Touch Your Heart (2019) โ€” An Overview

SUMMARY

Touch Your Heart/Reach of Sincerity
[์ง„์‹ฌ์ด ๋‹ฟ๋‹ค] (tvN, 2019)

Written by Lee Myung-suk and Choi Bo-rim (web novel)
Directed by Park Joon-Hwa (๋ฐ•์ค€ํ™”)
Production company Studio Dragon [์ŠคํŠœ๋””์˜ค๋“œ๋ž˜๊ณค ์ฃผ์‹ํšŒ์‚ฌ]

February 6 ~ March 28, 2019 [Wed & Thur]
16 episodes

A former scandal-ridden starlet looking to make her comeback joins a law firm as a law secretary to research for a new role. Personalities clash as she works together with a straight-laced perfectionist lawyer — but will sparks fly eventually as she softens his heart? This is the long-awaited reunion of Goblin‘s other beloved couple, Lee Dong-wook and Yoo In-na.
โ€”ย by Mich KDL

WRITER & DIRECTOR


Touch Your Heart is based onย a web-toon of the same name, first released on KakaoPage in 2016 and written by Lee Myung-suk and Choi Bo-rim. You can read it online here.

Park Joon-Hwa (๋ฐ•์ค€ํ™”) is the director behind the wildly successfulย Why Secretary Kim (2018), and other KDL favorites. Working exclusively for tvN, he directed the first eleven seasons of Ugly Young-A (2007-2013), before working on stand-alone dramas likeย Let’s Eat 1 and 2 (2013-2014 and 2015), Bring It On, Ghost (2016) and Because This Is My First Life (2017). —ย by Marion & Mich KDL

CAST

Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 5)
Note that this is not the full cast credits for this show — only those mentioned on KDL!

 

Kwon Jung-rok (Lee Dong-wook)
Lawyer at ALWAYS Law Firm
โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€”
Kim Se-won (Lee Sang-woo)
Prosecutor; Jung-rok’s college friend;
Yeo-reum’s ex-boyfriend

Yeon Joon-kyu (Oh Jung-se )
Head of ALWAYS Law Firm

Lee Doo-yeob (Park Ji-hwan )
ALWAYS Law Firm office manager;
has a crush on Secretary Yang
Oh Yoon-seo/Oh Jin-shim (Yoo In-na)
Former actress, now law secretary
โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€” โ€”

Son Sung-yoon (Yoo Yeo-reum)
Prosecutor; Jung-rok’s college friend;
Se-won’s ex-girlfriend

Kong Hyuk-joon (Oh Eui-sik )
Yoon-seo’s manager

 

FILMING LOCATIONS

Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 4)

While it seems thatย Touch Your Heartย is set in the bustling river south of locales — like Gangnam, where the law firm is supposed to be located in — its locations are actually flung far and wide around Seoul.

What’s also most note-worthy is how many law-related scenes in this dramaย (aside from the main courthouse) were actually filmed at familiar K-Dramaland universities, such asย Sun Moon University [์„ ๋ฌธ๋Œ€ํ•™๊ต ์•„์‚ฐ์บ ํผ์Šค], as seen in School 2017;ย andย Inha University [์ธํ•˜๋Œ€ํ•™๊ต], more well-known asย Haneol Sport University in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo.
โ€”ย by Mich KDL

This overview will be updated when new locations are added.
Searchย Touch Your Heartย on KDL for a visual look of all locations.

Last update: 25/08/2019

SEOUL [์„œ์šธํŠน๋ณ„์‹œ]

EUNPYEONG-GU [์€ํ‰๊ตฌ]
Jingwan-dong [์ง„๊ด€๋™]
โ€” Il-in [1์ธ1์ƒ] [E5]

GANGNAM-GU [๊ฐ•๋‚จ๊ตฌ]
Samseong-dong [์‚ผ์„ฑ๋™]
โ€” Matsugaze Japanese Restaurantย [E2/3]
โ€” Bus Stop Samseong Station Exit 7 [E13-14]
Yeoksam-dong [์—ญ์‚ผ๋™]
โ€” Gangnam Station [๊ฐ•๋‚จ์—ญ] [E1/2/5]
โ€” Sinnonhyeon Station [์‹ ๋…ผํ˜„์—ญ] [E1]

GANGSEO-GU [๊ฐ•์„œ๊ตฌ]
Gaehwa-dong [๊ฐœํ™”๋™]
โ€” House Sangsa Village 8-15ย [E5]
โ€” House Sangsa Villageย [E5]
โ€” Daedong Super [๋Œ€๋™์Šˆํผ] [E6]
Magok-dong [๋งˆ๊ณก๋™]
โ€” Subway โ€” Yangcheonhyanggyo Station Branch [E12]

GWANAK-GU [๊ด€์•…๊ตฌ]
Bongcheon-dong [๋ด‰์ฒœ๋™]
โ€” Pungnyeon Gopchang [ํ’๋…„๊ณฑ์ฐฝ]ย [E2]

GWANGJIN-GU [๊ด‘์ง„๊ตฌ]
Gwangjang-dong [๊ด‘์žฅ๋™]
โ€” Seoul City Astronomical Observatory [E7]

JONGNO-GU [์ข…๋กœ๊ตฌ]
Hwa-dong [ํ™”๋™]
โ€”ย Bukchon-ro 5-gil [๋ถ์ดŒ๋กœ5๊ธธ]ย [E5/6]
Samcheong-dong [์‚ผ์ฒญ๋™]
โ€”ย Bukchon-ro 5-gil [๋ถ์ดŒ๋กœ5๊ธธ] [E5]
Sogyeok-dong [์†Œ๊ฒฉ๋™]
โ€”ย White Birch Story Tea Houseย [E2]

MAPO-GU [๋งˆํฌ๊ตฌ]
Daeheung-dong [๋Œ€ํฅ๋™]
โ€” Korea Listed Companies Association Building
Gongdeok-dong [๊ณต๋•๋™]
โ€”ย Honam Sikdang [ํ˜ธ๋‚จ์‹๋‹น] [E6]
Mangwon-dong [๋ง์›๋™]
โ€”ย Seongsan Bridge [์„ฑ์‚ฐ๋Œ€๊ต] [E1]
Sangam-dong [์ƒ์•”๋™]
โ€”ย World Cup Bridge [์›”๋“œ์ปต๋Œ€๊ต]ย [Teaser]
โ€”ย Gaon Culture Park [๊ฐ€์˜จ๋ฌธํ™”๊ณต์›] [E11]
Tojeong-dong [ํ† ์ •๋™]
โ€”ย Chicken Feet Yechan [๋‹ญ๋ฐœ์˜ˆ์ฐฌ] [E7]
Yeomri-dong [์—ผ๋ฆฌ๋™]
โ€”ย Gyeongui Line Plaza [๊ฒฝ์˜์„ ๊ด‘์žฅ] [E9]
Yeonnam-dong [์—ฐ๋‚จ๋™]
โ€”ย Le Torte [๋ ˆ ๋˜๋ฅด๋–ผ] [E9]
โ€”ย Sushi Yadori [์Šค์‹œ์•ผ๋„๋ฆฌ] [E16]

NOWON-GU [๋…ธ์›๊ตฌ]
Gongneung 2(i)-dong [๊ณต๋ฆ‰2๋™]
โ€”ย Seoul National University of Science and
Technology [์„œ์šธ๊ณผํ•™๊ธฐ์ˆ ๋Œ€ํ•™๊ต]
ย [E4]

SEOCHO-GU [์„œ์ดˆ๊ตฌ]
Seocho 3(sam)-dong [์„œ์ดˆ3๋™]
โ€”ย Seoul Central District Courtย [E1]
Seocho-dong [์„œ์ดˆ๋™]
โ€”ย Yoyomaโ€™s Kitchen [์š”์š”๋งˆ์˜ํ‚ค์นœ] [E10]

SEODAEMUN-GU [์„œ๋Œ€๋ฌธ๊ตฌ]
Sinchon-dong [์‹ ์ดŒ๋™]
โ€”ย Sinchon Graffiti Tunnel [์‹ ์ดŒ๋ฒฝํ™”ํ„ฐ๋„]ย [E4]

SEONGDONG-GU [์„ฑ๋™๊ตฌ]
Oksu-dong [์˜ฅ์ˆ˜๋™]
โ€”ย Dongho Bridge [๋™ํ˜ธ๋Œ€๊ต]ย [E1/2]
โ€”ย Yanghwa Bridge [์–‘ํ™”๋Œ€๊ต] [E1]

SEOUL (Con’t) [์„œ์šธํŠน๋ณ„์‹œ]

SONGPA-GU [์†กํŒŒ๊ตฌ]
Garak-dong [๊ฐ€๋ฝ๋™]
โ€” Seongdong Detention Center [๊ตฌ ์„ฑ๋™๊ตฌ์น˜์†Œ] [E5]
YEONGDEUNGPO-GU [์„œ๋Œ€๋ฌธ๊ตฌ]
Yeouido-dong [์—ฌ์˜๋„๋™]
โ€” Wonhyo Bridge [์›ํšจ๋Œ€๊ต] [E3]
โ€” Tenuto Malt Bar [ํ…Œ๋ˆ„ํ† ] [E4]
โ€” The National Assembly Building [E5]
โ€” Mercato Y [๋ฉ”๋ฅด์นดํ† ์™€์ด]ย [E5]
โ€” Bon Voyage [๋ณธ๋ณด์•ผ์ง€] [E15]

YONGSAN-GU [์šฉ์‚ฐ๊ตฌ]
Hannam-dong [ํ•œ๋‚จ๋™]
โ€” Hyosung Village [ํšจ์„ฑ๋นŒ๋ฆฌ์ง€]
Wonho-ro 2(i)ga [์›ํšจ๋กœ2๊ฐ€]
โ€” Hongdon โ€” Yongsan branch [ํ™๋ˆ ์šฉ์‚ฐ์ ] [E14]

ASEONG [์•„์‚ฐ์‹œ]

Sangjung-ri [์ƒ์ค‘๋ฆฌ]
โ€” Seounsan Natural Recreational Forest [์„œ์šด์‚ฐ์ž์—ฐํœด์–‘๋ฆผ] [E8]

ASAN [์•„์‚ฐ์‹œ]

TANGJEONG-MYEON [๋ณ„๋‚ด๋™]
Galsan-ri [๊ฐˆ์‚ฐ๋ฆฌ]
โ€” Sun Moon University [E3]

GOYANG [๊ณ ์–‘์‹œ]

ILSANDONG-GU [์ผ์‚ฐ๋™๊ตฌ]
Janghang-dong [์žฅํ•ญ๋™]
โ€”ย Ilsan Lake Park [์ผ์‚ฐํ˜ธ์ˆ˜๊ณต์›] [E7]
Seolmun-dong [์„ค๋ฌธ๋™]
โ€”ย Sosoham Cafรฉ [์†Œ์†Œํ•จ์นดํŽ˜] [E8]
Seongseok-dong [์„ฑ์„๋™]
โ€”ย Peace Piece [ํ”ผ์Šคํ”ผ์Šค] [E6]

INCHEON [์ธ์ฒœํŠน๋ณ„์‹œ]

JUNG-GU [์ค‘๊ตฌ]
Bukseong-dong 1(il)-ga [๋ถ์„ฑ๋™1๊ฐ€]
โ€”ย Wolmi Theme Park [์›”๋ฏธํ…Œ๋งˆํŒŒํฌ]
NAM-GU [๋‚จ๊ตฌ]
Yonghyun-dong [์šฉํ˜„๋™]
โ€”ย Inha University [์ธํ•˜๋Œ€ํ•™๊ต]

OSAN [์˜ค์‚ฐ์‹œ]

GEUMAN-DONG [๊ธˆ์•”๋™]
โ€”ย Mulhyanggi Arboretum [๋ฌผํ–ฅ๊ธฐ์ˆ˜๋ชฉ์›] [E5]

PAJU [ํŒŒ์ฃผ์‹œ]

MUNBAL-DONG [๋ฌธ๋ฐœ๋™]
โ€”ย Cafรฉ Paper Tree [์ข…์ด์™€ ๋‚˜๋ฌด] [E14]
SEOPAE-DONGย [์„œํŒจ๋™]
โ€”ย Mediterium [๋ฉ”๋””ํ…Œ๋ฆฌ์›€]
TANHYEON-MYEON [ํƒ„ํ˜„๋ฉด]
โ€”ย Artinus Farmerโ€™s Table [ํŒŒ๋จธ์Šคํ…Œ์ด๋ธ”] [E5]
โ€”ย Cafe Mallorca [์นดํŽ˜ ๋งˆ์š”๋ฅด์นด] [E1]
โ€” Gyeonggi English Village — Paju Camp [E5]

YONGIN

GIHEUNG-GU [๊ธฐํฅ๊ตฌ]
Hagal-dong [ํ•˜๊ฐˆ๋™]
โ€” Kyung Hee University [๊ฒฝํฌ๋Œ€ํ•™๊ต ์„œ์šธ์บ ํผ์Šค] [E1+9]

 

K-DRAMA REFERENCES

DESCENDANTS OF THE SUN (2016)

Yoon-seo places herself in the shoes of the heroine while reading a potential script in episode 1, and imagines a scenario that resembles that of Descendants of the Sun. Her imagination continues to trail on in episodes 2 and 3. Though not as direct a reference, it’s interesting to note here that DOTS’ director, Yoo Jong-sun, is also listed as a co-director for Why Secretary Kim together with Touch Your Heart director Park.

WHY SECRETARY KIM (2018)
Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 4)

In a great reference to Director Park Joon-hwa’s involvement withย Why Secretary Kim, Yoon-seo and Jung-rok watch a lawyer-themed movie called What’s Wrong with the Lawyer? (๋ณ€ํ˜ธ์‚ฌ๊ฐ€ ์™œ๊ทธ๋Ÿด๊นŒ?) — with its poster and logo mirroring that of WSK’s.

SIGNAL (2016)

Yoon-seo reveals to Jung-rok in episode 9 that one of the most memorable dramas she’d worked on was one called ‘Signal’. Upon checking it out for himself, Jung-rok finds out that it’s “a life-changing office drama” about “a woman who takes a job as an insurance sales person at Signal Life Insurance company. After many twists and turns, she becomes the queen of insurance sales.” He later watches a clip of her character giving a pep talk to someone on the other line –supposedly a “Detective Lee Jae-han”– about his lack of health insurance, telling him that “the future can be changed”. This, of course, is an interesting reference to the highly acclaimed time-travel drama of the same name, which was also on tvN.

STAR’S LOVER (2008)

“Ahh, it’s a Star’s Lover,” Jung-rok is greeted by a colleague when arriving at his office the morning after Oh Jin-shim has openly admitted to them dating in episode 16. This is a reference to the drama Star’s Lover/Celebrity Sweetheart/Celebrity Lover (์Šคํƒ€์˜ ์—ฐ์ธ) (SBS, 2008), in which a similar love-story as Jung-rok and Oh Jin-shim’s is narrated: the one of poor university lecturer Kim Chul-soo (Yoo Ji-tae) and top star Lee Ma-ri (Choi Ji-woo).

GOBLIN (2016-17)

“There are things that are important to you, even if it seems trivial to others,” explains Lee Doo-seob (Park Ji-hwan) about his maple leaf bookmark in episode 14 and continues “When I was in elementary school, I went to my grandmotherโ€™s house. On my way, I picked up this leaf bookmark. If I lose this, I think it would be really hard for me to handle my sorrow.”

In Goblin, a maple leaf bookmark is even more important between Ji Eun-tak (Kim Go-eun) and Kim Shin (Gong Yoo). Eun-tak has picked up the leaf on their stay in Canada in episode 1 and explains Kim Shin that if you “catch a falling maple leaf, youโ€™ll fall in love with the person you are walking with โ€” just as catching a falling cherry blossom makes your first love come true.” She carefully laminates the leaf in episode 3 and gifts it to Kim Shin and it becomes his keepsake; contemplating it while being love-sick, for instance, in episode 4.


HER PRIVATE LIFE (2019)

Snippets of the trailer for Her Private Life is shown before the start of Yoon-seo’s new drama in final episode 16. Her Private Life debuts in the same mid-week timeslot after the end of Touch Your Heart.

K-DRAMA TROPE REFERENCES

“When you look at dramas about in-office romances, they always meet in staircases like this. So I also wanted to try it once.” This is how Yoon-seo explains to Jung-rok as to why she wanted to meet him up in the staircase during work in episode 10.

Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 11)

In episode 11, Jung-rok brings Yoon-seo to Wolmi Theme Park [์›”๋ฏธํ…Œ๋งˆํŒŒํฌ] to cheer her up. His inspiration came from the dramas Yoon–seo starred in as he explains: “From time to time, I looked up the dramas that you starred in, and the places that the male lead takes the sad heroine to make her feel better were the beach and the amusement park. So I was debating which place to bring you and thought that you might have twice the enjoyment if I brought you to this amusement park which is near the beach.”

MOVIE REFERENCES

ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953)

The North-American movie Roman Holiday (1953) starring Gregory Peck as a reporter and Audrey Hepburn as Crown Princess Ann is Yoon-seo’s favorite movie as she states in episode 10. Jung-rok compares her to the main character, Princess Ann, in the same episode saying Jin-sim is just like her “how she ran away because she got tired of life in the palace and found happiness in life’s little things.” It is also the movie that Jin-sim proposes to watch together with Jung-rok.


In episode 12, Jung-rok rents out a whole cinema to watch this film with Yoon-seo. [Spoiler] It also serves as a pretext to break up with her a little later.

FLOWER MEANINGS

Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 15)

Find out about the meaning of forsythias in our Flower Language post!

KDL CREDITS

Locations: Mich KDL, Marion KDL
Photos: Thom Musni

Any other information to add? Or any thoughts about the drama and its locations?
Let us know in the comments!

 

Touch Your Heart (2019, episode 5)

What are you looking for?