Netflix’s Next K-rom-com Secret Weapon: A Chaebol With A Dying Heart And The One Woman Who Can Recharge Him

“It felt like reading a shojo manga.” That’s how Kim Young-kwang described the first time he opened the script for Take Charge of My Heart (나를 충전해줘) and he means it as the highest compliment. At the show’s production presentation in Seoul on October 1, the cast and director made a confident pitch: yes, this is a romance you’ve seen before, but they’ve found the extra inch that makes it electric. Literally.

The Netflix original, which premieres October 9, pairs Kim with Chae Soo-bin in a romantic comedy that takes the most well-worn setup in the genre rich man, ordinary woman and runs a current straight through it.

Kim Young-kwang and Chae Soo-bin for the Take Charge Of My Heart showcase / News 1

A Cliché, Rewired

On paper, the premise is almost defiantly familiar: a third-generation chaebol heir and an everyday woman cross paths by chance, and their accidental connection slowly deepens into a love that heals the wounds each has been carrying. We’ve seen that story a hundred times. The team behind Take Charge of My Heart knows it and leaned in anyway.

What flips the formula is the fantasy. Baek Ho-rang (Kim Young-kwang) is a chaebol heir with a very literal weakness: an artificial heart whose battery is running down. Na Bo-bae (Chae Soo-bin) is a drama writer who, struck by lightning as a child, carries electrical currents through her body a power so uncontrollable she has never been able to so much as hold hands with someone she likes. A woman who can touch no one meets the one man who desperately needs her touch. It’s a destined-love conceit dressed in a fresh, slightly absurd premise, and that juxtaposition is the whole appeal.

Director Park Soo-won known for the acclaimed Birthcare Center was candid about the challenge. “I reconsidered every single cliché,” he said, “and worked with the actors to find scenes that were just a little bit different.” That phrase 한 끗, the extra inch, the subtle edge became the production’s north star. Chae Soo-bin recalled being won over by exactly that conviction: “The director told me, ‘It’s a familiar taste, but I’m confident I can make it even more fun’ — and that’s what made me decide to join.”

Kim Young-kwang for the Take Charge Of My Heart showcase / News 1

Kim Young-kwang, Thawing Out

For Kim Young-kwang, Take Charge of My Heart is a deliberate return to softer territory. Best known in recent years for genre and thriller work like Trigger and Somebody, he admitted that slipping back into pure romance took some recalibration. “At first I was shy,” he confessed. “But as filming went on, the set was so much fun that my heart just melted, and eventually I was acting while genuinely enjoying it.”

That thaw mirrors his character’s own arc. Baek Ho-rang is flawless and composed in public the picture of a corporate heir locked in a cutthroat succession battle but reveals an unexpectedly adorable side only in front of Na Bo-bae. Kim committed to the role down to the wardrobe, personally shaping Ho-rang’s chaebol polish. “We custom-made most of the costumes,” he said. “There’s a scene where Ho-rang enjoys his own morning routine, and I wanted to keep it stylish even there so I suggested silk pajamas.” It’s the kind of small, character-building detail that signals an actor fully invested, not just coasting on charm.

Chae Soo-bin’s Carefully Charted Heart

Chae Soo-bin, a rom-com veteran from The Fabulous and Sweet & Sour, approached Na Bo-bae as an emotional journey built in stages. “Both characters carry deep pain,” she explained. Her challenge was mapping Bo-bae’s shifting feelings with precision: first the wonder of meeting someone her electricity doesn’t affect a man she reads as fate then, by the midpoint, a wave of genuine irritation toward him. “I wanted to show a character moving through many different emotions,” she said.

That refusal to let the leads simply fall in love on cue is, quietly, the most promising thing about the series. The relationship curdles before it blooms. The two start out disliking each other enough to spark real anger; by the middle, they begin to enjoy each other’s company; and only in the back half do they grow into people willing to embrace each other’s wounds. It’s a slow burn with friction baked in the opposite of the frictionless fantasy the premise might suggest.

Chae Soo-bin for the Take Charge Of My Heart showcase / News 1

Chemistry Loose Enough to Improvise

If the production presentation is any indication, the leads’ comedic timing may be the show’s secret weapon. Director Park was effusive about their rapport, revealing he’d sometimes let the camera keep rolling without calling cut, just to see how far the two would carry an improvised exchange. “There are so many scenes where their chemistry really comes through,” he said. Chae confirmed the collaborative atmosphere: “The director let us freely do the acting we wanted, so Young-kwang and I built each scene together on set.”

The playfulness extends to a clever meta-layer: the characters inside the romance screenplay that Na Bo-bae is writing are voiced and performed by the two leads themselves. Kim was quick to praise his co-star’s range there “Soo-bin dissolved completely into that character. It was uncanny how good she was.”

Kim also teased what he calls Baek Ho-rang’s three simkung (“heart-flutter”) moments, singling out one in particular. “The most memorable is episode six,” he said. “That’s when Ho-rang really starts to feel, ‘What do I do now?'”

Why This One Could Spark

Take Charge of My Heart lands in a crowded field Netflix has made the Korean romantic comedy one of its most reliable global exports, and the “contract romance with a chaebol” setup is practically a genre unto itself. The series isn’t pretending otherwise. Its wager is that execution beats novelty: a grounded fantasy hook, two charismatic leads with lived-in chemistry, and a director obsessive enough to interrogate every cliché until it yields something fresher.

Adapted from the web novel of the same name by author Haebun, the show seems to understand precisely what it is and what its audience wants. As Chae put it, this is a series you can watch with your guard down and come away comforted. Park framed the goal more simply still: he wants viewers to feel their own hearts recharged, one episode at a time.

Whether Take Charge of My Heart becomes the season’s rom-com darling or just a pleasant diversion, its central image is hard to shake two wounded people, one who can’t be touched and one who can’t survive without it, learning that the thing they feared might be the only thing that saves them. That’s not a cliché. That’s the extra inch. On October 9, viewers get to feel the current for themselves.