Lee Bo-young
Jang Hye-Sung
Overview
Government tax lawyer Hye Sung meets Su Ha, who has the ability to read people's thoughts.
Seasons
- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 18 episodes
- First aired
- Jun 5, 2013
Cast
12 people
Reviews
6 min readThe Telepathy of Wanting
I’ve rewatched the first five minutes of I Hear Your Voice three times now, and each time I’m struck by the same small, strange detail: the way Park Soo-ha’s fingers twitch when he hears someone’s thoughts. It’s not a grand gesture—no dramatic clutching of the temples, no glowing eyes. Just a quick, almost embarrassed flex of the hand, like he’s trying to shake off a static shock.
That twitch is the show’s first real clue: this isn’t going to be about the spectacle of mind-reading. It’s about the discomfort of knowing too much.
The premise is deceptively simple. A cynical public defender, Jang Hye-sung (Lee Bo-young), is pulled back into the life of Park Soo-ha (Lee Jong-suk), a high school senior who can hear people’s thoughts when he looks into their eyes. Their connection is rooted in trauma—years earlier, Hye-sung testified in court against the man who murdered Soo-ha’s father, and now that man, Min Joon-guk (Jung Woong-in), has returned for revenge.
What unfolds is a legal drama with a supernatural twist, but the real tension isn’t in the courtroom or the chase scenes. It’s in the quiet, domestic spaces between two people who keep saving each other, often without meaning to.
Director Jo Soo-won and writer Park Hye-ryun have a knack for blending genres without letting any one element dominate. I Hear Your Voice is a legal drama, a romance, a revenge thriller, and a supernatural fantasy, but it never feels like it’s juggling too much. The secret? It treats its own premise with a light touch.
Soo-ha’s telepathy isn’t a gimmick; it’s a narrative device that forces the characters to confront the gap between what people say and what they mean. Hye-sung, for all her bluster, is a master of deflection—her thoughts are a mess of self-doubt and calculation, but her words are sharp, dismissive, often cruel. Soo-ha hears the truth beneath them, and that truth is what binds them together.
The show’s most rewatchable moments aren’t the courtroom showpieces or the high-stakes confrontations with Min Joon-guk (though Jung Woong-in’s performance is deliciously unsettling—he plays the villain like a man who’s already won, which makes him all the more terrifying). They’re the small, domestic scenes: Hye-sung and Soo-ha folding laundry in her sun-drenched apartment, arguing over who left the toilet seat up, sharing takeout on the floor.
Audience Opinions
Limited evidence
"A warmly remembered fantasy romance with a courtroom heart that fans still revisit."
I Hear Your Voice plays as a fantasy, romance and judicial story told under its original title Neoui Moksoriga Deulryeo, and the audience response that remains is affectionate. Retrospective fan attention focuses on the ending, with dedicated looks back at the finale epilogue, and reviewers remember it as one of the best dramas from back then. latestnetflix.com's take is that it feels like a comfort rewatch for people who like emotional cases mixed with a supernatural twist and a central romance.
What viewers praise
- Memorable finale love Fans keep the ending alive through epilogue revisits and fond retrospective reviews that place it among the best dramas of its era.
- Distinct genre blend The mix of fantasy, romance and courtroom storytelling gives it a different flavor from a straight legal or love story.
Common complaints
- Not a straight genre watch The fantasy plus romance plus judicial blend may frustrate viewers who want only a realistic courtroom drama or only a romance.
Recommended for
Fans of Korean fantasy romance with courtroom cases Viewers who enjoy revisiting beloved early 2010s dramas
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsTHE SECRET LIFE OF “I HEAR YOUR VOICE”: NOONA KISSES, DENIED SCANDALS & A VERY POSSESSIVE HUSBAND
When Park Soo-ha said he’d protect Jang Hye-sung no matter what, he wasn’t the only one getting territorial. Behind the dreamy telepathy and courtroom chaos, the real-world story of I Hear Your Voice (aka I Can Hear Your Voice) is packed with age-gap debates, denied dating scandals, latestnetflix.com contends, strict kiss-scene rules and one husband who low‑key swooned over his wife kissing another man on TV.
Romance Rumors & Shipping Chaos
Lee Jong-suk & Park Shin-hye: The “just friends” that no one believed
Years after I Hear Your Voice, Lee Jong-suk’s love life became headline bait when he and Pinocchio co-star Park Shin-hye were reported to be dating. A Korean outlet published “date” photos and claimed they started a relationship after the drama ended, including overseas trips and visits to each other’s homes 
. Both agencies stomped on the rumors fast, insisting they were “just close friends” . Fans, naturally, filed that under “sure, Jan” and kept shipping them anyway.
Lee Bo-young: Married in real life, shipped on screen
While viewers were busy falling for Soo-ha and Hye-sung, Lee Bo-young already had a real-life leading man: actor Ji Sung. She married him in September 2013, not long after the drama finished airing. At a later reunion, Lee Jong-suk posted cast photos and affectionately called her their “loving noona,” wishing her a healthy delivery while she was pregnant with her and Ji Sung’s second child . So yes, the noona romance belonged to us; real life was strictly “married, with kids.”
Lee Da-hee’s CEO dating rumor
Around the time I Hear Your Voice made her a household name, Lee Da-hee was hit with a rumor that she’d been secretly dating her agency’s CEO for two years. Her company publicly denied it, saying the story wasn’t true and that even insiders had been gossiping without basis . The agency basically called it office fanfic.
On-Set Drama: Kiss Scenes, Rules & Lurking Husbands
The No-Smoking Kiss Contract
Lee Bo-young didn’t just show up, kiss, and go home. She laid down an on‑set rule for Lee Jong-suk: no smoking three hours before a kiss scene. On SBS’s One Night of TV Entertainment, she admitted, “I told him no smoking. He’s not allowed to smoke three hours before he has a kiss scene with me” . A queen who demands fresh breath and clear lungs.
Ji Sung Watching the Kiss Scene… WITH HER
If you thought Ji Sung would be the jealous husband type, think again — or maybe think differently. On a variety show, he confessed that when he watched Lee Bo-young’s kiss scene with Lee Jong-suk in I Hear Your Voice, “even I got the flutters” . The kicker? He watched it next to her. She warned him, “The kiss scene is about to come on,” and he just… watched it. His official line: “Since it was in the script, I can understand” . That’s some elite-level actor couple energy.
Foot massages & lunchbox bonding
Lee Jong-suk later shared that Lee Bo-young used to bring him lunch on set, and that he once repaid her kindness with a foot massage after a photoshoot . Fans took this as proof their “noona–dongsaeng” chemistry wasn’t just great acting — they genuinely doted on each other in a very “I raised this child actor into a leading man” way.
Scandals, Rumors & Age-Gap Controversy
The age gap no one could stop dissecting
The drama’s central romance pairs a high school senior Soo-ha with an adult lawyer Hye-sung. Critics and fans have chewed on this for years. One reviewer bluntly noted that while the older-woman/younger-man trope is common, the problem is “the boy is a high school senior when the relationship begins,” adding that the story would be “just as effective and less creepy” if Soo-ha were older — “maybe even 21” . Another commentary framed it against the fact that South Korea’s legal age of consent is 20, making the relationship feel even edgier to some viewers . Meanwhile, other fans defended it as a fantasy melodrama and pointed to their undeniable chemistry; Soompi even later highlighted the pairing as proof that “chemistry has no age limit” .
Lee Jong-suk’s pre–Voice scandal denial
Just months before I Hear Your Voice premiered, Lee Jong-suk had already been through the rumor mill. After School 2013, he was linked romantically to co-star Park Se-young — a rumor both sides “strongly denied,” as reported in Korean press . By the time he showed up in I Hear Your Voice, he was already seasoned at the “we’re just colleagues” script.
**Production Gossip, Extensions & What Didn’t Happen**
Ratings so good, SBS couldn’t let go
The show was originally planned for 16 episodes. Then ratings exploded, and SBS quietly did what any self-respecting network would: they extended it to 18 episodes . Officially, it was framed as a reward for viewers; unofficially, it was proof that Soo-ha and Hye-sung had the nation in a chokehold.
No messy lawsuits or leaks
Despite K-dramaland being no stranger to plagiarism suits and script-leak scandals, there’s no credible report of I Hear Your Voice being sued, accused of copying, or plagued by leaked scripts. Compared to contemporaries that got hit with plagiarism accusations, this one stayed squeaky clean in the courtroom where it counts: the real one 
.
Wild Trivia & Fandom Lore
The “Unofficial Trilogy” theory
Among fans and reviewers, I Hear Your Voice is often dubbed the first part of Park Hye-ryun’s unofficial Lee Jong-suk trilogy, followed by Pinocchio and While You Were Sleeping . Fans speculate the writer has him mentally bookmarked as her go‑to tortured golden boy.
A cast that actually likes each other (shock!)
In a world where co-stars often ghost each other after wrap, the I Hear Your Voice crew proved they were different. A 2018 reunion photo posted by Lee Jong-suk — complete with Lee Bo-young and Kim Kwang-gyu — came with the caption celebrating the “I Hear Your Voice team,” and Soompi noted the cast has “maintained a close relationship” and meets up regularly even years later . Zero feud energy, maximum found-family vibes.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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