Baekho Manpower – K-wave Insider

The drama’s finale is the webtoon’s opening scene. Here’s what Kim Bujang walks into at Baekho Manpower — and where the story could go from here.

K-Drama & Film

⚠️ Contains ending spoilers, plus original webtoon content.

As covered in an earlier post, Agent Kim Reactivated‘s ending wasn’t really an ending. It was the show barely arriving at the exact point where the original webtoon actually begins.

Fan Service — Steering a Show That Had Gone Off the Rails Back on Track

Episodes 9 and 10 filled their runtime with a subplot found nowhere in the webtoon — Ri Eung-ryeong, the North-South summit, a corrupt task bureau — and the reaction became noticeably mixed.

The show had drifted far from its source material, to the point where some fans argued things wouldn’t have gotten this messy if it had simply followed the webtoon.

Then, in the very last scene, the drama corrects course. Jo Pyeong-gyeon destroys Juhak Construction with a single phone call, and Kim Bujang is dispatched to a place called Baekho Manpower (“White Tiger” Manpower), where he meets Lee Do-gyu — this is, almost beat for beat, the webtoon’s actual opening.

However far off track the story had wandered, the finale forced it back onto the original rails at the last possible moment. For many webtoon readers, that final scene helped soften the frustration, reading as the production finally delivering real fan service.

Which means the true meaning of this ending isn’t closure. It’s closer to a promise: that a second season could actually follow the source material.

What Is Baekho Manpower?

Baekho Manpower (백호, “White Tiger”) is an underworld organization run by Jo Pyeong-gyeon. Its exact purpose still hasn’t been fully revealed, even in the webtoon. Its head is Lee Do-gyu — once known as the “king of the streets,” a leader among the city’s homeless,

who later joined a fistfighting gang, and after that gang dissolved, rose to become a king of the underworld and founded this organization.

Kim Bujang Meets Lee Do-gyu — One of the Webtoon’s Most Famous Scenes

This scene is already legendary among webtoon readers. Lee Do-gyu shows up to their first meeting completely naked, throwing Kim Bujang off balance. What follows is framed as a normal job interview — until Kim Bujang holds back, and an offended Lee Do-gyu tries to throw him out, only to properly begin the real confrontation after reading his resume.

Refusing to use any weapon, Kim Bujang drives Lee Do-gyu into a wall bare-handed and makes him cough blood with a chon-gyeong strike. Then Lee Do-gyu gets back up, unbothered, and sends Kim Bujang into a wall with a single punch, flipping the fight entirely.

What starts as an “interview” ends up foreshadowing exactly the kind of tense, unresolved dynamic these two will carry for the rest of the story.

After He’s Hired — The Broad Strokes

Once Kim Bujang joins Baekho Manpower, the webtoon moves through several major arcs. There’s an early stretch where he completes his first assignments and finds his footing inside the organization, a crisis where Kim Bujang himself gets kidnapped, and a later stretch that tangles him up with a massive conglomerate. The story keeps expanding from there.

Along the way, Seong Han-su supports Kim Bujang as both friend and colleague, and their families become close too. Park Jin-cheol gets a deeper arc through Ares — a private military outfit he leads, named after the Greek god of war. Even Lee Do-gyu develops past a simple brute, revealing a sharper side that maneuvers situations to his own advantage.

A Character Shift — Not the “Uncle,” but the Manager

Here’s an interesting wrinkle. In Lookism — the original series where he first appeared as a cameo — Kim Bujang came across as relatively relaxed and warm, the type who tells a kid not to work himself too hard.

In his own series, though, as a former special forces operative working for Baekho Manpower, he’s shown as far colder and more clinical about the jobs he’s assigned. The same character reads differently depending on which story he’s standing in.

The Verdict — What This Ending Actually Leaves Behind

Agent Kim Reactivated‘s finale wasn’t a conclusion. It was a starting line. Whatever happened in episodes 9 and 10, the show landed at the exact right coordinates in the end, and that earned back a measure of fan trust.

It’s also what keeps a Season 2 possible — and given how popular the source webtoon already is, the commercial case for one isn’t weak either.

If a second season happens, this is where it starts: Baekho Manpower, Lee Do-gyu, and an organization whose real purpose still hasn’t been revealed.

Basic Info

English Title: Agent Kim Reactivated
Korean Title: 김부장 (Kim Bujang)
Network / Streaming: SBS (Fri/Sat drama), simultaneous Netflix release
Episodes: 10
Cast: So Ji-sub, Choi Dae-hoon, Yoon Kyung-ho, Joo Sang-wook, Son Na-eun, Kim Sung-kyu

Haven’t started the show yet? Start here:

Agent Kim Reactivated: What You Need to Know Before You Watch

Illustrated thumbnail showing the main cast of the Netflix Korean drama Agent Kim Reactivated — Illustration: Netflix Korean Drama Agent Kim Reactivated / KwaveInsider

Meet the man himself — the full backstory of Code Name 66:

Who Is Code Name 66? Manager Kim’s Backstory Explained

Want the war machine and the martial artist too?

Agent Kim Reactivated: Who Is Park Jin-cheol, the “God of War”?

Agent Kim Reactivated: Who Is Seong Han-su, the Martial Arts Master?

Three legendary fathers, three fighting styles — who actually wins?

Agent Kim Reactivated: The Three Legends — Who Is Actually the Strongest?

Already watched the whole thing? Here’s the full spoiler review — story and ending explained:

Agent Kim Reactivated: Full Story and Ending Explained

Curious how the drama’s villains compare to their real webtoon fates?

Agent Kim Reactivated: The Villains’ Real Fates in the Webtoon

Looking for another Netflix Korean drama you need to watch right now? Here’s a no-spoiler review:

Should You Watch The East Palace? A Korean Viewer’s Take

Illustrated thumbnail showing four dramatic scenes from the Netflix Korean drama The East Palace — Illustration: The East Palace / KwaveInsider

Would you watch a Season 2 that follows the webtoon? Drop your take in the comments.

Some links in this post may be affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The drama runs out of runway after Episode 8 — here’s what it invented, and the real story only webtoon fans know. Full spoilers.

K-Drama & Film

⚠️ Full spoilers ahead. This covers the entire show, ending included.

Agent Kim Reactivated is over. Ten episodes in, one question remains: did the drama really end — or did it finally arrive at the point where the original webtoon begins?

An Ordinary Manager, Unsealed

Kim Bujang lives an invisible life as a department head at a savings bank. His daughter Min-ji is being bullied by Hye-ri, the daughter of conglomerate heir Joo Kang-chan, and disappears after a physical altercation. Searching for her, Kim Bujang unseals an identity he’d buried — Code Name 66, a former elite North Korean operative.

He isn’t alone. Seong Han-su is a former national taekwondo gold medalist who now runs a quiet neighborhood dojang — a gentle father on the surface, one of the strongest fighters in this universe underneath, at his best in infiltration and rescue operations that ask him to throw his whole body into the fight.

Park Jin-cheol is a former soldier — rough and blunt on the outside, but the one who turns a losing fight around with firepower and split-second instinct when everything falls apart. Kim Bujang, Seong Han-su, Park Jin-cheol — these three fathers are the axis this entire show turns on.

The State, the Underworld, and North Korea

Tracking Min-ji’s phone, Kim Bujang discovers it belonged to a homeless man — and that the friend he trusted most had been using his daughter the whole time. Realizing he knew nothing about his own daughter’s life makes his search more desperate, not less.

Meanwhile, a local crime boss named Geum-i-ppal turns out to be tangled up in Min-ji’s disappearance, and North Korea picks up on Kim Bujang’s survival, sending an agent south. South Korea’s special task bureau starts tracking all three men. What began as one father searching for his daughter expands into a fight involving state agencies, organized crime, and North Korea all at once.

“Min-ji, Dad’s Here.”

Trapped in a cold-storage warehouse at Myeongpo Harbor, Min-ji manages to escape on her own — only to end up, by cruel coincidence, in the car belonging to the villain, Joo Kang-chan.

The trio launches a coordinated infiltration to get her back: Kim Bujang goes straight through the front, Seong Han-su enters through a ventilation shaft, and Park Jin-cheol secures the weapons cache and the escape route. Even as the task bureau surrounds the site, Kim Bujang finally reaches his daughter: “Min-ji, Dad’s here. Let’s go home.”

That’s episode six. Fast-paced, tightly built. What comes after is where the trouble starts.

After Episode 8 — The State Uses Him Again

Kim Bujang turns himself in, survives a loyalty test staged by the task bureau (a fake North Korean torture chamber), and is deployed on a new mission: protect Ri Eung-ryeong, a defected North Korean intelligence chief. Complete it, and Kim Bujang and Min-ji get their freedom.

But a leak from a corrupt deputy minister sends Ri Eung-ryeong’s location through Joo Kang-chan to North Korea. The summit collapses, and the task bureau decides to hand both men over to the North instead. Cornered, Kim Bujang is saved by Seong Han-su and Park Jin-cheol, and using the captured Joo Kang-chan, the trio infiltrates the resort where Ri Eung-ryeong is being held and pulls off the extraction.

It could have ended there, cleanly. Instead, a freed Joo Kang-chan produces footage of Seong Han-su and Park Jin-cheol’s kidnapped children, flipping the board one more time.

Episode 10 — The Final Turns

The children as bait. Joo Kang-chan uses the kidnapped children to lure all three fathers into a steel cage, holding the kids at gunpoint and forcing Kim Bujang’s friends to kill him. Park Jin-cheol and Seong Han-su fake an attack on Kim Bujang — and the moment Joo Kang-chan gets close enough to the cage, Kim Bujang grabs him while the other two break the cage open and free the children. Park Jin-cheol and Seong Han-su make him pay, personally and brutally, for using their kids as leverage.

Ri Eung-ryeong’s end. Kim Bujang hands the sedated Ri Eung-ryeong over to Park Kang-seong, a North Korean agent, while he’s still unconscious in a hospital bed. When Ri Eung-ryeong wakes up, he’s already been dumped on North Korean soil — abandoned, in the end, by the very system he once used to betray his own subordinate.

The fall of Juhak Construction. Kim Bujang makes one phone call to Jo Pyeong-gyeon, a mysterious power broker, and asks him to destroy Joo Kang-chan’s company, Juhak Construction. Jo warns it’ll cost him, then agrees — and the company collapses overnight. Surrounded by reporters at a hospital, Joo Kang-chan is attacked with a knife by Geum-i-ppal.

A new life, a new shadow. The task bureau officially declares Kim Bujang and Min-ji dead and issues them new identities. Kim Bujang takes a job at a company called Baekho Manpower — and the show closes on the quiet tension between him and the branch head, Lee Do-gyu.

The Verdict — A Hit That Fumbled Its Own Landing

Honestly, there isn’t much depth to find in this ending.

At eight episodes, this story would have closed cleanly around the rescue in episode six and Kim Bujang’s surrender and reckoning with Joo Kang-chan in episode seven.

Whatever the production reason, the final stretch feels as if the drama had to keep moving after its cleanest emotional climax had already arrived. Episodes nine and ten fill that space with drama-original material never found in the webtoon: Ri Eung-ryeong, the North-South summit, and a corrupt task bureau.

That expansion didn’t make the story deeper. New crisis, new hostage situation, another twist — the attempts to keep the tension alive are visible, but the more twists piled up, the more scattered the story became instead of sharper.

Still, that final scene — Baekho Manpower, Lee Do-gyu — carries real weight. It isn’t the drama’s own invented ending. It’s the exact point where the original webtoon actually begins. The next post digs into that.