As Shin entered her mid-twenties, she began showcasing more maturity in her choice of roles. In "Go Go 70s", Shin played a sexy counterculture singer and won numerous accolades for her portrayal. She then acted as an unfaithful wife in "The Naked Kitchen", and a cynical young woman in search of her father in "Sisters on the Road", a critically acclaimed indie film which also stars fellow actress and close friend Gong Hyo-jin. But Shin became best known for her portrayals of supernatural horror icons revamped into endearingly innocent yet spunky heroines in the rom-com "My Girlfriend Is a Nine-Tailed Fox" (2010), and the historical drama "Arang and the Magistrate" (2012).