So Ji-sub returns home to SBS with dad-driven action series 'Agent Kim Reactivated'

For So Ji-sub, “Agent Kim Reactivated” feels like a homecoming. It brings him back to action, a genre he has long been fond of, and to SBS, the network where he began his acting career in 1997.

“I first started reading the script because of the action,” the actor said in a press conference at the broadcaster’s headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Thursday. “But then I was drawn more to Kim’s story, that he raised his daughter on his own, and to the emotions of a father who sets out to find her after she disappears. All of that felt like a real challenge for me, and that’s why I chose the project.”

On returning to SBS after 13 years, So said the broadcaster felt like “home.”

He has done many of his most well-known TV projects at SBS, all the way from 2002 with “Glass Slippers,” then with "Cain and Abel" (2009), “Ghost” (2012) and “Master’s Sun” (2013). Including “Agent Kim Reactivated,” he has appeared in 19 shows with the broadcaster, more than half of his 33 domestic TV projects, making SBS the network he has worked with most often.

“Returning to such a familiar place made me feel comfortable and happy, and I was able to work at ease,” he said. 

“Agent Kim Reactivated” follows So as Kim, a North Korean defector and former secret agent who now lives an ordinary life as a general manager at a bank. After his daughter is kidnapped, he is forced back into action to find her, teaming up along the way with a group of dads and getting caught up in a criminal organization.

The plot invites obvious comparisons to “Taken” (2008) and Liam Neeson’s ex-spy-turned-father character. But director Lee Seung-young says “Agent Kim Reactivated” had more room to expand on that premise, emphasizing that supporting characters — like the other fathers Seong Han-su and Park Jin-cheol, played by Choi Dae-hoon and Yoon Kyung-ho, respectively, and Kim's mysterious colleague Jeong Sang-a, played by Son Na-eun — bring plenty of fun when Kim is not on screen.  

“‘Taken’ is essentially a real-time chase about a father trying to find his daughter,” Lee said. “Our series is a 10-hour-long story. While it takes the strengths of ‘Taken,’ it also has something that the film did not have: the stories of the people around Kim and a cast of vivid, lively characters."

There's also diversity in the fighting. If Kim’s action is “cold yet hot,” Yoon said, taekwondo instructor Han-soo’s is defined by flashy taekwondo kicks, while Marine Corps veteran Jin-cheol’s is "powerful and cathartic."

“Because I personally like hand-to-hand combat, I think Jin-cheol’s action had a certain raw pleasure to it, a satisfying thrill grounded in powerful close-quarters fighting,” he said.

Director Lee said he tried to ground the revenge-action thriller more firmly in reality while adapting it from the webtoon “Manager Kim” (2021-). The production retained the webtoon’s central narrative and visual appeal, from the characters’ costumes to their hairstyles, but adjusted the "unrealistic elements" of the characters.

“I would say the series is about 70 to 80 percent preserving the strengths of the original and 20 to 30 percent re-creation,” he said.

“Agent Kim Reactivated” airs on SBS starting Friday and will stream globally on Netflix.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]