Behind Your Touch Episode 1 Recap and Review: The new South Korean thriller rom-com Behind Your Touch (힙하게) directed by Kim Suk-Yoon and written by Lee Nam-Kyu, stars prominent actors like Han Ji-min, Lee Min-ki, EXO’s Suho, Joo Min-kyung, Yang Jae-seong, Park Sung-yeon and others. The series is produced by JTBC, Tving and Netflix.

The series follows the lives of a kind Veterinarian and a grumpy Detective. Bong Ye-boon (Han Ji-min) is a veterinarian who has psychic abilities. She can see the past of any person or animal when she touches their rear end. On the go, she meets Detective Moon Jang-yeol (Lee Min-ki) and gets intertwined in cases. Jang-yeol is demoted to the rural village Mujin due to being a terrific hothead back in Seoul. To return back to the city, he seeks Ye-boon and starts uncovering various cases. However, their fate changes when Kim Sun-woo (Suho) arrives at Mujin and works at a grocery store. Though he seems kind and polite, he has deadly mysteries behind him.

Han Ji-min was last seen in Our Blues (2022), Lee Min-ki’s previous hit was My Liberation Notes (2022), Suho’s last venture was Besties in Wonderland (2022) and Suho Hurdle (Since 2022).

– Behind Your Touch Episode 1 Review Contains Spoilers –

Behind Your Touch Episode 1 Recap

A young Ye-boon rushes to the seaside to find her lifeless mother on the stretcher. One of her mother’s coworkers inform her that the officers who pulled Ye-boon’s mother out of the drowning car couldn’t save her life. Ye-boon starts to live with her Veterinarian grandfather Ui-hwan and Aunt Hyun-ok.

Ye-boon becomes best friends with Ok-hee, a wild-spirited girl. She takes care of Ye-boon and protects her from troubles. Ye-boon on the other hand is the kind girl who sticks beside Ok-hee and helps her with her studies. Time skip, we see Ye-boon return back to Mujin from college as a famous veterinarian with 15 years of experience. She runs the Bong Vet Hospital. Meanwhile, her friend Ok-hee manages the Ok-hee Dok-hee rooms/home.

Ye-boon’s aunt requests the former to work with cows and other such livestock since nobody is bringing their pets like dogs and cats to their vet clinic. Moreover, Ye-boon’s clinic is also running out of funds. On the other hand, Jang-yeol is transferred to Mujin police station and isn’t welcomed well. The moment he enters, he is called in for a mission. A happy Jang-yeol prepares to fight off the criminals—atleast that’s what he thought.

When he awaits the peril, he realises that all the cops have assembled to save Ye-boon from a deadly cow. Surprisingly, Ye-boon is saved but ends up with a kick from the cow. We learn that while injecting the cow with a shot, its anxiety increased, leading it to rush out of the clinic.

Jang-yeol gets pissed at the silly mission and asks Dok-hee, his colleague about other crime cases to which the latter states that Mujin is a crime-free place. Jang-yeol sternly says he will return to Seoul by stacking up his points by solving Mujin crime cases. However, he gets cut by Detective Jang-mook, who states that Jang-yeol will have to live for several years at Mujin, meaning that there are not going to be any severe cases.

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Back at the clinic, Ye-boon is requested by a livestock owner to check up on his pregnant cow. A reluctant Ye-boon is brainwashed by her aunt and she agrees to visit the cow. At the same time, all of the citizens in Mujin prepare for the meteor shower. When Ye-boon checks upon the cow, they witness the meteor shower and experience a bright light, casting them away.

Ye-boon wakes up at her home and we find that she’s been asleep for 3 days ever since that day. A confused Ye-boon goes on about her regular Vet life. When she pets her cat and touches its rear end, the cat’s past memories are played in her head. A perplexed Ye-boon again touches the cat’s back and another set of memories rush in.

Ye-boon panics and touches her pet dog’s back to confirm her experience. To her surprise, she watches the memories of the dog as well. While going to a hospital to consult a doctor, she touches a hen’s rear end only to experience the same. At the hospital, the doctor suggests she see a psychiatrist but she resists. She visits her best friend Ok-hee and explains her situation and the latter asks her to visit a shaman.

The next, Ye-boon meets a shaman who is the town’s so-called general. He pretends as a shaman and tries to draw her money. He tells her that she’s chosen by the deity and that if she performs a ritual she’ll be fine. Ye-boon agrees to it and returns back. On her way to the clinic, she decides to check whether she can read people’s minds. So on the bus, she chooses to touch the back of a pickpocket. Before she can get a perfect glance, Jang-yeol arrests her for inappropriateness.

At the police station, he inquires about her groping acts and she states she tried to confirm whether the man stole another person’s thing. Jang-yeol sternly says that it still doesn’t justify her groping someone’s back in a public place. He lets her go with a warning that he will be watching her. At home, she reads her aunt’s personal diary, and the viewers are shown the past romance between Jang-mook and Hyun-ok. However, in the present, Jang-mook despises Hyun-ok though the woman still loves him (we’re yet to know why they became enemies).

At her hospital, an old man whom she previously met brings in his dog. When she learns about the dog’s sacrifice through its memories, she helps the old man and the dog bond. This makes her happy for having such powers. When she goes to the Ok-hee Dok-hee place, she meets with Jang-yeol and learns that he is their tenant.

When Jang-yeol carries the bed with Dok-hee on the stairs, he slips. Ye-boon tries to save him and ends up catching him by his back, causing her to read his memories. She sees him beating up some bad people severely. Jang-yeol flips her and throws her down, thinking she’s a pervert. The episode ends with Ye-boon realising that she can also read people’s memories.

Behind Your Touch Review

The plot is super fresh and highly intriguing. All of the actors are quite well known and seeing them together in a rom-com seems promising. So far, Han Ji-min is carrying out her innocent skilled veterinarian role well, and Lee Min-ki as expected is killing his bad-boy cop character. I really like how the writers decided to make the siblings’ names as Ok-hee and Dok-hee to allude to the famous Korean song Okey Dokey by Mino and Zico. It’s a clever idea to captivate viewers.

As expected, Suho isn’t yet introduced but we get a glimpse of the next episode through a short snippet at the end. Jang-yeol is yet to know the psychic powers of Ye-boon. If he learns about it, at least he’ll realise she’s not the pervert he really thinks she is.

Behind Your Touch is streaming on Netflix. Let us know your thoughts about the thriller drama in the comment section below.

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