Bodyguard

Hong Kyung-tak is a former soldier pushed out of the army after taking the blame for a superior's mistake. Back home with no rank and no plan, he works the counter at his parents' restaurant while looking for a new job. During one of those job hunts he instinctively steps in to protect a stranger's client, an act that gets him noticed by a private security firm rather than arrested.

That firm is run by Han Sung-soo (Song Il-gook) and employs Park Yoo-jin (Han Go-eun), the bodyguard whose client Kyung-tak had just saved. His impromptu rescue turns into a job offer, and Kyung-tak trains alongside Yoo-jin as the firm's newest hire, a company built around people who put their bodies between danger and paying clients. The workplace becomes the drama's main stage, mixing stunt-heavy action with the friction of two very different bodyguards learning to trust each other.

Outside the office, Kyung-tak's family widens the cast: his younger sister Hong Kyung-mi (Maya) befriends Na-young (Lim Eun-kyung) after she moves into the neighborhood with her grandmother, pulling Na-young into the same circle as Sung-soo's headstrong younger sister, Han Shin-ae (Lee Se-eun). Their overlapping friendships and rivalries give the series a second, lighter track that runs alongside the bodyguards' assignments.

Airing on KBS2 across 22 episodes from July 5 to September 14, 2003, twice a week on Saturday and Sunday nights, Bodyguard was written by Lee Han, Yeom Il-ho and Kwon Min-soo and directed by Jeon Ki-sang. It blends action, romance and comedy in roughly equal parts, following its ensemble through the security firm's cases without settling into a single genre.