Destined With You 2023 Episode 1

Episode 1 of Destined With You starts with a government servant named Lee Hong-jo visiting a construction site to check out a noise complaint from the nearby residents. She tells the residents that she won’t be able to stop the construction as the decibels of noise recorded are under the permissible limit. The residents get angry at Hong-jo and start yelling at her.

At the same time, a construction worker falls from the building and ends up losing his life when a rebar lodges into his skull. The episode then moves on to Jang Sin-yu who is the lawyer on the case regarding the construction worker’s death. He is suffering from a disease that makes his heart run really slow while he hallucinates a bloody hand called “Red Hand” on his face.

Sin-yu asks the hand to spare him as the air runs chilly but his conversation with the mystical creature is halted when his colleague – Kim Wook shows up. Wook asks Sin-yu to prepare well for the hearing the following morning. At the hearing of the case, Sin-yu manages to prove that the construction worker had staged the accident in order to receive huge compensation from his client.

He calls in the worker’s wife and proves that the woman had asked her husband to stage an accident to get some funds for their son’s cancer treatment. Sin-yu argues that the accident was executed poorly and the man ended up losing his life. The woman eventually comes clean and Sin-yu’s client ends up winning the case. In celebration, the client asks Sin-yu and his colleagues to join him for drinks at a club.

The man starts getting physical with one of the female employees and beats up a male employee who tries to defend her. Sin-yu shows up at the scene and saves the man by warning the client about the CCTV cameras in the room.

Meanwhile, a young vlogger meets with an accident after he visits an abandoned shrine late at night. The vlogger ends up tripping and falling after entering the shrine. Hong-jo is transferred to a different to a different department where her new senior – Gong Seo-goo does not treat her well. Since Hong-jo’s interference had cost Seo-goo his promotion, he tried to take it out on her by hazing her at work. Hong-jo also has a one-sided crush on Kwon Jae-kyung, someone who also works at the City Hall.

After the vlogger’s parents create a scene at the office, Hong-jo volunteers to go check the haunted shrine out. She promises to get it demolished as per the victim’s parent’s request. Her colleague, Sae-byeol, accompanies Hong-jo on the drive to the haunted shrine but asks her to go by herself to inspect it.

Hong-jo takes photos of the shrine to report to the demolishers but spots Sin-yu who is also there. She ends up fainting out of shock as she falls to the ground. Hong-jo assumes Sin-yu to be the Grim Reaper but is shocked when he snaps a photo of her instead. Hong-jo passes out and wakes up to Sae-byeol yelling at her for making her come to the haunted house.

Meanwhile, Sin-yu visits a family member’s funeral where his father scolds him for letting their family shrine go into ruins. Sin-yu tells the man that he had put his friend to work on the restoration of the shrine and had also paid a huge fortune in advance for the restoration.

He claims that he had visited the shrine for the first time that day and learnt that the restoration of the shrine had not even started. His father mocks him for not taking good care of their family shrine while his grandfather asks Sin-yu to pour him a drink. Sin-yu’s hand starts shivering while pouring a drink down the old man’s glass.

Sin-yu cooks up a lie to cover his trembling hands and leaves after a while. He goes to a neurologist who tells Sin-yu that he has severe brain damage. Sin-yu learns that the condition he is suffering from is untreatable and genetic. He also finds out that due to this illness, the right side of his body including his dominant hand, would stop responding and his speech would get slurred.

Meanwhile, Hong-jo goes back to the office and learns that the shrine is not owned by the government but by a private businessperson. Her boss tells Hong-jo to ask around and find more information about the shrine as there was nothing listed about them in the government records.

Seo-goo also threatens Hong-jo, stating she could lose her job if she does not convince the owners to go through with the demolition. Hong-jo starts asking the elderly in the area and learns that the shrine is owned by a family of construction workers, and the newest owner is a lawyer named Sin-yu at Law & High Law Firm. She goes to pay Sin-yu a visit and recognises him in the elevator.

Both Hong-jo and Sin-yu have an odd first interaction when she accuses him of leaving her to die in the middle of the haunted shrine. She tries to reason with him, asking him to demolish it but he refuses to do so. Sin-yu claims that the vlogger had trespassed on his private property, adding that his death doesn’t concern him or his family.

Hong-jo leaves Sin-yu’s office dejected and spots Jae-kyung on her way back to the City Hall. Jae-kyung is assisting an architect who was on his way to the civil office. The protesters against an upcoming project try to throw water on Jae-kyung but Hong-jo saves him by getting doused in the water instead of him.

After going back to her office, Hong-jo’s boss yells at her for not going through with her promise of getting the haunted shrine demolished. Meanwhile, Sin-yu is on a date with his girlfriend, Yoon Na-yeon. Na-yeon complains that Sin-yu doesn’t spend enough time with her over the past few weeks.

Sin-yu tries to reason with her and apologises for being too busy with work. He avoids discussing his medical condition with her and goes through with the rest of the date. At the same time, Hong-jo recalls the elders from the village talking about a senior shaman who used to live in the shrine. She decides to talk to Sin-yu and find out more about the shaman who was at a nursing home.

On her way back home, she runs into Jae-kyung on the elevator and starts blushing. He claims that he was worried about her safety after she showed up in front of a protestor. Jae-kyung states that the protestor could have had acid in his hand instead of water and claims that she should be mindful going forward. They chat for a bit before Jae-kyung leaves to go home on his own and Hong-jo watches him leave.

The next morning, Hong-jo shows up at Sin-yu’s office and the two start bickering instantly. Hong-jo asks Sin-yu to tell her where the shaman is, insisting to talk to the woman but Sin-yu refuses. Hong-jo reveals that her colleagues were trying to outcast her and adds that she did not want to be eating alone at work too because she was tired of eating alone at home.

Sin-yu is touched by Hong-jo’s story and gives her the number of the Ministry of Labour to complain about her workplace harassment. He also gives her the name of the nursing home so she to talk to the shaman. Hong-jo visits the shaman and calls Shin-ju, telling him that Shaman Eun-wol has agreed to demolish the shrine.

She sends Shin-ju a video of the shaman giving her permission to Hong-jo to have the shrine taken down. Shin-ju shows up to see the shaman himself and asks the old woman what she is doing by allowing Hong-ju to demolish the temple. Shaman Eun-wol claims that Shin-ju killed the woman with the Red Hand in his past life and was going to bear the consequences of his actions. She adds that Hong-jo was the owner of the chest that held the power to break his curse.

The next day, Hong-jo joins Shin-ju and his family as they go through a spiritual custom before demolishing the shrine. Later that night, Hong-jo learns that her colleagues are out having dinner without her and feels sad.

While demolishing the shrine, Shin-ju finds the chest and recalls how Shaman Eun-wol told him that Hong-jo had a key to it. He finds Hong-jo crying outside City Hall and asks her to tag along with him.

The Episode Review

This drama looks like a good mix of Doom At Your Service and Tale of the Nine-Tailed. We do not have any information about the Red Hand for now but it seems like Rowoon’s character, Sin-yu, may have killed his lover in his past life. It looks like Tae-ri is going to be a must-have in fantasy dramas!

After starring in Extraordinary You with Row0on and in Tale of the Nine-Tailed with Bo-ah, he is reuniting with his co-stars in this new fantasy-romance show. So far, the first episode looks like a textbook fantasy show and I hope it turns into something interesting as the story progresses.