Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Take Charge Of My Heart’ On Netflix, A Romcom Where A Woman Who Is Electrified Meets A Man Who Needs His Artificial Heart Jump-Started

In Netflix’s new Korean romcom Take Charge Of My Heart, a woman who can zap people and things with just one touch meets a chaebol heir who has an artificial heart with a failing battery. Sounds like a match made in heaven, right?

TAKE CHARGE OF MY HEART: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A romantic scene between a wealthy woman and the man who is her bodyguard. But just as they’re about to kiss, the woman in the scene wakes up kissing a stuffed animal.

The Gist:  The romantic scene is the creation of writer Na Bo-bae (Chae Soo-bin). Her concept of romance is immature, something her boss at the production company she writes for is always pointing out. What he and most people don’t know is that Bo-bae has never dated. She was hit by lightning as a child, and ever since she can’t touch people skin-to-skin without giving them an electric shock. Her shocks are effective enough to get a stuck elevator going when she touches a button.

Bo-bae is surprised when she literally runs into Baek Ho-rang (Kim Young-kwang), the hard-charging CEO of a hotel conglomerate. Ho-rang lives with an artificial heart and is due to undergo surgery to replace the heart’s failing battery with one that should outlive him. The first physical contact between the two is a comically accidental kiss, and Bo-bae is amazed that she was not able to shock him. To that end, she tries to touch him and prove that he’s a “human rubber glove” whenever they encounter each other, which does nothing but creep him out.

In the meantime, the two have someone in common: Ji Eun-ho (Cha Woo-min), an actor whom Ho-rang wants to be the face of the hotel chain, but who also has old, lingering feelings for Bo-bae.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take Charge Of My Heart is similar to any number of K-romcoms on Netflix, like Our Sticky Love.

Our Take: Just like other Korean romcoms, Take Charge Of My Heart tries to make sense out of a pairing that seems a bit ridiculous on its face, and uses its first episode to really go into how lovelorn Bo-bae is and how all-business Ho-rang is. The meet-cute is one of the more ridiculous ones we’ve seen, with Ho-rang literally being bumped into a kiss with Bo-bae by a crowd of schoolgirls pursuing Eun-ho as he walks through the same lobby. Even the entire idea that Bo-bae can electrify things and people is a hair too silly for a genre where people regularly do silly things like time travel or interact with spirits.

The idea is that, once Eun-ho stops thinking that Bo-bae is a nutjob, he employs her to jump-start his new, supposedly perpetually-running heart battery when it starts to feel weak. And, as that goes on, his supposed immunity to her shocks will help Bo-bae learn what an adult romance is like, which should help her writing. Of course, real love will bloom, but there will be the usual complications, not the least of which involves Eun-ho. Right now, though, the chemistry we expect between the leads hasn’t materialized, and it may take a few episodes for that to happen.

Performance Worth Watching: Chae Soo-bin is funny as Bo-bae, who hates having her shocking abilities but is so happy to find someone in Ho-rang that she can actually touch without gloves on.

Parting Shot: Bo-bae recovers in the same room as Ho-rang after his heart surgery and her appendectomy. She touches him while he’s unconscious and still doesn’t give him a shock.

Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Take Charge Of My Heart, but it’s one of the sillier parings we’ve seen in the Korean romcom genre, and we think viewers will need to have some patience while the romance at the show’s center develops.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.