Published June 26, 2026, 5:30 p.m. ET

In the new Netflix K-drama Agent Kim Revisited, a bank manager who hates confrontation dredges up his past as a Black Ops double agent when his teenage daughter goes missing. Yes, we’ve seen the “secret killer” plot before, most recently on a Patrick Dempsey series on Fox. But, like most K-dramas, this show takes its time to set everything up before showing the main character’s killer side.

AGENT KIM REACTIVATED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A man in a black suit carrying a briefcase gets off a bus and trudges home after dark.

The Gist: Kim Do-hyeon (So Ji-sub) is a middle manager at a local bank. To say he’s “mild-mannered” is an understatement; even when he’s cold-cocked by a thug in a sports car near his apartment who’s ticked that Do-heyon’s arm hit his side mirror, Do-heyon just takes the punch, picks himself up, and goes upstairs.

He’s raising his teenage daughter, Kim Min-ji (Seo Su-min) on his own since his wife’s death, and she’s definitely in the phase where she barely speaks to him and is generally embarrassed by him. At work, his colleague Sang-ah (Son Na-eun) volunteers to help him buy Min-ji a birthday present, and with his credit card, she buys a t-shirt that’s 500,00 won (about $325). The way she figures, if Kim-ji tells him that she’s never done anything for him, at least he can say he gave her a cool t-shirt.

At school, Kim-ji is relentlessly bullied by Joo Hye-ri (Yoo Ji-an), the popular daughter of Joo Kang-chan (Joo Sang-wook), the chairman of Juhak Construction, who likes to wield his wealth and often uses the threats of violence (as well as actual violence) to get what he wants.

Once a year, Do-hyeon meets his friends, Seong Han-su (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 a school crossing guard. They drink and lament that their teenage kids no longer pay any attention to them. When the same thug that punched Do-heyon causes issues at the bar where the friends are drinking, Jin-cheol starts a massive brawl, which Do-hyeon ducks out of without saying a word.

When Hye-ri finds out that Kim-ji has been talking to her supposed boyfriend, popular athlete Kim Nam-hoon (Kael), she has Kim-ji dragged into a back room and intimidates her. But when Hye-ri mentions the fact that Kim-ji doesn’t have a mother, Kim-ji goes off on her and beats her senseless. After Kim-ji gets pulled into the administrator’s office for the fight, though, Do-heyon begs Joo Kang-chan for forgiveness, which shames Kim-ji even more, to the point where she says she’s going to stay at a friend’s house.

But the next morning, she ends up missing. When that happens, the mild-mannered Manager Kim brings back the memories and skills from when he was a former North Korean Black Ops soldier, 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 Manager Kim, Agent Kim Reactivated reminds us a bit of the recent Patrick Dempsey series Memory Of A Killer.

Our Take: Like most K-dramas that have complex premesis, the first episode of Agent Kim Revisited takes its sweet time to set things up. During almost the entire first episode, the only thing we know about Do-hyeon is that he’s a devoted dad 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’s meticulous and a rule-follower. We also know that Kim-ji is a pretty typical teenager, right down to the fact that a group of more-popular girls bully her.

But we also get an extended sequence that shows that Sang-ah knows the trends that teens like Kim-ji would like. Then we get long sequences showing what Han-su and Jin-cheol are doing. Given that they seem to be longtime buddies of Do-hyeon, we know that when Do-hyeon’s secret agent mentality gets “reactivated,” as the title suggests, the two of them will help him out — they were both likely secret agents, as well.

But for now, they’re all “middle-aged men with glasses”, two of whom don’t seem to be keen to get into scrapes anymore. As of the first episode, Do-hyeon’s buddies serve to bring some lightness to the proceedings, though we’re not sure they’ll stay that way.

What we hope to see is more flashbacks to Do-hyeon’s Black Ops days, to see exactly what broke him and how he managed to defect to the south after working for the north. We get glimpses of that history, plus Do-heyon’s ability near the end of the episode, but as he slips back into Black Ops mode as he looks for Kim-ji, we want to see where that skill and somewhat unhinged manner comes from.

Performance Worth Watching: So Ji-sub does a good job of making Kim Do-hyeon an office schlub who is barely tamping down his rage.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Do-hyeon wraps a girl’s hair tie around a man’s neck and pulls, asking him where Kim-ji is.

Sleeper Star: Yoon Kyung-ho is truly silly as Do-hyeon’s marine buddy Park Jin-cheol.

Most Pilot-y Line: Lim (Park Jin-woo) the owner of the dry cleaners below where the Kims live, keeps trying to sell his services to people on the street, including both of the Kims.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like most K-dramas, the first episode of Agent Kim Reactivated is a slow build. But in the time it takes to set up the characters and plot, it gives us a real insight into why the former Agent Kim is now the mild-mannered Manager Kim.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.