Chae Soo Bin is turning the oldest rom-com recipe into something fresh. Netflix’s new romantic comedy “Take Charge of My Heart” leans on every familiar trope — but an Ilgan Sports spotlight says her performance makes them all work.
The series follows Baek Ho-rang (Kim Young Kwang), a chaebol heir whose artificial heart battery has run dry, and Na Bo-bae (Chae Soo Bin), a drama writer who has never dated because her body carries an electric charge. The two enter a contract out of mutual need, and feelings stir. It premiered on Netflix on October 9, adapting a web novel of the same name.
Struck by lightning, Bo-bae shocks anyone she touches — a lifelong single who can’t write a romance script. Facing a three-month deadline to deliver one, she meets Ho-rang, the one man her electricity doesn’t touch. Chae Soo Bin built the role outward-in: wrapping Bo-bae head to toe or wearing a single glove, a woman desperate not to harm others.
“Chae Soo Bin performs romantic comedy so naturally I could take it on much more comfortably,” Kim Young Kwang said. Director Park Soo-won added that making the electric ability itself lovable was a key task: “The Na Bo-bae that Chae Soo Bin portrayed was truly lovely.”
A familiar pattern for her: “I’m Not a Robot” and “When the Phone Rings” also turned clichés into detailed performances. Beneath this one’s clichés, Bo-bae hides real loneliness, and Chae Soo Bin plays that ache as deftly as the comedy.
