Confirmed for ENA’s upcoming action romance “Treat Her with Caution,” the two K-drama veterans will play an ace spy hiding as a housewife and the ex-intelligence agent pretending to be her husband in a Korean remake of a Japanese hit that made Haruka Ayase a household name.
Few premises promise more built-in chaos than “a world-class spy forced to fake being a normal housewife,” and ENA just locked in two of Korean television’s most reliable leads to pull it off. On November 12, the network confirmed Hyeri and Na In-woo as the stars of its new Monday-Tuesday drama Treat Her with Caution (working title) a fake-marriage action romance that asks what happens when the person protecting your secret identity might be the only one who sees who you really are underneath it.
A Spy’s Worst Possible Undercover Assignment
The setup practically writes itself into tension: Hyeri plays Ja-young, codename “J-Nine,” an elite spy whose specialty is disguise she’s spent her career slipping into hundreds of false identities to pull off missions across the globe that should be impossible for anyone to survive. But Ja-young is on the verge of achieving her actual dream, an early retirement into a quiet “FIRE” lifestyle (financial independence, retire early a concept that’s become a genuine cultural touchpoint in Korea in recent years), when she’s framed for a crime she didn’t commit. Forced into hiding from the people hunting her, she takes on what she calls the single hardest disguise of her entire career: an ordinary, inexperienced housewife.
That’s where Na In-woo’s character comes in. He plays Gun-woo, the neighborhood’s beloved veterinarian warm, easygoing, animal-loving, and, inconveniently for Ja-young’s cover story, almost suspiciously perfect. Gun-woo has his own hidden history as a former National Intelligence Service agent, and after he rescues Ja-young from danger and takes her in as her “temporary guardian,” the two end up thrust into a marriage that exists purely for appearances right up until it stops feeling that way.
The Source Material Has Big Shoes to Fill
Treat Her with Caution isn’t an original concept it’s a remake of Tsuma wa, Toriatsukai Chuui (“The Wife Is, Handle with Care”), a hit series that aired on Japan’s Nippon TV in 2017 and starred Haruka Ayase and Hidetoshi Nishijima. The original built a loyal following on exactly this kind of premise: the collision between an extraordinary secret identity and the mundane demands of domestic life, with action beats and emotional stakes constantly undercutting each other.
Remaking a beloved Japanese drama for Korean audiences is a well-worn but risky path Korean adaptations of Japanese originals live or die on whether the new cast can make the premise feel freshly theirs rather than a shot-for-shot retread. The good news for Treat Her with Caution is that both of its leads have already proven they can carry exactly this kind of tonal balancing act.
Why Hyeri and Na In-woo Are the Right Bet
Hyeri’s path from K-pop idol to dramatic lead has been one of the more quietly impressive transformations in the industry. The youngest member of Girl’s Day broke through as an actress with Reply 1988 (2015), one of the most beloved and highest-rated cable dramas in Korean television history, before continuing to build range through projects like Entertainer (2016) and the supernatural romance My Roommate Is a Gumiho (2021). Playing a disguise specialist who essentially performs a different person in every scene is, in a strange way, a perfect showcase for an actress who’s spent her career proving she’s more than any single persona Hyeri herself said as much, noting that what drew her to the script was the character’s “ever-changing” nature, joking that playing one role will feel like playing several at once.
Na In-woo, meanwhile, has spent the last several years quietly becoming one of Korean television’s most dependable leading men. He broke out in the genderbending historical hit Mr. Queen (2020–2021), then won Best New Actor at the KBS Drama Awards (plus a Baeksang nomination) for River Where the Moon Rises (2021), before further sharpening his range in the hit revenge drama Marry My Husband (2024) and last year’s Motel California. A warm, almost aggressively likable screen presence has become his trademark exactly the quality Treat Her with Caution needs from a character whose entire charm depends on seeming too nice to be hiding anything. In his statement following the casting announcement, Na In-woo said he was drawn to Gun-woo’s “hidden story and reversal,” and pledged to work hard not to be a burden to his senior and fellow castmates a notably humble note for an actor stepping into his next leading role.
What to Expect
ENA is positioning Treat Her with Caution as a blend of taut action, slow-burn romantic tension, and genuine comedy a combination that, done well, tends to travel internationally better than straight melodrama, particularly for a network that’s been building its identity around high-concept genre mixing. The series is slated to air in the first half of 2027, which gives plenty of runway for additional casting news and first-look images in the months ahead.
For now, the pitch alone is enough to generate buzz: two attractive, highly competent people lying to each other about who they are, falling for each other anyway, while someone is actively trying to kill one of them. It’s a tried-and-true formula and in Hyeri and Na In-woo, ENA has two actors with exactly the right chemistry of charm and credibility to make the fake marriage feel real.