Agent Kim Reactivated (2026) is a Channel SBS Korean action series, airing internationally on Netflix, that tells the story of Kim Do Hyun, a former North Korean spy who turned his life around by escaping to South Korea and becoming a quiet, ordinary salaried man, to raise his daughter with love after his wife's tragic death in childbirth.

Lead actor So Jisub (I'm Sorry, Love You, Master's Sun, My Secret Terius, Oh My Venus, Glass Slippers, Cain And Abel, Road Number 1, Warm And Cozy, Doctor Lawyer, We Are Dating Now, U-Turn, Memories Of Bali, Little House In The Forest. films: Sophie's Revenge, Always, A Company Man, Can't Live Without Robbery, Battleship Island, Be With You, Rough Cut, The Throne, Confession, Alienoid 1 + 2) gives yet another outstanding performance here as Agent Kim, a man who yearns to live a simple, ordinary life after years of spy work for both the North and later the South. He was in the very first Korean drama I ever watched, way back in 2006, I'm Sorry, I Love You, and he hooked me on watching more dramas and films from South Korea because they were so awesome. I will always be grateful to him for that, since I find my own country's television shows to be totally unwatchable today. South Korea RULES in the entertainment world, especially for all their superb television dramas that have become enormously popular worldwide (not to leave out their formidable thespians who help make them unforgettable!).

The two supporting character actors who play his former co-horts as spies in the story are always enormously fun to watch in any drama or film they appear in: actor Choi Dae Hoon, whom I recently laughed uproariously at in the great drama WonderFOOLS, and actor Yoon Kyung Ho who especially wowed me in the historical drama The Crowned Clown. When you see their names in cast lists you just know going in that you're going to have a fabulous time watching them flesh out their many characters. They are both beyond excellent!

For our main villain we have the versatile actor Joo Sang Wook (Good Doctor, Cunning Single Lady, Fates And Furies, Air City) who mostly plays romantic leads but here decided to play the main bad guy in the story. I really enjoyed him in this change of pace role. I guess all actors try not to become typecast. I admit sometimes I wanted to scratch his character's eyes out (LOL!) but knew all along he was enjoying becoming this subtly demonic character who would love to seek revenge on So Jisub's character, his family, and friends.

The script here was based on a popular web-toon written by Namjaui Yiyagi and Jung Jong Taek, with a derivative script by Nam Dae Joong, and the drama was directed by the brilliant Lee Seung Young, whose prior dramas Missing Noir M and Wonderful World were completely addictive to watch! Especially Missing Noir M, which to this day continues to be my top favorite crime-solving drama of all time, from any nation. This drama was in perfect hands with him at the helm!

The Story:

We meet a former North Korean turned South Korean spy who is now, in 2026, living a quiet domestic life in South Korea, working at a small local bank in Seoul, and he is called by everyone Manager Kim (So Jisub). His wife had sadly died in childbirth and he is now a single Dad taking care of an artistically talented teenage daughter named Min Ji (pretty Seo Su Min who was excellent in her first acting role here). Dad and daughter get along pretty well, although sometimes Min Ji tends to take her loving Dad for granted. She has no idea about his background as a spy, assuming that he has always worked as a simple bank manager.

Unhappily, Min Ji is often bullied at school, which she keeps a secret from her Dad, especially by the jealous daughter of their Songin High School's chief administrator-principal named Ju Gang Chan (Joo Sang Wook). This spoiled daughter of Ju Gang Chan, named Ju Hye Ri (Yoo Ji An, also a first role for this young actress) enjoys bringing together some social misfits to attack Min Ji after school. One day the tormenting becomes very physical, just about life-threatening, and Min Ji becomes unconscious and is dragged away to a secret factory location. Hye Ri plays the innocent in all that had happened to Min Ji. She's her arrogant Dad's daughter all right!

When Min Ji doesn't return home from school our Manager Kim becomes very concerned and starts to track down where she could have gone and who might have been involved in her disappearance. The more he finds out, the angrier he becomes. He walks the streets for hours trying to locate her, with no luck. He enlists the help of his two best male friends, who had also been former spies like him, and who now are parents as well, and run their own small businesses, keeping a low profile. One friend is named Sung Han Soo (Choi Dae Hoon) and the other Park Jin Cheol (Yoon Kyung Ho). Because all three men are former spies they don't want to get the local police involved in attempting to find out what happened to Min Ji; they need to use alternate methods in their sleuthing.

Eventually the principal at Songin High is alerted about Min Ji's disappearance and is doubly concerned when he discovers his own daughter Hye Ri had been involved in what happened to Min Ji. But instead of blaming his daughter he decides to protect her at all costs and uses his own secret contacts in the spy agencies to locate Min Ji and keep her imprisoned, and to hurt her sleuthing Dad, to the point that he even seeks ways to get rid of Manager Kim --- permanently! HOW did this evil man ever become a principal of a high school??? He basically leaves Manager Kim with no other choice than to go back to his old spying ways of violence to achieve his end of saving his daughter.

It becomes a race to the finish between a loving Dad and an evil Dad. Manager Kim, his buddies Han Soo and Jin Cheol, and along the way some unusual helpers, like a local laundry biz owner named Lim (Park Jin Woo), plus some security force men and women in his old spy agencies who sympathize with Manager Kim, help to make this drama exceedingly intriguing, filled with great cliffhangers as well.

  

The highlight of this drama is So Ji Sub's exceptional performance as a loving Dad, a role which conveys the internal conflict between a parent who wants to live a quiet, normal life, and a spy out to rescue his teen daughter no matter what the cost to himself. Well-laid out action scenes and well-inserted jokes on occasion help to make the journey compelling. While the plot is basically a recipe that action drama fans would be familiar with, the underlying plot theme of fatherly love adds some new excitement to the story.

Agent Kim Reactivated is a serious production, but with a length of only one hour per episode the series is well paced and simply fun and addictive to watch. Don't miss it!

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