That 'Kim Bujang' Action Scene Everyone Loved? It Was 100% AI

The three-minute flashback that opens episode 2 of Kim Bujang is exactly the kind of sequence that gets viewers talking. Special agent Kim Bujang (played by So Ji-sub) drives solo into a tunnel, rams a pursuit vehicle, survives a gunfight, and then goes off a bridge with his target still in the car. Viewers praised So Ji-sub's commitment to the physical role and assumed the production had spent generously to pull it off. The sequence was, in fact, generated entirely by AI, with zero live-action filming, the first time a Korean commercial drama has completed a major scene that way.

The drama finished its run last month with a peak nationwide rating of 23.1% (Nielsen Korea), which makes the revelation land with some weight. Director Lee Seung-yeong said the scene needed to establish Kim Bujang at his most dangerous, but the budget wasn't there for a live shoot. "AI became the alternative when we were on the verge of abandoning the scene altogether," he explained. So Ji-sub, for his part, called the collaboration "a trend that can no longer be excluded" from production.

That openness reflects where Korean broadcasting seems to be heading. Across SBS, KBS, MBC, JTBC, and EBS, AI is moving from occasional visual aid into the center of production decisions, cutting costs, replacing difficult shoots, and in some cases becoming the subject of the show itself.

KBS is leaning into it for Munmu, an epic historical drama scheduled for the second half of this year. The production is using AI to build the battle sequences around the Maeso Fortress and Gibeolpo fights, which were decisive in Silla's victory over Tang Dynasty forces, the kind of large-scale warfare that would normally demand enormous resources. KBS already tested the approach on a smaller scale in last year's standalone drama Love: Track, The Night the Wolf Disappeared, where a dog was filmed on set and then transformed through AI into a wild wolf, sidestepping the near-impossible task of working with a real one.

KBS president Park Jang-beom has made AI innovation the network's stated institutional goal for 2025, framing it not as a cost-cutting measure but as the infrastructure for better journalism: "Routine and repetitive tasks go to AI so we can focus on high-quality content that pushes past our limits."

Variety and entertainment programming is moving even faster. The SBS dating reality show My AI Partner: Gi-Ian's Love, premiering on the 20th of this month, puts broadcaster Gi An-84 and comedian Jang Do-yeon on dates with AI-generated partners, a real-world version of the premise from the film Her, to test whether genuine emotional exchange between humans and AI is possible. It's a smart format choice: the AI isn't just a production tool here, it's the whole point.

Disney+'s mystery variety show Murder Club uses AI to reconstruct crime scenes and alibi situations, which the cast then reasons through to identify a culprit. The KBS music talk show The Seasons: Sung Si-kyung's Ear Boyfriend demonstrated AI that can analyze a guest's full career discography in real time and pull archival broadcast clips on the spot, the kind of research that would normally take a team hours.

The shift is most visible in programs that have historically relied on reenactment actors and CG illustrations: MBC's Late Night Ghost Stories, TV Chosun's What Did the King Eat?, JTBC's Case Captain, and SBS's Curious Story Y are all replacing those elements with AI-generated visuals.

EBS has gone furthest of all. The public educational broadcaster has released a string of fully AI-produced series: AI Classics: 100 Books That Changed History, which renders 100 Eastern and Western literary works as AI video; AI Figures in Korean History, which reconstructs historical personalities and events; and AI Drama: Resurrection Lesson. EBS president Kim Yu-yeol told Yonhap earlier this year that AI is "a windfall" for educational content specifically, because the format has always used animation and puppet theater rather than live actors. His headline number: production costs cut to one-tenth of their previous level, while subjects like space and ancient history can be visualized freely.

There are legitimate questions alongside the enthusiasm. Critics and some viewers have flagged that AI-generated faces in reenactment footage can feel noticeably off, creating an uncanny quality that pulls audiences out of the content rather than drawing them in. The concern about historical and factual accuracy in AI-reconstructed scenes is real: when the visuals are generated rather than documented, the line between illustration and implication gets blurry. Industry observers have been consistent on one point, the technology's value ultimately depends on the quality of the output, not the novelty of the method. That's a high bar to clear, and the gap between what AI can generate quickly and what actually holds up on screen is still visible enough to matter.