The former teen model who has charmed viewers for a good 20-plus years is back on top with "The Remarried Empress"
Anyone who tunes in to "The Remarried Empress," Disney+'s new big-budget, quasi-medieval fantasy series, will find themselves with a lot to take in. This is a world where rival empires square off as an all-Korean cast parades around in European court dress and lovers trade secret notes by carrier pigeon.
One thing that makes it all go down a bit easier is the woman in the crown. Shin Min-a, who plays Navier, a jilted empress with her eye on a second marriage, is a reassuring presence that Korean viewers have known for more than two decades. It's safe to say that she had a hand in the show's record start: Within three days of its Nov. 3 debut, it became the most-watched local original premiere ever on Disney+ and Hulu.
New faces come and go every few years in the world of K-drama, but few actresses manage to stay at the top for as long as Shin has. Here are five things to know about her.
She was a teen icon at 14
Long before she landed her first role, Shin was already a familiar face in the country. Back when teen fashion magazines were still a thing, she was the poster girl of her generation.
Shin got her start in 1998, at age 14, when she won a model contest held by the magazine KiKi. Within a few years, her face was everywhere, from magazine covers and TV commercials to music videos for the top singers of the day.
First lead role at 17, in a cult action flick
Acting was the natural next step. In 2001, at 17, Shin made her TV debut with a supporting role in the melodrama "Beautiful Days." Her next project was a different animal: "Volcano High," an effects-heavy action film that marked her big-screen debut, in a lead role no less.
Set in a school where students fight with superpowers, "Volcano High" is a manic, anime-style brawlfest that is loud and messy and barely coherent, which is part of why it has since become something of a cult favorite. Fittingly, Shin is no soft-spoken sweetheart here. She plays the school's ice-cool beauty who also happens to be its best sword fighter, handling the plenty of wire work herself.
Everyone fell for her nine-tailed fox
Lead roles kept coming through the 2000s on screens big and small, including romances opposite A-listers such as Zo In-sung and pop star Rain (Jung Ji-hoon). In hindsight, all those roles were a prelude to 2010's "My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho."
In the goofy, feel-good fantasy rom-com, Shin plays the title gumiho, the shape-shifting nine-tailed fox of Korean folklore. Lee Seung-gi's wannabe action star sets the fox girl loose on the world by accident. What follows is a whirlwind of flirting, bickering and heartbreak before the inevitable happy ending.
Airing opposite the runaway hit "Bread, Love and Dreams," the show was up against tough competition. Among young viewers, though, Shin's gumiho became a full-blown sensation.
High school boys taped her posters on classroom walls, and in popularity polls, she held her own against top K-pop girl groups such as Girls' Generation. The plain sundress and flat shoes that she wore set off a fashion trend that year. The show was also an early success abroad, topping the ratings in China well before streaming was a thing.
Arguably still her biggest and most memorable role, the gumiho made Shin the face of the Korean rom-com. That reputation carried her all the way from the weight-loss comedy "Oh My Venus" to the seaside romance "Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha."
Rom-com queen? Think again
Shin may be best known for rom-coms, but run down her credits and you'll find fewer of them than you might expect. From early on, the actor has never shied away from taking on riskier, more varied roles. Anyone who saw her in last year's Netflix thriller "Karma," as a surgeon who swings between a thirst for revenge and the pain of a childhood trauma, got a taste of that gritty side of her.
This is especially true of her film work, which tends to fly under the radar overseas. Two years before "Gumiho," Shin played a go-go dancer at a Seoul nightclub in the 1970s-set rock drama "Go Go 70s." She spends much of the film shimmying across the stage, decked out in flashy outfit. The part won her best actress at the Chunsa Film Art Awards.
Years later, she showed a more contemplative side in Zhang Lu's introspective indie film "Gyeongju" (2014). The role is about as far from her rom-com image as it gets: Playing a widowed teahouse owner, Shin wanders the ancient city's royal tombs with a professor passing through town (Park Hae-il). Critics praised her performance as restrained and nuanced.
Shin has also shown a knack for darker, psychologically layered thrillers. In the 2020 mystery "Diva," she plays a star diver who unravels after devastating a car crash, hinting all along at the desires she keeps under the surface. And in this year's "The Eyes," And in this year’s “The Eyes,” Shin plays a photographer who is slowly going blind as she looks into her twin sister’s mysterious death. She spent months training her eyes to drift and twitch on their own, without any help from CGI.
Romance with Kim Woo-bin
Shin and fellow star Kim Woo-bin went public with their relationship in 2015. In an industry where power couples tend to flame out fast and gossip never sleeps, the two kept things low-key and steady.
Their relationship was put to the test in 2017, when Kim was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare cancer of the upper throat. Shin stayed by his side through years of treatment. It later came out that she had also prayed for his recovery, once even carrying sacks of rice on her head up a mountain as a Buddhist offering.
Kim eventually recovered, and after a decade together, the two tied the knot on Dec. 20, 2025, in Seoul.
