'2025 KBS acting awards' highlights the works and actors who lit up living room screens over the year and determines the winners of the honors.
The '2025 KBS acting awards,' which will be broadcast live on the 31st, will present awards by institutional sector including excellence and top prizes for miniseries, feature-length drama, and daily drama, as well as best couple, popularity, supporting actor and newcomer awards. Attention is focused on who among the works and actors loved by viewers during 2025 will become the winners of the honors.
In 2025 KBS captivated living rooms with a diverse drama lineup across genres. From romantic comedies that balance laughter and empathy to miniseries with weighty narratives and messages, daily dramas that handle everyday life, and weekend dramas that made viewers laugh and cry on weekend evenings, KBS proved the strength of its dramas by presenting a wide range of works.
First, the Wednesday-Thursday drama 'Who Is She!' delivered joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure with a solid story beyond the original and unpredictable developments, offering healing through the outstanding acting and varied charms of Jeong Ji-so, Kim Hae-sook and Jinyoung. The Wednesday-Thursday drama 'Pump Up the Healthy Love,' starring Jeong Eun-ji and Lee Junyoung, earned viewers' approval by delivering laughter and emotion as it depicted a relentless gym-obsessed trainer and worried new gym members undergoing radical life corrections.
The Wednesday-Thursday drama 'The First Night With the Duke' drew attention as an off-course romance fantasy in which the supporting role who is a backdrop in a romance novel, inhabited by the soul of an ordinary female college student, becomes entangled with the most obsessive male lead; Seohyun and Ok Taecyeon showed fresh charms through bold acting transformations. The Wednesday-Thursday drama 'My Girlfriend is the Man' is a romantic comedy about a boyfriend who cannot give up on his lover and a girlfriend who suddenly becomes a pretty man, with Yoon San-ha and Arin adding youthful sentiment.
The veteran actors Son Chang-min, Sunwoo Jae-deok and Park Sang-myeon joined forces in the KBS1 daily drama 'Catch Your Luck,' which was loved by viewers as a turbulent coming-of-age story of three friends who want to be rich and their families. The KBS1 daily drama 'Marie and Her Three Daddies,' which took over the baton with a dazzling cast including Ha Seung Lee, Hyun Woo, Park Eunhye and Ryu Jin, has drawn attention from living room audiences with fresh material, interesting developments and a three-generation romance.
Meanwhile, the KBS2 daily drama 'Cinderella Game,' which heightened immersion with the diverse narratives of characters caught in the whirlpool of fate, left a deep impression with its moral victory ending. Han Geu-ru and Na Young-hee drew viewers' empathy by vividly portraying an emotional family reunion and a satisfying revenge narrative. The KBS2 daily drama 'Queen's House,' starring Ham Eunjung, Seo Jun-young and Park Yoon-jae, induced overinvolvement with its tense developments. Also, the KBS2 daily drama 'A Graceful Liar,' drawing attention for the intense acting battles of Lee Sia, Lee Ilhwa and Lee Seung-yeon, provocatively depicts a mother and daughter who meet through an in-law relationship and wage a war of lies while dreaming of life-changing reversals, arousing viewers' interest.
The weekend miniseries 'Walking On Thin Ice,' elevated by the passionate performances of Lee Young-ae, Kim Young-kwang and Park Yong-woo, was praised as a well-made work that deeply描ks the weight of human desire and choices centered on the story of an ordinary housewife who steps into the world of crime to protect her family.
Also, the weekend drama For Eagle Brothers, starring Uhm Ji-won and An Jaewook, led weekend ratings success by recording a personal best rating of 22.4% (provided by Nielsen Korea, nationwide households). It warmed weekend evenings by tenderly depicting the process of building a new family beyond blood ties by embracing and relying on one another. The weekend drama Our Golden Days, starring Jung Il Woo, Jung In-Sun, Yoon Hyun-min, Cheon Ho-jin and Lee Tae-ran, is recording successive personal best ratings each week with more spectacular developments in the latter half as a family melodrama that captures generational empathy. The solid chemistry of veteran actors has further elevated the completeness of the drama.
At the same time, the newly revamped 2025 KBS2 single-episode project 'Love: Track' proved the strength of single-episode plays once again and expanded the spectrum of KBS drama through a total of 10 works.
With heated interest in who will clinch the grand prize, the '2025 KBS acting awards' organizers are raising expectations ahead of the announcement of the grand prize candidate lineup. A fierce race for the grand prize is foretold as actors who lit up living rooms during the year are being mentioned.
Predicted grand prize nominees include An Jaewook and Uhm Ji-won of For Eagle Brothers, Na Young-hee of Cinderella Game, Lee Young-ae and Kim Young-kwang of Walking On Thin Ice, and Cheon Ho-jin and Lee Tae-ran of Our Golden Days. As the actors representing each work left deep impressions with intense acting and presence, attention is focused on who will take home the highest honor.
Coincidentally, this year KBS dramas recorded a crushing defeat at the box office as ratings hovered in the single digits. The previous year's grand prize winner was the late actor Lee Soon-jae, who won the grand prize and left a resonant remark from Han Seo-rin saying "the award should be given only for acting." Actor Choi Soo-jong is reported to appear as the grand prize presenter in place of the deceased. Attention is focused on whether the KBS grand prize will be decided following the remaining sentiments as if they were the deceased's will.
'2025 KBS acting awards' will be broadcast live at 7:10 p.m. on the 31st.<
[photos] OSEN DB, provided by KBS, joint reporting team.
[OSEN]