Mainstream success
Kim was then cast in leading roles, playing a comical ex-gangster in Bad Family and a detective in Open City. He then played a surgeon in two productions: the television series White Tower and film Wide Awake. White Tower was a critical and ratings hit in South Korea, gaining praise for its acting (particularly by Kim), writing, direction, and its intelligent and uncompromising story without concessions to melodrama or romance. Kim won the Best Actor awards at the year-end Baeksang Arts Awards and Grimae Awards, and was chosen as the Best Performer of the year by producers.
Subsequently, his performance as a maestro in the 2008 TV series Beethoven Virus created a sensation in Korea referred to as "Kang Mae Syndrome" and again earned him acclaim from critics and viewers. Kim received the Grand Prize (Daesang) at the MBC Drama Awards and his second Baeksang for Best Actor in television. In late 2008, it was announced that his next project was a film about a character living with Lou Gehrig's disease, titled Closer to Heaven. To realistically portray the role of the dying patient, Kim painstakingly lost 20 kilos during the course of the filming. Kim was widely commended for this feat, and won Best Actor Awards in Korea's leading film ceremonies, the 46th Grand Bell Awards and the 30th Blue Dragon Film Awards.
Closer to Heaven was followed by another film, Man of Vendetta, where Kim portrayed the role of a father for the first time.
In January 2011, Kim took on the role of Joseon's Sherlock Holmes in historical comedy-mystery film Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow. He then starred in sports movie, Pacemaker, where he played a marathon runner. Summer of 2012 saw Kim as a pharmaceutical agent in disaster movie Deranged. The film, directed by Park Jung-woo became the fastest Korean film in 2012 to reach 2 million admissions, eight days after its July 5 release date. and topped the box office for three consecutive weeks.
Kim then starred in The Spies, his second collaboration with Woo Min-ho, director of his 2010 film, Man of Vendetta. The film is centered on a North Korean agent and his three comrades who are working undercover in South Korea.
Kim made a comeback to the small screen after four years in satire dramedy The King of Dramas, where he played a drama production company CEO. He next played a brilliant but cynical lawyer who gets into an accident and loses his memory in A New Leaf (2014). In 2015, Kim reprised his role as Detective K in Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island, the second installment in the Detective K series. The historical television series Six Flying Dragons followed, in which he played Jeong Do-jeon, who served as the first prime minister of the Joseon dynasty. He next starred in the disaster film Pandora, portraying the aftermath of an explosion in a nuclear plant. Crime drama Proof of Innocence followed, where Kim played a former cop-turned-legal broker.
In 2017, Kim starred in the noir film V.I.P, playing a police detective, followed by mystery thriller A Day. The same year, he was cast in the period comedy film Monstrum. In 2018, Kim again reprised his role as Detective K in Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead, the third installment in the Detective K series. The same year, he returned to the small screen in the melodrama The Miracle We Met. which won him another Grand Prize at the KBS Drama Awards. In 2019, Kim starred in the war film The Battle of Jangsari. In 2021, he starred in the legal drama series Law School playing a prosecutor-turned-professor who teaches criminal law. In 2022, it was reported that the contract with agency C-JeS Entertainment Kim's has expired. Later the same day it was confirmed that the original agency contract had expired.
