Both "Jekyll, Hyde, Me," which stars Hyun Bin and Han Ji Min, and "Kill Me, Heal Me," which stars Ji Sung and Hwang Jung Eum, deal with the topic of multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder. It's a condition in which trauma forces a person to develop alternate personalities in order to cope.
Now the creator of the 2011 webtoon that "Hyde, Jekyll, Me" is based on has accused the creators of "Kill Me, Heal me" of plagiarizing his story.
"I was the first to come up with a story about a woman who falls in love with a man who has multiple personalities," Lee Chung Ho, the webtoon creator on his Twitter account.
There are similarities in the stories but there are also differences. Ji Sung's character has seven personalities with the nice one being predominant. Hyun Bin's character has two personalities with the cold-hearted one being predominant. In both cases, it is love that has the potential to heal them.
MBC denied that "Kill Me, Heal Me" was based on the 2011 webtoon.
"The planning stage for our drama series began about a year ago," an MBC representative told the Korean news agency Edaily. "Last fall, we came to realize that there would be another drama similar to ours. That was when we heard about the webtoon series."
"The Hyde, Jekyll, Me" production team released a statement saying that Lee's comments are his sole personal opinion and do not reflect theirs.
The irony in this plagiarism claim is that the webtoon idea is not original. It is based on a Robert Louis Stevenson novella titled "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" or simply "Jekyll and Hyde." It's about a man with a split personality, the good Dr. Jekyll and the evil Mr. Hyde. In an attempt to overcome his own bad tendencies Dr. Jekyll creates a potion. But using the potion backfires and he develops an alternate personality that is pure evil. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to mean someone who behaves very differently from one situation and the next.
Pan Entertainment, the production company behind "Kill Me, Heal Me" says that Lee does not have a case.
"If it was a real case of plagiarism, he would have taken legal action."
The company does not plan any legal action because he expressed his thoughts.
"It does not make any sense to say that we stole the idea. There is also a romance in the classic story, 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," said the Pan Entertainment representative. "It has been over a year since we announced that we were going to do 'Kill Me, Heal Me,' via media outlets and we made it clear that it would be a drama about a man with seven personalities."
Are you watching either of these dramas? What do you think?
