even care about anything. She even says something like ‘I don’t care that you’re a robot, you’re the best man I’ve ever met’. I mean, of course, love should be limitless, but it did puzzle me a little bit at the end, with regards to the realistic possibilities of the couple in the future. I know it’s all fiction, but I did find it funny. It was like an ‘uhm… okay I guess?’ kind of ending for me.
But I am glad that they didn’t start forcing some kind of love triangle including the real Nam Shin because it wouldn’t have made any sense for him to suddenly start showing interest in So Bong, especially after how he treated her before. And Nam Shin did have a fiancee, after all.

To get to this fiancee, I first need to cover the real bad guy from the story, Mr. Seo Jong Gil (played by Yoo Oh Sung). He used to be a close friend of Nam Shin’s father, but he betrayed him because he was after the shares for the company belonging to chairman Nam Gun Ho (played by Park Young Gyu), Nam Shin’s grandfather. Seo Jong Gil is constantly trying to get the chairman discredited and he is actually the one who arranged for Nam Shin to be killed in an accident in Czech Republic.
His daughter Seo Ye Na (played by Park Hwan Hee) is Nam Shin’s fiancee. She’s a spoiled little princess who has no respect for anyone who is below her in social rank. To the people above her, she only kisses up. Her forward and blunt way of speaking has made her liked by the chairman, but disliked by a lot of other people.
She was one of the characters in the series that I genuinely disliked, in the end she made a turn for the better but only because she realized she was surrounded by bad people and then her conscience finally won over her ambition to be the next CEO’s wife. She discovers all the bad things her father has done and how much of a jerk Nam Shin is and provides the good side with evidence of her father’s involvement. Before that, she acts like she owns the world. When she accidentally finds out about Nam Shin III, she treats him like trash, holding his arm in public and when the people are gone she tells him to go stand in a corner and not speak to her.
What annoyed me most in this first part was that none of the things happening were actually ANY of her business, but as soon as she got involved, she made everything her business. Suddenly the whole thing with Nam Shin III being a robot had to do with HER, was being done to HER etcetera. I didn’t have a lot of empathy for her either. But as I said, in the end, she did the right thing by turning her father in.

Now that I’ve made some first remarks about some of the characters, I would like to elaborate a little further on some characters and my opinions on the choices that they made/how their personalities were established and things like that.
First of all, female lead character Kang So Bong. As I’ve mentioned before in the summary, she was previously a boxer but after an injury she found out her managers were only just betting money on her and she caused a scene and was ousted of the boxing ring (literally). The only people left in her life to support her were her dad Kang Jae Shik (played by Kim Won Hae, who is growing on me with every drama I see of him), and two neighborhood guys (I think?) nicknamed Joint and Robocop (played respectively by Oh Hee Joon and Cha Yeop). Her mother passed away when she was little and she only has a necklace left of hers which she starts touching whenever she feels nervous. It’s established from her first appearance that she’s a tough cookie, she’s a bodyguard, she’s a bit aggressive in the way she speaks to her peers and is clearly not from a very wealthy family. If you would put her next to Ye Na, you would be comparing apples and pears.
In the beginning, because of her casual attitude towards life and making money, it makes sense that it’d take a while for her to warm up to someone new. She’s been betrayed by people before, has a small circle of people whom she’s close with and doesn’t seem to really have any friends outside of that small circle. And even within that circle, there are sometimes frictions. For example, her reporter friend Reporter Jo (played by Kim Hyun Sook) who sometimes still betrays her when she’s offered enough money for it. However, even Reporter Jo in the end teams up with the good guys to help bring Seo Jong Gil down.
Anyways, even though it seems like So Bong is kind of a tomboy, she can’t help but fall for the innocent kindness that Nam Shin III displays. And in her case she is fully aware of the fact that she’s falling for a robot so we can see in the beginning clearly her feelings of denial, but eventually she gives in to it simply because she stops caring. This is what her heart is pointing her to, so that’s what she has to follow. And in some way her simplicity is really endearing. After she allows herself to fall for Nam Shin III, she also starts opening herself up more to other people and starts showing that she cares more.
It seems that her initial stubbornness is inherited from her father, who is the tough love kind of dad. He cares so much about his daughter, and he feels really bad for what has been done to her and he feels guilty that he let it happen. But he’ll still slap her on the back and scold her before he’ll hug her.
In any case, I just wanted to say that So Bong’s character development made sense to me, it was natural and gradual and there were no sudden changes in behavior that made it weird. Falling in love made her a better and more caring person who wouldn’t just do anything for money anymore.
I just remembered she actually started out as a spy for Seo Jong Gil, when she still thought he was a nice guy and he’d pay her money for reports on Nam Shin’s actions (so before she knew he was a robot). After discovering the android thing, she wondered whether or not she should report it, but in the end she chose the right side.

Then there’s Oh Ro Ra. She’s the first person we meet in this series, so that immediately makes her important. In the beginning we feel for her because she suddenly is overwhelmed by AND the news that her husband committed suicide AND the fact that her child is taken away from her without any argument possible. It’s therefore not difficult for the viewer to understand why she would feel the need to create a robot version of her son, to ease her own grief and longing.
(Note: I actually thought before I started watching that she’d make the robot after her son had fallen into a coma, because that’s also how the summary on DramaWiki was phrased, but this was not the case. The robot already existed when Nam Shin fell into a coma – I edited this in DramaWiki as well.)
Anyways, we don’t really know what her plans for the future are with this robot, only that for the time that she’s separated from her real son, she raised a robot son in his place. Her close friend David also affectionately calls him ‘my son’.
When she is suddenly confronted with her real son being run over by a truck in the Czech Republic, she temporarily seems to lose attention for Nam Shin III. It was a bit unclear to me what her ultimate feelings for Nam Shin III were, because for a while there it seemed like he was no more than a substitute until she would be reunited with her real son. Then when Nam Shin fell into a coma, he became the only possible substitute to avoid suspicions and keep up appearances at the company. However, when Nam Shin woke up, even though he was insufferable, she kept trying to make amends with him and she talked about Nam Shin III as a disposable product who was meant to be destroyed as soon as Nam Shin woke up.
It took her a while to determine her real feelings about her robot son, I think. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were. I mean, even for a robot it seemed kind of harsh that the person who created and raised him so lovingly, the person he called ‘Mother’, would suddenly turn out to be this cruel person who would just flip his kill-switch button when he wasn’t needed anymore.
This kill-switch by the way, was an important plot tool in the end. Because Oh Ro Ra kept it a secret from Nam Shin III that he had one build-in and no one could know that there was a way to destroy him, especially not Seo Jong Gil or Nam Shin himself. In the end, of course, they do find out and Nam Shin makes an attempt to kill-switch his robot version. Oh Ro Ra, however, has already used her brilliant brain to make a back-up to reverse the kill-switch. This all happens in an abandoned warehouse and Seo Jong Gil turns up without anyone noticing and drops a bunch of barrels and metal bars on them from above, killing Oh Ro Ra who protects Nam Shin III who is still unable to move because of the newly initiated back-up chip.
And in her last moments, she admits that it would’ve made her the happiest to see her ‘two sons’ get along and that she might continue being a mother to both of them. But it was unclear to me for quite some time, because in the beginning I thought her reasons for creating Nam Shin III suddenly became very selfish. And I wondered why she wouldn’t allow herself to also think of Nam Shin III as her ‘son’ in a way. David was the one who kept standing up for him, and it took a while before he persuaded Ro Ra. So her intentions and motives were a bit vague.

I honestly didn’t expect anyone to die in this series. I thought it went a little far to actually kill Oh Ro Ra. And also the lack of emotional response from Seo Jong Gil was so inhuman that I didn’t find it realistic. Surely, you feel SOMETHING after you’ve murdered someone? This brings me to another point I wish to make, and I’ve mentioned this before but this series really put things into perspective when it came to emotional responses in regards of humans versus robots.
I thought it was funny how they played with the concept of ‘humanity’.
On the one hand you have Nam Shin III, an android unable to feel any emotions but who still has the nicest personality. And then you have people like Nam Shin and Seo Jong Gil, who are human but only think about themselves and don’t even seem to have empathy for others, even their own family.
Although Nam Shin breaks and changes after his mother’s death and then it suddenly becomes clear how much he actually cared for her, Seo Jong Gil doesn’t even care about his own daughter anymore, he just tries to lock her up or send her away so she doesn’t see any of it.
So what are we looking at here? Questions about humanity? Does being human automatically mean that we’re better because we’re capable of feeling and thinking things that machines can? Does being human qualify us for anything? Because there’s still people out there that do things that ‘normal’ empathic people can’t even begin to understand because ‘it’s not human’. While in this scenario, a robot was being more human than the actual human being. I don’t know, I found it very interesting but I don’t quite know what to make of it. I’m a bit lost when it comes to the message this series means to give, if there is any (’cause it’s still fiction, of course).
It’s interesting to think about, though. What makes someone human? And is there a possibility that something that’s not human can also display human behavior?
The series ends a year after Nam Shin III is shot by Seo Jong Gil and falls into the water. So Bong still isn’t over his ‘death’, but suddenly he appears again and it turns out that Nam Shin, together with Young Hoon and David, have tracked Nam Shin III down and fixed him. Even though he has lost almost all his robot abilities, the series ends with a single tear falling down Nam Shin III’s cheek – suggesting that somehow he has acquired some form of human emotional ability.

I realize suddenly that I have to say a bit more about Young Hoon, since he is a very important character, not just as Nam Shin’s assistant.
Young Hoon is possibly the only friend Nam Shin has ever had. He has been with him for years, and most importantly, he has had to answer for all of Nam Shin’s misconduct. Nam Shin’s grandfather punished Nam Shin by taking it out on Young Hoon. Young Hoon, from the beginning, had better leadership qualities and potential to become the next CEO than Nam Shin, but he has always remained loyal and never stepped up to his own ambitions. Until, of course, things escalate and he finds Nam Shin acting like a total jerk. I have to say, in the beginning I genuinely wondered if Young Hoon and Nam Shin were somehow secretly romantically involved. Just the way that Young Hoon spoke about Nam Shin while he was in a coma, the dreamy look and slight smirk on his face when he thought back about him… I mean, it’s a K-Drama so of course it wouldn’t be the case, but it actually wouldn’t have surprised me if there had been a plot twist there.
Throughout the whole series, Young Hoon is one of the main active characters, from the start aware of the android issue, teaching Nam Shin III to act like Nam Shin, and afterwards to keep everyone who finds out quiet etcetera. He protects Nam Shin III but always wants Nam Shin to wake up, but once Nam Shin wakes up he also thinks he’s being too much and starts taking the side of the robot, eventually resulting in him becoming the CEO of the company instead of Nam Shin.
Even though he mistreated Young Hoon before, the chairman believes that he has the right qualities, so it should be either him or the robot taking over because Nam Shin is just not fit to lead the company.
And then there’s this whole extra plotline that the chairman knew about Nam Shin III from the beginning and he’s actually the one who sponsored Oh Ro Ra’s research and project from the shadows, and Nam Shin III’s whole server is hidden somewhere in the company itself etcetera… Yeah, some plotlines didn’t really have to be added in my opinion because it didn’t really add a lot to the story for me. The same with the chairman’s dementia which was first faked and then it turned out to be real after all… They just needed a way to make him old and senile and in need for a directly available heir, I guess.
Also the side story of Nam Shin’s aunt and her young son who was sickly and afraid of grandpa because grandpa didn’t like weak people… The kid was only used as a plot tool to blackmail the aunt at some point and that was it. So there were some minor story lines that they could’ve done without in my opinion.

Another thing I found interesting and unique about this story was that, unlike the usual K-Drama, the main relationship (between Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III) meant that the genuine feelings of love only came from one side. Since Nam Shin III isn’t capable of feeling passion or love, although their relationship was sweet, it still lacked urgency and passion. It also wasn’t the same as for example with Absolute Boyfriend, where the robot boyfriend for some reason develops human feelings by himself.
Nam Shin III is consistently unable to experience human emotions. He can generate if a person is nice or not, and that’s what he acts on. He has no initial indication of what is good and bad behavior, he only acts according to his in-built rules (such as hugging someone when they’re crying). It was a different kind of robot story than the ones I’ve seen in K-Dramaland so far, so in that way it was quite innovative how they explored a relationship between a human and a machine in an as natural as possible way. Of course, the tear at the end suggests some developments and new possibilities in that area…

Lastly I’d like to make some final comments on the casting before I conclude. It hasn’t been a long review I’m afraid, but I think I covered most parts that jumped out to me that I wanted to comment on.
Seo Kang Joon I have only seen in Cheese in the Trap and an episode of Busted! where I equally liked him. It was nice to see him play two different characters, double roles are always demanding but he did a good job. The way he would just suddenly change when he was Nam Shin pretending to be Nam Shin III or the other way around was very natural and credible.
I knew Gong Seung Yeon from a couple of things, mostly Circle where she played an alien, and I have to say that although she acted okay, her character didn’t really impress me that much. She fell a bit flat in comparison to what I’d seen of her before. Not because she acted badly or anything, but just because her character wasn’t very original.
I knew Park Hwan Hee from Descendants of the Sun and Jealousy Incarnate, and her characters there were at least more likeable than Ye Na. She’s still stuck in the female side character roles, though, so I’m curious if she’ll make more appearances in dramas from now on.
Yoo Oh Sung was also the jerk father in Uncontrollably Fond, so I’m sensing another typecast actor here. I wonder what it would be like to see him as a kind man (still quietly boycotting typecasting on my own here).
I think the only actor I didn’t know was Lee Joon Hyuk (Ji Young Hoon), but I liked his character, stuck between how he was raised and his own opinions he was never allowed to express.
Looking at it like that, there might be a parallel between Young Hoon and Nam Shin III. They were both stuck in their own rules and they both learned how to free themselves from those rules and display their individuality more.

Overall, it was an interesting drama but it wasn’t the best I’ve seen. It was interesting to see a new take on the robot theme, and how humans are always seen as better than machines. When something happens, it is always the easiest to accept that the robot snapped and did something bad than it is to believe that it was a human being who did it. Machines are often used as scapegoats and excuses why things go wrong. In this scenario, the robot was the good guy being abused by the bad human guys and the nice thing was that this robot didn’t turn on the humans.
However, except for the few tricks that Nam Shin III is seen to be displaying such as projecting things on billboards and hacking into traffic lights to make the light go green faster, I didn’t get as strong of a feeling that we were dealing with a robot here as for example in I’m Not A Robot.
In the end, the love story between Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III kind of made way for the plotline in which Nam Shin III is freed from his boundaries that come with being a robot and only obeying standard rules. He learns to let go of his rules, he creates new ones, and he starts to accept himself, almost like a person. This happens in a very unique way and it was fun to watch. In the end I had more empathy for the robot than for most of the human characters, haha. And maybe that was what they wanted to show, as well. Humanity is also relative.
Also, I want to visit Czech Republic now because it looked amazingly beautiful.
Overall I thought it was alright, I enjoyed myself but as I said it wasn’t one of the best dramas I’ve watched. It was a nice breather after the intensively long My Mister, though.

I will keep on watching new things in my spare time, so please keep following me! I’ll be back~