Director: Nam Dong-hyub
South Korea's variety-television scene gains another entry in 2024 with Handsome Guys, a program that trades scripted drama for real places, real food, and the everyday personalities that give the country its texture.
What is Handsome Guys about?
Rather than following a single protagonist through a plot, Handsome Guys sends its cast out across South Korea to record the country as it actually looks and sounds. Markets, coastlines, small towns, and family-run kitchens all get screen time, with segments built around conversation rather than competition. The format leans on spontaneous encounters with local residents, letting their stories carry each episode instead of a scripted arc, so what emerges is closer to a travelogue than a conventional feature.
Cast & crew
Director Nam Dong-hyub anchors the show around a rotating ensemble that includes Lee Sung-min, Lee Hee-jun, Gong Seung-yeon, and Park Ji-hwan, joined by Lee Kyoo-hyung, Woo Hyeon, Jang Dong-ju, and Kang Ki-doong. Rather than a lead-and-supporting-cast structure typical of scripted film, the group functions as an ensemble of hosts, each bringing a different rapport with the people and places they visit, which keeps individual segments feeling distinct from one another.
Context & significance
At 102 minutes and carrying an IMDb score of 9.1, Handsome Guys sits at the high end of audience reception for its category. It arrives amid a wider wave of Korean unscripted programming that has found international audiences well beyond domestic broadcast, part of a broader export of Korean television formats alongside drama series. The show's premise, showcasing culture, nature, and character rather than plot, places it closer to a documentary-style variety hour than a genre film, which is worth knowing going in.
Where & how to watch
Handsome Guys streams on K-Time with a Persian-dubbed audio track, part of a catalog built for Farsi-speaking audiences with a fully Persian interface. Reading this page requires nothing, but watching the show itself needs a free K-Time account login. No separate download or third-party platform is involved — everything runs through K-Time directly.