Chae Soo-bin K-dramas to watch after ‘Take Charge of My Heart’

MBC’s romantic thriller K-drama When the Phone Rings, based on the popular web novel The Number You Have Dialled, follows Hong Hee-joo (Chae Soo-bin), a sign language interpreter who lives with selective mutism following a childhood accident, and Baek Sa-eon (Yoo Yeon-seok), the presidential spokesperson. Behind their public image as a happy couple is a marriage of convenience, with little affection between them. Three years in, they barely communicate, and Hee-joo has little reason to believe her husband cares about her.

Everything shifts when Hee-joo is kidnapped, and her captor demands a ransom from Sa-eon, who all but dismisses the phone call. Hurt by his indifference, she escapes and takes her captor’s phone. Calling her husband nightly with her voice disguised, she poses as the kidnapper and uses what she knows about how their marriage came about to demand that he end the marriage. But the calls become a way for them to have the conversations they have never managed face to face, bringing buried feelings to the surface.

The drama became a global hit on Netflix and won Chae Soo-bin the Excellence Award for Actress in the Miniseries category at the 2024 MBC Drama Awards, where she and Yoo Yeon-seok also took Best Couple.

See more: 10 essential Kim So-hyun K-dramas, from ‘Between Steps’ to ‘Love Alarm’

One of Chae Soo-bin’s early hits, the 2017 MBC sci-fi rom-com I’m Not a Robot, turns an unusual job offer into an elaborate deception. Short on money, Jo Ji-ah (Chae Soo-bin) agrees to impersonate Aji 3, a humanoid robot modelled on her appearance and created by her ex-boyfriend, robotics professor Hong Baek-gyun (Um Ki-joon). When an accident leaves the robot out of commission, Ji-ah steps in to keep the project on track. The man she must convince is Kim Min-kyu (Yoo Seung-ho), the largest shareholder in a finance company, whose allergy to human touch has kept him isolated and whose backing the project needs.

Unaware that Aji 3 is a woman in disguise, Min-kyu gradually opens up to the android he believes he can be near without risk. But as Ji-ah grows closer to him, the act becomes harder to maintain, and the paid impersonation develops into something genuine.

Chae Soo-bin continued her run of leading roles in the SBS workplace romance Where Stars Land, set among the employees who keep Incheon International Airport running. Han Yeo-reum (Chae Soo-bin) is a passenger service agent eager to prove herself after struggling to land the job. Despite her best efforts, a string of mishaps earns her the nickname “human bomb”, initially putting her at odds with her new colleague, Lee Soo-yeon (Lee Je-hoon), whose by-the-book approach could not be further from hers.

As they settle into their roles at the airport, Yeo-reum discovers that Soo-yeon is hiding a secret linked to a serious accident and his uncanny physical strength. She also learns that he came to her rescue on the day of her job interview, prompting her to reconsider the man she first found difficult to work with.

In the KBS2 youth romance Strongest Deliveryman, Lee Dan-ah (Chae Soo-bin) is a food delivery worker intent on saving enough money to leave South Korea and break free of the financial insecurity that has shaped her life. Having put her education aside to help pay off her family’s debts, Dan-ah has little patience for romance or other distractions.

Her plans begin to shift after Choi Kang-soo (Go Kyung-pyo) joins the restaurant as another deliveryman. Good-hearted and quick to stand up for others, he clashes with her guarded outlook at first, but the bickering gradually gives way to love. As Kang-soo pursues his ambition of building his own delivery app company, the pair navigate work, money and the social barriers that make it hard for young people from modest backgrounds to get ahead.

Disney+’s coming-of-age K-drama Rookie Cops blends campus romance, police training and mystery as a group of freshmen find their feet at the Korean National Police University. Go Eun-gang (Chae Soo-bin) is a bold, headstrong student whose unrequited crush first draws her to enrol. There, she meets Wi Seung-hyun (Kang Daniel, in his acting debut), a top-of-the-class student determined to follow his father into the police force. Despite their contrasting personalities, the two grow closer as they face the demands of training and the challenges of young adulthood.

Beyond the budding romance, the freshmen must reckon with the campus’s conservative culture and a mystery surrounding a former student’s death. As they are drawn deeper in, Eun-gang and Seung-hyun’s sense of justice and commitment to the force are put to the test.

The same year Chae Soo-bin starred in the Disney+ original K-drama Rookie Cops, she also led Netflix’s The Fabulous, a youthful romance set against the pressures of Seoul’s fashion industry. The series follows a tight-knit circle of friends pursuing careers in a world where ambition, image and connections can make or break a future. Pyo Ji-eun (Chae Soo-bin) is a public relations manager for luxury brands, responsible for demanding clients and high-profile events. Her personal life is no less complicated, thanks to unresolved feelings between her and Ji Woo-min (Choi Min-ho), a freelance photo retoucher she once dated.

As Ji-eun works to keep her clients happy and advance her career, Woo-min searches for renewed motivation for his work, while their friends face setbacks of their own. Designer Joseph (Lee Sang-woon) chases a major opportunity, and established model Ye Seon-ho (Park Hee-jung) considers a future beyond the runway.

The hit historical romance K-drama Love in the Moonlight, starring Park Bo-gum and Kim You-jung, was an early-career milestone for Chae Soo-bin. Jo Ha-yeon (Chae Soo-bin), the daughter of a powerful minister, is chosen to marry Crown Prince Lee Yeong (Park Bo-gum) and hopes to win his heart. But his deepening feelings for Hong Ra-on (Kim You-jung), a young woman disguised as a palace eunuch, complicate her hopes for a future with him.

Rather than playing Ha-yeon as a conventional romantic rival, Chae gives the character independence and dignity as she confronts the gap between her ambitions and the prince’s affections. Set in the Joseon era, the series combines palace intrigue and political manoeuvring with a romance built on concealed identities.

A decade after the drama premiered, Chae reunited with Park Bo-gum, Kim You-jung, Jinyoung and Kwak Dong-yeon for Love in the Moonlight: Redrawn, a two-part anniversary special that follows the cast on a trip to Hongcheon, Gangwon Province. The five showcase the close friendship they’ve shared through the years, revisit favourite scenes and trade nicknames.

Across these eight K-dramas, Chae Soo-bin has taken on characters navigating complicated relationships, career ambitions and unexpected turns of fate. From the sci-fi rom-com I’m Not a Robot to the historical romance Love in the Moonlight and the suspense of When the Phone Rings, her roles reflect the range of stories she has explored throughout her career. With Take Charge of My Heart adding another hit to her filmography, there is plenty to revisit for fans who have followed her work over the years.

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