How to get HDR to work properly?

My S6 claims the HRD is "on" "auto" or "off" - but it's useless and does nothing when there is actual high dynamic range in the scene.

Yesterday I had the chance to snap my wife against the backdrop of KL city, from the KL Tower observation deck. This is a perfect example of how HDR can help and my Note 2 would do a great job of adjusting the exposure so both my wife and the cityscape behind her would be clear.

Instead, on "auto HDR" just got the classic example of the kind of error HDR is designed to combat, ie the background was fine, but my wife just a black outline. Tried HDR "On", with no noticeable improvement.

Even getting up really close and firing the flash right in her face didn't really help!

I KNOW my Note2 would have handled it (vastly) better as I have a number of such shots, including some from inside a cave, which did a better job than this POS.

It seems you can download some modes, but none are helpful. How to get back the real HDR effect of the Note 2 or any other real and proper phone, other than a shit6?

 

Perhaps test out the pro mode as well as HDR or instead of..

 

I've tried the pro mode, it's even worse...