After starting her career as a model, she rose to fame by starring in the films Ditto (2000), My Tutor Friend (2003), Too Beautiful to Lie (2004), and My Girlfriend Is an Agent (2009).

In the same year, she made appearances in television dramas Happy Together and Into the Sunlight, and featured in the music video for "To Heaven" by Jo Sung-mo.

[6] Kim's breakout role was in romance melodrama series Piano, in which she played a pure, fragile young woman.

She then starred in 2002 hit Romance alongside Kim Jae-won, which led her to stardom and won her Top Excellence Award in acting.

[7] In 2003, she raised her profile through the huge box-office hit My Tutor Friend, where she acted as a college girl tasked with helping a delinquent student her own age graduate from high school alongside her opposite Kwon Sang-woo.

Kim then returned to the familiar romance genre with 2006 romantic comedy Almost Love, in the role of an aspiring actress with stage fright, which also reunited her with My Tutor Friend co-star Kwon Sang-woo.

[6][23][24] She bounced back in 2011 with serial killer thriller Blind, where she challenged herself by portraying a visually impaired former detective who becomes witness to a murder.

[30][31] In 2012, Kim returned to the small screen as a high school ethics teacher who falls for a playboy architect (played by Jang Dong-gun) in the hit drama A Gentleman's Dignity.

[32] Made by the same team behind On Air (writer Kim Eun-sook and director Shin Woo-chul), the series revolved around the love lives of four male friends in their forties.