Kim Ji-won has made her long-awaited return to the small screen with her new drama Doctor X: Mafia in White, two years following the hit drama The Queen of Tears. The series is a Korean remake of the Japanese medical drama Doctor-X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon and it’s breaking records right off the bat to premiere with nationwide ratings of 11.4%. For context, shows nowadays premiere with single digits. Doctor X’s premiere numbers not just outperformed this year’s ratings leader, Agent Kim Reactivated, which drew 9.5% upon premiere, but also secured the seventh-highest premiere rating in SBS history.
The original Japanese series began airing in 2012 and ran for seven seasons, each earning stellar ratings. In the K-drama remake, Kim Ji-won stars as Gye Su-jeong, a genius surgeon who is every bit as badass as you’d expect. She lives by her “Eight No’s” principles, which include clocking out on the dot and refusing to bend to anyone’s demands outside her job. Known as a free-spirited doctor, she wields her scalpel against corruption and malpractice within the medical system, relying on her surgical skills to put her patients first. The series features no romance storyline.
