'Agent Kim Reactivated' hits 20% ratings in 4 episodes — why do we never tire of avenging dads?

There is an old saying: Never mess with a former special agent. And never, ever touch their child — or the dog they treat like one. What happens when someone fails to recognize the real thing hiding in plain sight, ignores the final warning and pushes anyway? The answer is too grim to imagine.

And then there is this man. His name is "Kim Bujang" — Korea's most common surname paired with the most generic of job titles. Whether it is his real name or simply a label that came with the desk, this man is the most dangerous kind of father in the world. Every morning he cooks breakfast for his daughter Minji. He bends over backward to give her whatever she wants. He will even get down on his knees for her — a devoted girl dad through and through.

A single father, Kim carries in his heart the dying wish of his wife: live as Minji's dad, nothing more. Then one day, the daughter he has raised with everything he has simply vanishes. The moment he realizes she is gone, he abandons that promise without a second thought. There is only one thing in front of him now — bringing her home.

Do the people who took Minji have any idea? That her father is a former state intelligence operative who completed 17 classified cross-border missions into North Korea?

That is the premise of "Agent Kim Reactivated," the SBS Friday-Saturday drama series that has been dominating Korean weekend evenings. Just four episodes in, the show has already posted a 21.6 percent viewership rating — a trajectory that has the industry buzzing. It is the first SBS drama to clear the 20 percent mark since "Queen of Tears" in 2024, and crossing that threshold in only four episodes leaves six more to push even higher. Some are already daring to whisper about the "dream 30 percent."

This column takes a closer look at "Agent Kim Reactivated" — the story of a father's desperate fight to find his daughter — and asks why this familiar, well-worn formula keeps exploding with audiences every single time.

"Agent Kim Reactivated" is not a new idea — not even close. The setup of a retired covert operative hiding his true identity is lifted almost directly from "Taken" and the "Equalizer" series, and the image of a man unlocking his sealed-away power to save the people he loves maps perfectly onto Liam Neeson in "Taken" and Keanu Reeves in "John Wick."

Among Korean titles, Won Bin's "The Man from Nowhere" (2010) is arguably the founding text of this genre. SBS's own flagship franchise "Taxi Driver" operates on the same grammar — a former special forces officer disguised in an ordinary job, meting out punishment to villains.

Anyone who has seen even one of those works will find "Agent Kim Reactivated" immediately familiar. The drama, adapted from a webtoon, makes no attempt at narrative sleight of hand. It follows the "dad universe" formula with complete and cheerful honesty. A daughter is kidnapped. Her father goes to get her back. That father is So Ji-sub. That is the whole story.

And yet — what if that very predictability is one of the reasons the show punched through the 20 percent wall in just four episodes?

The story of a quietly powerful patriarch saving his family is, at its core, a universal box-office formula. The clearest proof is "Taken." Released in 2008, the French film was written and produced by Luc Besson.

Despite carrying Besson's name — the man behind global blockbusters including "Nikita" (1990), "Léon" (1994) and "The Fifth Element" (1997) — the film was not treated as a major anticipated release. Its budget was modest by Hollywood action standards, and an action vehicle headlined by Liam Neeson, who was still seen primarily as a dramatic actor, did not immediately fire up public excitement. Neeson himself later admitted in an interview that he assumed the film would "play for a few weeks in France and go straight to video."

The reality turned out to be something else entirely. "Taken" went on to gross $226 million worldwide, drawing more than 2.3 million viewers in South Korea alone. The film proved so durable that it spawned a three-part series, demonstrating on its own terms that paternal love and the pursuit of justice carry a power that transcends time and place.

The overwhelming capability of the retired special operative has been well established by these predecessor fathers over many years. The three syllables of "paternal love" instantly resolve the question of audience identification — no further explanation needed. That is why "Agent Kim Reactivated" spends almost no time explaining why its protagonist is this formidable, or why this father pursues his daughter with such ferocity. Viewers skip the origin story and lock onto the anguish in a father's eyes from the very first episode. That is the convenience of a familiar formula.

The paternal love on display in these "dad universe" stories cannot be reduced to simple affection, however. The merciless rampage these fathers unleash is shot through with guilt — the guilt of having failed to protect a daughter — and a resolve to get her back at any cost. What can look like excessive violence reads, on closer inspection, as desperate thrashing. The action is exhilarating on the surface and agonizing underneath, and that combination is precisely what dissolves any instinct to judge the level of force being used.

In "Agent Kim Reactivated," a man taunts the protagonist by saying he cannot be touched by the law because he is a juvenile under criminal age. Kim's reply: "Then I guess I'll have to operate outside the law too." It is a declaration of intent to act beyond legal boundaries — and yet not a single viewer watching that scene feels the urge to say, "Still, you shouldn't do that."

The moment Kim sheds his cheap suit and reveals who he really is, he stops bothering to hide it. North Korea, which had been tracking him, and South Korea, which cannot afford to let him fall into North Korean hands, both immediately set their sights on him. Within the drama, Kim is portrayed as a man whose every move triggers a national emergency. True to that billing, he overwhelms every obstacle standing between him and his daughter with sheer, crushing force.

We also know exactly how this ends. Kim will not lose. He will find a way through. He will rescue his daughter and there will be a tearful reunion. There will be hardship, but there will be no twist. The story is predictable — and precisely because of that, it is not anxious. We have boarded a train whose destination was guaranteed from the moment we stepped on.

That psychological security is what makes Kim's cold, heavy action sequences shine even brighter. Knowing he cannot lose, viewers stop worrying about whether he will survive and focus entirely on how decisively he will win. That "safe thrill" — tension without existential dread — lets the audience fully savor the genre pleasures of the protagonist's physical dominance and the show's tightly constructed action. Suspense without fear, a process that keeps you on the edge of your seat even when you already know the outcome: this is the deeper reason the "dad universe" keeps getting consumed again and again.

No discussion of "Agent Kim Reactivated" is complete without talking about So Ji-sub, who plays the title role in his first return to SBS in 13 years. The pairing of So and action-revenge drama is hardly unfamiliar — in last year's Netflix series "Gwangjang," he played Nam Gi-jun, a man fighting to avenge his dead brother, delivering a brooding noir-action performance.

There were doubts, of course — about whether choosing "Agent Kim Reactivated," which could easily read as a repeat of a similar character, was the right call. But ahead of the premiere, So addressed his approach directly. "I tried to put emotion into every punch, not just throw it," he said. "I was curious to see myself playing a father raising a daughter alone." As his words suggested, what stands out in "Agent Kim Reactivated" is not only the action audiences have always trusted him to deliver, but the raw emotional performance of a middle-aged father who lives and breathes for his daughter.

The layering of emotion and action created by the actor's eyes and body language calls to mind Won Bin's portrayal of Cha Tae-sik in "The Man from Nowhere." Just as Cha's disproportionate acts of retribution read as the eruption of feelings he could never show on his face, Kim's seemingly irrational violence feels like the same kind of suppressed explosion. A father searching for his daughter has no time to cry, and no time to rage.

Some have also suggested that part of the show's success can be attributed to support from the film community. So has, for the past decade, consistently imported independent and art-house films through distributor Chanran — earning him a reputation as a pioneer of indie film importing in Korea. His notable imports include "Hereditary" (2018), "Midsommar" (2019), "The Substance" (2024) and "The Zone of Interest" (2024).

So's commitment to importing independent films is driven less by commercial gain than by a conviction to bring worthwhile work to audiences. In an interview last year, he said the work "means giving back what I have received." In return, film fans have launched their own campaign to watch the show live — a gesture of reciprocity toward an actor who has consistently given back to the audience.

Their numbers alone may not be enough to swing the ratings. But an actor's positive influence can have a measurable effect on viewership, and that raises broader questions about the relationship between a performer's public image and a show's commercial success.

Hong Seong-chang, chief executive of Studio S — the SBS drama production house that has now scored back-to-back hits following "Brave New World" — was confident in his assessment. "It has been proven once again that if the content is good enough, viewers will still come to the TV," he said.

On the success of "Agent Kim Reactivated" specifically, Hong said: "'Agent Kim Reactivated' is a story that shows head-on just how strong an ordinary person can become when protecting someone precious to them. I think that power has struck a universal chord across generations — and beyond Korea — drawing an enthusiastic response from viewers around the world."