7 Kim Jae-young K-dramas: here’s where else you’ve seen the ‘Make Me Tingle’ leading man

Not only did The Judge from Hell mark Kim Jae-young’s global breakout role, it also won him the Top Excellence Award for an Actor in a Miniseries in the Humanity/Fantasy category and the Best Couple Award alongside veteran leading lady Park Shin-hye at the 2024 SBS Drama Awards.

In the K-drama, he plays Han Da-on, a principled violent crimes detective who grows suspicious of Kang Bit-na (Park Shin-hye), a judge whose body is inhabited by the demon Justitia (Oh Na-ra, in a special appearance). Exiled to earth as penance for a wrongful ruling, Justitia has a year to send 10 unrepentant murderers to hell.

Bit-na cleverly exploits a loophole, handing violent perpetrators light sentences and setting them free only to track them and kill them herself. When Da-on’s investigation crosses paths with her vigilante justice, he starts piecing together who she really is. Later forced into an uneasy alliance to stop a serial killer, the pair find themselves tangled in dangerous territory—especially when Bit-na begins developing very human, strictly forbidden feelings for the kind-hearted detective.

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Love in Contract, the tvN rom-com K-drama, follows Choi Sang-eun (Park Min-young), a contract wife for hire, as she navigates a love triangle with Jung Ji-ho (Go Kyung-pyo), the man with whom she has had a contract marriage for the past five years but about whom she knows very little, and Kang Hae-jin (Kim Jae-young), a childhood friend who is now one of the country’s biggest stars—and, quietly, a chaebol heir.

Sang-eun spends Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as Ji-ho’s “wife” and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays as Hae-jin’s “fiancée”. Ji-ho turns out to be a family court judge with poor social skills and a messy divorce behind him. He hires her simply looking for quiet companionship. For Hae-jin, the arrangement is a shield—a way to deflect media speculation about his private life and keep his wealthy family’s matchmaking plans at bay.

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Despite a supporting role in the beloved sageuk K-drama 100 Days My Prince, Kim Jae-young left a lasting impression as Moo-yeon/Yoon Seok-ha. It was also the first time the actor shared the screen with his Make Me Tingle co-star Nam Ji-hyun, playing her older brother rather than a romantic interest.

Moo-yeon is a skilled assassin with a tragic past. Once known as Yoon Seok-ha, he was separated from his sister, Hong-shim (Nam Ji-hyun), after a rival political clan murdered their family. In exchange for Hong-shim’s safety, he agreed to work for the treacherous Minister Kim Cha-eon (Cho Seong-ha), the very man behind the killings. Things get even more complicated when Moo-yeon, who has fathered a child with Minister Kim’s daughter, Crown Princess Kim So-hye (Han So-hee), is ordered to assassinate Crown Prince Lee Yool (Do Kyung-soo).

Kim Jae-young takes on a much darker role in the JTBC melodrama Reflection of You. In the past, Jeong Hui-ju (Ko Hyun-jung), a celebrated painter and essayist, traded her life of wealth and ease as the wife of An Hyeon-seong (Choi Won-young), the president of a hospital foundation, to embark on an affair with a sculptor and senior art student Seo Woo-jae (Kim Jae-young).

The affair upended Hui-ju’s family life and derailed the future of Gu Hae-won (Shin Hyun-been), a promising painter and Woo-jae’s fiancée. When Hui-ju chose to return to her husband years later, an accident left Woo-jae comatose. Now, the life Hui-ju is trying to rebuild is threatened by Hae-won, who launches a relentless campaign for revenge, and Woo-jae, who re-enters the picture bearing fractured memories and unresolved feelings.

Kim Jae-young won a Best New Actor Award at the 2019 KBS Drama Awards for Beautiful Love, Wonderful Life, his first major lead role. The KBS2 series centres on ordinary people working out what a wonderful life actually looks like when it bears little resemblance to the one they planned.

Goo Joon-hwi (Kim Jae-young) is a loner with little interest in marriage—that is, until he meets Kim Cheong-ah (Seol In-ah). Cheong-ah, meanwhile, has put romance on the back burner to concentrate on passing her civil service exam. But as their bond grows, their bickering gives way to something warmer, challenging Joon-hwi’s guarded views on love and commitment and Cheong-ah’s determination to put her career first. When a painful incident from their past resurfaces, it threatens not only to tear them apart but also to reshape the lives of both families.

What happens when a K-pop star’s carefully cultivated image crumbles overnight? For Do Ra-ik (Kim Jae-young), the charismatic vocalist of the popular K-pop group Gold Boys, the answer arrives when a bandmate is found murdered in his home. Suddenly cast as the prime suspect, Ra-ik finds himself isolated and under siege. Enter Maeng Se-na (Choi Soo-young), a star lawyer with a near-perfect win record who also happens to be his devoted fan of over 10 years.

Determined to defend her bias, Se-na investigates the case, uncovering the pressures behind Ra-ik’s idol life, from uncomfortable truths about the music industry to the private strain he has kept out of view. Blending courtroom intrigue with romance, Idol I shows the cracks beneath a K-pop star’s public gloss.

Whether you are watching him trade barbs with Nam Ji-hyun in Make Me Tingle or first discovered Kim Jae-young as the detective in The Judge from Hell, his K-drama catalogue offers plenty of reasons to keep watching. He can play a guarded romantic lead, a conflicted figure caught in a web of betrayal or a principled detective facing the supernatural. These seven series are a useful starting point for exploring his work beyond his latest role—and seeing how the former model has carved out a place for himself across Korean television’s many genres.

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