Manager Kim

Manager Kim, also known as Good Manager or Chief Kim, is a 2017 South Korean television drama broadcast by KBS2 from February 8 to March 30, 2017. Its twenty episodes follow Kim Sung-ryong, an accountant whose unusual career begins outside respectable corporate life. Before joining the conglomerate TQ Group, Sung-ryong handles money for gangsters in the provincial city of Gunsan. He is adept at manipulating accounts, but he is not presented as a conventional polished executive. Namkoong Min plays Sung-ryong, who arrives at TQ as chief of its accounting department with a selfish plan: to steal the company's slush fund and leave Korea. Instead, he discovers that TQ's leadership is concealing financial abuses and sacrificing ordinary employees. The drama turns his attempted fraud into a moral reversal, as he uses his practical knowledge of bookkeeping, shell arrangements, and internal cover-ups to confront the people who believe the company belongs to them. His methods are frequently comic, improvised, and confrontational, rather than heroic in a standard corporate sense. His principal opponent is Seo Yul, portrayed by 2PM member Lee Jun-ho. Seo is a former prosecutor who becomes TQ's finance director and pursues power within the group. Yet he and Sung-ryong develop one of the series' central rivalries, shifting between clashes and uneasy cooperation. Nam Sang-mi plays Yoon Ha-kyung, a determined accounting manager who challenges wrongdoing at TQ, while Jung Hye-sung plays Hong Ga-eun, an employee whose idealism and loyalty become important to the department. The supporting office staff are not merely background: their threatened jobs and treatment by executives give the corruption plot tangible stakes. Written by Park Jae-bum and directed by Lee Jae-hoon and Choi Yoon-seok, the series mixes workplace comedy, financial intrigue, and a pointed critique of chaebol power. Its Korean title, Kim Gwa-jang, literally identifies the protagonist by his managerial rank. The show was a ratings success for KBS, and its final episode recorded a nationwide Nielsen Korea rating of 17.4 percent. Namkoong Min received the Grand Prize, or Daesang, at the 2017 KBS Drama Awards for his performance. Manager Kim therefore stands out not simply because an accountant fights corruption, but because its comic lead begins as someone prepared to exploit TQ and gradually chooses to defend its workers. The transformation of Sung-ryong, alongside the volatile partnership with Seo Yul, drives the story from an embezzlement scheme toward an internal battle over responsibility, dignity, and corporate accountability itself.