K-Drama for Healing

Ji Sung: Complete Drama List, Films, and the Story Behind Two Daesangs

Ask longtime Korean drama viewers when they first noticed Ji Sung, and a striking number will say the same thing: the medical drama 'New Heart'. He played a cardiothoracic surgery resident, and something about the combination of competence and vulnerability made the performance stick.

What most viewers do not know is what was happening behind one of the drama’s most affecting scenes — or that the actor delivering it describes himself as quiet and reserved in life, nothing like the cheeky character on screen. Understanding that gap is the key to understanding his whole career.

Ji Sung Profile at a Glance

Five Moments Worth Carrying With You

1. He chose a path his parents had not planned for him

Both of his parents were educators, and they expected their son to teach. In his second year of high school, his father bought a video recorder. The first film he rented was Rain Man, and Dustin Hoffman’s performance affected him so deeply that he decided to become an actor — against his father’s objections.

A father buys a machine meant for family evenings, and it quietly redirects his son’s entire life. Most turning points look this ordinary while they are happening.

2. He asked for the role everyone else was avoiding

In 2003, the producers of the gambling drama All In could not fill the second male lead. Actors were reluctant, because the part meant being measured directly against Lee Byung-hun. Ji Sung went to director Yoo Chul-yong himself and said he wanted it.

All In became a major hit, and the role established him as a Hallyu star. The lesson is not that boldness always pays. It is that the role nobody wants is often the only one still available to someone without leverage — and that asking is free.

3. A grandmother, a rerun, and a scene that could not be faked

New Heart contains a scene in which his character weeps after failing to save a patient. Ji Sung later explained that he was thinking of his maternal grandmother, who had recently died. She had told him that her one pleasure was watching reruns of All In.

He also said the drama surprised him. Off screen he is taciturn and shy, unlike the playful resident he played, and the work revealed a side of himself he had not known was there.

Two things sit inside that one scene: work you thought was ordinary reaching someone you love without your knowing, and a job asking you to become a version of yourself you had not met yet.

4. The failure that sat between two grand prizes

In 2015 he won the Daesang, the highest honor at the MBC Drama Awards, for Kill Me, Heal Me, in which he played a man living with seven distinct identities. The following year, his drama Entertainer disappointed audiences and did not succeed.

In 2017 he returned with the legal thriller Innocent Defendant, playing a prosecutor with amnesia who wakes to find himself on death row. The series topped the ratings, and he received a second Daesang — this time from SBS, a different network entirely.

Two grand prizes from two broadcasters, with a public failure sitting directly between them. That sequence is the most useful thing in his entire filmography for anyone measuring their own life by a bad year.

5. He runs every morning, and his back hurts

In a 2014 interview he described running fifteen kilometers each morning and said the habit had changed his life. In January 2020, on the travel program RUN, he disclosed that he lives with spondylosis, a condition causing constant lower back pain.

Those two facts are usually reported separately. Read together, they say something quieter and truer: the discipline was never a display of ease. It was maintained through discomfort, which is what discipline actually is.

6. Recognition came one rung at a time, over sixteen years

His awards read as a slow ascent rather than a breakthrough. Newcomer awards came first, from MBC and SBS in the same year, 2001. Mid-tier honors followed — an Excellence Award from SBS in 2003, the Golden Acting Award from MBC in 2008. Top excellence arrived from SBS in 2011 and KBS in 2013. The grand prizes came last of all: MBC in 2015, SBS in 2017.

Sixteen years separate the first rung from the top, and all three major broadcasters recognized him somewhere along the way.

Very few actors hold a record like that. What it documents is persistence — he kept working through years when nothing was promised, and the work accumulated until it could not be overlooked. The recognition came because he was still there, still doing it, when it finally arrived.

The Medical Dramas: Two Roles, Eleven Years Apart

Viewers often remember him as a natural fit for doctor roles, and the record is smaller than the impression suggests — which is itself interesting.

Two medical dramas in a twenty-seven-year career, separated by more than a decade. The sense that he belongs in a white coat comes not from repetition but from how completely the first one landed.

Ji Sung Complete Korean Drama List

Ji Sung Complete Film List

Whistling Princess (2002): Joon-ho, in a North–South romantic comedy

Blood Rain (2005): Supporting role in a historical thriller

Fate (2008): Extended cameo in an action noir

My PS Partner (2012): Aspiring singer-songwriter; adult romantic comedy

Confession (2014): Neo-noir about the collapse of a friendship

The Vampire Lives Next Door to Us (2015): Premiered at the Busan International Film Festival

Myeongdang (2018): Played Heungseon Daewongun in a historical drama

He has also appeared in music videos and recorded soundtrack songs for his own dramas, including for Secret Love and Kill Me, Heal Me, the latter at his own suggestion. He hosted the 2002 music programme Live Music Camp and appeared in the 2020 tvN travel series RUN.

Ji Sung Major Awards

MBC Drama Awards (2001): Best New Actor — The Law of Marriage

SBS Drama Awards (2001): New Star Award — Wonderful Days

SBS Drama Awards (2003): Excellence Award, Drama Special — All In

SBS Drama Awards (2004): Top 10 Stars — Save the Last Dance for Me

MBC Drama Awards (2008): Golden Acting Award, Miniseries — New Heart

Korea–Japan Culture Awards (2008): Personal Diplomacy Award

SBS Drama Awards (2011): Top Excellence Actor, Top 10 Stars, Best Couple — Protect the Boss

KBS Drama Awards (2013): Top Excellence Actor, Popularity Award, Best Couple — Secret Love

MBC Drama Awards (2015): DAESANG (Grand Prize), Top Excellence, Best Couple — Kill Me, Heal Me

Korea PD Awards (2016): Best Performer

SBS Drama Awards (2017): DAESANG (Grand Prize) — Innocent Defendant

1st Seoul Awards (2017): Best Actor in a Drama — Innocent Defendant, at the inaugural edition

Grimae Awards (2017): Best Actor — Innocent Defendant. Voted on by the Korean Directors of Photography Society, the cinematographers who watch actors most closely

Prime Minister’s Commendation (2017): 8th Korea Popular Culture and Arts Awards — a state honor rather than an industry prize

Personal Life: Married to Lee Bo-young

Ji Sung met actress Lee Bo-young on the set of Save the Last Dance for Me in 2004. They confirmed their relationship publicly in 2007, announced their engagement in August 2013 by posting handwritten letters to their respective fan sites, and married on September 27, 2013 in Seoul. They have two children.

At the SBS Drama Awards for 2017, he received the Daesang on the same night his wife was named best actress. Lee Bo-young has a substantial career of her own, and it deserves its own article rather than a paragraph inside someone else’s.

What He Is Doing in 2026

Ji Sung has two dramas this year on two different networks. The Judge Returns opened MBC’s 2026 slate on January 2, with Ji Sung as a compromised judge who is sent back ten years and uses the second chance to make different choices. Apartment, on JTBC, casts him as a former gangster who runs for head of a residents’ association and ends up fighting the corruption he came to exploit.

Asked about how he selects work, he has said a script must stir his imagination — that if he can picture it in his head, he cannot let it go. It is a simple standard, and after twenty-seven years it appears to still be the one he uses.

The Judge Returns is worth noting for anyone drawn to stories about regret. Its entire premise is a man who has already made the wrong choices being given the chance to make them again — which is the fantasy almost everyone carries and almost nobody gets.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Ji Sung best known for?

Kill Me, Heal Me (2015) and Innocent Defendant (2017), which each won him a Daesang, along with All In, New Heart, Secret Love, and Familiar Wife.

How many medical dramas has Ji Sung done?

Two — New Heart in 2007–08 and Doctor John in 2019, eleven years apart.

Has Ji Sung won a Daesang (Grand Prize)?

Yes, twice: at the MBC Drama Awards for Kill Me, Heal Me and at the SBS Drama Awards for Innocent Defendant.

Who is Ji Sung married to?

Actress Lee Bo-young. They met on Save the Last Dance for Me in 2004 and married in 2013.

What is Ji Sung’s real name?

Kwak Tae-geun. He began using the stage name Chae Ji-sung early in his career, then dropped the surname.

What drama is Ji Sung in now?

Two in 2026: The Judge Returns on MBC and Apartment on JTBC.


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