About Chief Kim
Chief Kim, known in Korean as Kim Gwa-jang and released internationally as Good Manager, is a 2017 KBS2 workplace comedy-drama that turns a small-time accountant into the most unlikely office hero in recent K-drama memory. Kim Sung-ryong is a brilliant but unscrupulous numbers man who has spent his career helping shady clients cook their books and hide money offshore. His dream is simple and selfish: skim enough cash to emigrate and live large abroad. When he schemes his way into a managerial accounting post at the mid-sized conglomerate TQ Group, he expects an easy mark, not a moral awakening.
What Sung-ryong finds instead is a company rotted through with embezzlement, slush funds, and executives who treat ordinary employees as disposable. Almost by accident, his self-serving meddling starts to benefit the very coworkers he meant to ignore, and the office begins to see him as a champion of the little guy. Pitted against the slick, ambitious director Seo Yul and a boardroom full of corrupt higher-ups, the reluctant Chief Kim is dragged, grumbling all the way, into a fight he never wanted. The series mines big laughs from his reluctance even as it lands sharp jabs at corporate greed.
Anchored by Namgoong Min's award-winning comic performance, Chief Kim became one of the highest-rated dramas of its season and a fan favorite for its blend of slapstick, satire, and genuine workplace solidarity. It celebrates the accountants, clerks, and middle managers who keep a company running and pushes back against the executives who exploit them. Light on its feet and non-graphic throughout, the show argues that doing the right thing can be both ridiculous and heroic, often at the same time.
