Manager Kim webtoon – K-wave Insider

One villain doesn’t even exist in the source material. Another gets full redemption. Here’s what really happens to Ri Eung-ryeong, Joo Kang-chan, Nam Sil-jang, Joo Hye-ri, and Geum-i-ppal.

⚠️ Contains ending spoilers, plus original webtoon content.

A good protagonist needs a good villain. For the hero to shine, whatever stands in his way has to be compelling in its own right.

Now that Agent Kim Reactivated has ended, it’s hard not to compare the real fates of its villains against the webtoon.

Some of them, the webtoon closed out far more satisfyingly. Others just faded away, unresolved.

Ri Eung-ryeong — A Villain Who Doesn’t Exist in the Source Material

Let’s get this out of the way first. Ri Eung-ryeong doesn’t appear in the webtoon at all.

The entire North-South summit and corrupt task bureau subplot is a pure drama invention. So there’s no “here’s how the webtoon ended it” to compare against.

In the drama, she’s ultimately sent back to North Korea by Park Kang-seong — the younger brother of the very agent (Code 66, Park Yeong-gwang) she trained and then sent to his death.

She ends up abandoned by the same system she once used to betray him. Since she doesn’t exist in the source material, the drama’s ending is the only ending she has.

Joo Kang-chan — The Villain the Webtoon Handled Far Better

In the drama, Joo Kang-chan stays a villain right to the end. His last desperate move is kidnapping Seong Han-su’s and Park Jin-cheol’s children, holding them at gunpoint.

He gets crushed under a collapsing cage, knocked out cold, and dragged away in complete defeat. His company goes down even harder than in the webtoon, hit with a police raid on top of the buyout.

The webtoon takes a different path entirely. After a brutal beating from Kim Bujang, Joo Kang-chan genuinely reforms. Trust builds after Kim Bujang saves his daughter, Hye-ri.

Later, when Valentina — one of the strongest fighters in this universe — moves to kill Min-ji, Joo Kang-chan throws himself in the way to protect her. Kim Bujang comes to see him almost as a kindred spirit: both men, in their own ways, used inhuman violence in service of the people they loved.

It doesn’t stop there. Much later in the story, during the “Bad Uncle” arc, Joo Kang-chan resurfaces years after everything, having lost it all.

He’s gaunt, worn down, scraping by on hard, honest work. He wants to apologize to Kim Bujang sincerely, through Min-ji.

The drama’s Joo Kang-chan ends as a punished villain. The webtoon’s Joo Kang-chan comes back as a human being.

Nam Sil-jang — The Moment That Closes the Door on Redemption

The most ironic case belongs to Nam Sil-jang (남 실장 — “Nam” is his surname; sil-jang, 실장, is a job title roughly meaning “office manager” or “chief aide,” similar to how Kim Bujang’s title, “manager,” became part of how everyone refers to him).

In the drama, he faces off against Park Jin-cheol inside a shipping container on a semi-truck. He walks away from that fight rattled, having discovered someone stronger than himself — the kind of scene that, on its surface, looks like it could open the door to a change of heart.

Instead of retreating from that fear, he goes deeper into it. He ends up directly involved in kidnapping Seong Han-su’s and Park Jin-cheol’s children, closing that door himself.

The webtoon’s Nam Sil-jang takes an entirely different road. He doesn’t die. He earns the respect of all three fathers — Kim Bujang, Seong Han-su, and Park Jin-cheol — for his skill, and Park Jin-cheol personally recruits him into Ares (a private military outfit Park Jin-cheol leads, named after the Greek god of war).

From there, he becomes a field combat operative for Ares, showing off dominant skill against a Filipino gang and staying active as a genuine ally well into the later story.

The difference between the two versions isn’t a coincidence. The webtoon’s Nam Sil-jang never touched a child, which is exactly what earned him the standing to become an ally. The drama’s Nam Sil-jang crossed that line himself — and stripped himself of that same chance.

Joo Hye-ri — The Character Who Fades Without Ever Changing

In that same reunion scene, Joo Kang-chan’s daughter Hye-ri shows a completely different side of herself. The moment her father tries to sincerely apologize, she snaps at him to “go die.”

Years have passed, and she’s exactly as cruel and immature as ever.

Watching this stirs something in Min-ji — a memory of once talking back to her own father the same way — and she ends up slapping Hye-ri across the face. That slap is essentially the only reckoning Hye-ri ever gets.

The drama doesn’t even give her that much. Hye-ri simply disappears from relevance after the early episodes, with no follow-up at all.

Geum-i-ppal — Dead in the Webtoon, the One Who Actually Gets His Revenge in the Drama

The most dramatic reversal belongs to Geum-i-ppal.

In the webtoon, right after the cold-storage escape, Joo Kang-chan’s man Nam Sil-jang tortures him again, pulling his teeth out a second time. Cornered, he tries to take his own life — and even that, Nam Sil-jang finishes brutally, on his own terms. An unjust death, taken out of his hands even at the very end.

The drama gives him an entirely different fate. A character who should have already been dead by webtoon logic survives all the way to episode 10, where he personally attacks Joo Kang-chan with a knife at the hospital.

A supporting character whose revenge was stolen from him in the source material is, in the adaptation, the one villain who actually pulls it off.

The Verdict — The Webtoon Wasn’t Crueler. It Was More Human.

Surprisingly, the webtoon isn’t the harsher version of this story. It’s the opposite.

The webtoon’s Joo Kang-chan gets redemption; the drama’s only gets punishment. The webtoon’s Nam Sil-jang becomes an ally; the drama’s forfeits that chance. The webtoon’s Geum-i-ppal has his death taken from him; the drama’s lives long enough to finish what he started.

A good villain isn’t just someone who gets taken down in the end — they need their own story to actually close. That’s probably why the webtoon feels less interested in simply punishing its villains, and more interested in asking what made them human in the first place.

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 what the drama’s ending actually sets up in the original webtoon?

Agent Kim Reactivated: What Happens Next 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

Which villain’s fate did the webtoon get right — and which did the drama actually improve on? 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’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.