Review of Touch Your Heart /
진심이 닿다

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m watching.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

So I quit and decided to focus on this blog. I also randomly fell into a period of unemployment because of unexpected circumstances, and I took a long and hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take time off. I did end up doing that, traveled for a bit, applied to jobs, and found myself working on the blog now more than ever.

I’ve been stuck in the 2010s when it comes to this little series I’ve been working on with this blog. All the latest blog posts from me are about how I’ve been revisiting all of the Korean dramas of my past. In the 2010s I was in school, and then went to college in the second half of 2018 and moved to New York City. One of my most poignant memories is I asserted my independence in college by purchasing a DramaFever subscription, then they scammed me and refused to give me a refund when they shut the platform down two weeks later.

It was quite tragic for a broke college freshman with no job. Anyways, though, one of the dramas I watched during that year, with my newly acquired (free) Viki account, was Touch Your Heart. I was convinced Lee Dong-wook and Yoo In-na were such a good looking couple (as drama leads) after seeing them in Goblin, which inspired me to watch this drama.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much, as I know introductions can get quite long and they’re usually not what you’re here for.

A scandal-ridden actress falls for a lawyer whose office she has been working at.

Our female lead in this drama, Oh Jin-sim, is stuck in a specific situation right from the start: she’s an actress who has a penchant for the dramatics outside of the small and big screens. She’s someone who tends to get herself in a lot of trouble, and when she lands a pretty major scandal that ruins her reputation, she’s not going to find work for a while.

And she kind of realizes that, which leads to a two year break where she no longer has a job to sustain her luxurious lifestyle.

During this time, she needs to figure out a way to clear her name and also find an income, as she’s going to be unemployed forever and lowkey going insane stewing over her problems alone, and thus begins the search to find somewhere to work.

The job that comes her way is a secretary, and it’s for the lawyer Kwon Jung-rok. He’s someone deeply passionate about his job and work, taking care of each case that comes his way gets the proper attention to the details that make it unique.

We could say this is a fairly competent lawyer we’re seeing in front of us, but his process is about to get upended.

So when this actress stumbles into his office and has to become his secretary, he’s not too thrilled. He doesn’t see this as an opportunity to lessen his burden, as it becomes increasingly obvious that she is kind of a ditz.

We do see some character growth when it comes to this throughout the series, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of how this female lead was characterized compared to the male lead.

Regardless, Jin-shim is going to have to rebuild not only her reputation in this job, but also foster trust with Jung-rok, especially considering she now has to report to him.

And while they resist each other in the beginning of the series, we see how they are going to eventually fall in love, as this is a Korean drama after all, and how they change each other throughout the plot.

Not a ton happens throughout the series if we’re going to be honest as well. I find this is a drama that’s very much about the vibes and the process of getting to the end, but if we’re going to be looking for some tension and friction beyond the main characters clashing, this probably isn’t the drama for you.

Overall Thoughts

For me, this was a drama that was just okay revisiting it. I remember the first time I watched this series as a college student I was more impressed with it, but now as someone who watched a ton of dramas throughout the years, I find this show just isn’t as memorable. The plot is cute and all, but I wanted more driving forces that led to conflict than what we were given in this show.

I’m also becoming less of a fan of Yoo In-na. I think Lee Dong-wook does a decent job in his shows (although some of them I heavily dislike, like Tale of the Nine Tailed), but Yoo increasingly is starting to feel like she tends to play the same characters in the same way. I want more variety from her I think.

Regardless, I can see how someone might really like this show. I once did myself. And that’s okay—taste is so incredibly subjective, as I’ve mentioned in other blog posts, and if you like something that I don’t, neither us are wrong. Which is also okay.

I think if you haven’t watched the show and want to, you should go ahead and watch it. Give it a chance and watch a handful of episodes before deciding to continue or not.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.