In the new Netflix Korean drama Agent Kim revisiteda bank manager who hates confrontation, relives his past as a double agent in Black Ops when his teenage daughter disappears. Yes, we’ve seen the “secret killer” plot before, most recently in Patrick Dempsey’s Fox series. But, like most K-dramas, this show takes some time to set everything up before showing the killer side of the main character.
Opening shot: A man wearing a black suit and carrying a bag gets off the bus and returns home after dark.
Essence: Kim Do-hyun (Soo Ji-sub) is a middle manager at a local bank. To say it’s “cute” is an understatement. Even when he gets beaten up by a thug in a sports car near his apartment who points out that Do-heyon’s arm hit his side mirror, Do-heyon takes the punch, picks himself up, and goes upstairs.
He’s been raising his teenage daughter, Kim Min Ji (Seo Soo Min), on his own since his wife’s death, and she’s definitely at the stage where she barely talks to him and is generally embarrassed by him. At work, his colleague Sang Ah (Son Na Eun) volunteers to help him buy a birthday present for Min Ji, and using his credit card, she buys a shirt worth 50,000 won (about $325). From the way she imagines it, if Kim Ji told him she didn’t do anything for him, at least he could say he gave her a nice shirt.
At school, Kim Ji is relentlessly bullied by Jo Hye Ri (Yoo Ji An), the popular daughter of Jo Kang Chan (Jo Sang Wook), the head of Juhak Construction, who likes to exploit his wealth and often uses threats of violence (as well as actual violence) to get what he wants.
Once a year, Do-hyun meets up with his friends, Seung Han-soo (Choi Dae-hoon), who runs a taekwondo dojang for kids, and Park Jin-cheol (Yoon Kyung-ho), a former marine who now plays video games and volunteers to be the school’s crossing guard. They drink and regret that their teenage children no longer pay any attention to them. When the same thug who punched Do-hyun causes trouble at the bar where the friends are drinking, Jin-cheol starts a big fight, which Do-hyun gets out of without a word.
When Hye-ri finds out that Kim-ji has been talking to her supposed boyfriend, famous athlete Kim Nam-hoon (Kael), she drags Kim-ji into a back room and intimidates her. But when Hye-ri brings up the fact that Kim Ji doesn’t have a mother, Kim Ji attacks her and beats her senseless. After Kim-ji is dragged into the principal’s office for a fight, Do-heyon asks Joo Kang-chan to forgive him, which shames Kim-ji even more, to the point where she says she’ll stay at a friend’s house.
But the next morning she ended up missing. When this happens, the kindly Director Kim brings back the memories and skills he had as a former Black Ops soldier in North Korea, who defected to the South and became a double agent who is one of the North’s most wanted targets.
What shows will it remind you of? Based on the webtoon Director Kim, Agent Kim has been reactivated A bit reminiscent of Patrick Dempsey’s recent series Memory of the killer.
Take us: Like most K-dramas that have complex intros, the first episode of this K-drama has a complex intro Agent Kim revisited He takes his sweet time setting things up. For almost the entire first episode, the only thing we know about Do-hyun is that he is a devoted father and that he hates conflict. Even when he gets punched by a thug, he doesn’t fight back. But what we do know is that he is meticulous and follows the rules. We also know that Kim-ji is a very typical teenager, due to the fact that a group of the more popular girls are bullying her.
But we also get an extended sequence showing that Sang-ah knows what trends teens like Kim-ji prefer. We then get long sequences showing what Han Soo and Jin Cheol are doing. Since they appear to be old friends of Do-hyeon, we know that when Do-hyeon’s secret agent mentality is “reactivated”, as the title suggests, the two will help him – and both are likely secret agents as well.
But right now, they are all “middle-aged men with glasses”, and it seems that two of them don’t want to get scratched anymore. As of the first episode, Do-hyeon’s companions are working to bring some lightness to the events, though we’re not sure they’ll stay that way.
What we hope to see is more flashbacks to Do-hyeon’s days in Black Ops, to see exactly what broke him and how he was able to defect to the South after working in the North. We get glimpses of this history, as well as Do-heyon’s ability towards the end of the episode, but when he returns to Black Ops mode searching for Kim-ji, we want to see where this skill and somewhat unhinged style comes from.
Performance worth watching: So Ji-sub does a good job of making Kim Do-hyun an office worker who can barely contain his anger.
Sex and skin: no one.
Parting shot: Do Hyun wraps a girl’s hair tie around the man’s neck and pulls it, asking him where Kim Ji is.
Sleeping star: Yoon Kyung-ho is truly ridiculous as Do-hyeon’s seafaring friend Park Jin-cheol.
Most experimental fonts: Lim (Park Jin-woo), the owner of the dry cleaning shop below where the Kim family lives, keeps trying to sell his services to people on the street, including the Kim family.
Our call: Broadcast it. Like most Korean dramas, the first episode of Agent Kim has been reactivated It is a slow build. But in the time it takes to set up the characters and plot, it gives us a real idea as to why former agent Kim has now turned into the kindly manager Kim.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) He writes about food, entertainment, parenting, and technology, but he’s not kidding himself: He’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Salon, Rolling Stone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.