Kian84 (real name: Kim Hee-min) is a popular cartoonist and author in South Korea, so popular that he’s called into Netflix’s Korean headquarters, with execs pitching him the idea of creating a bed and breakfast from the ground up. Here’s the twist: Whatever he conceives, Netflix will build it for him.
KIAN’S BIZARRE B&B: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We see webtoon author Kian84 scribbling his dream B&B on a tablet.
The Gist: The B&B will be built on the stunningly picturesque Ulleungdo Island, and we see Kian take a ferry there, then drive to where the B&B will be built — a barge docked on the island’s north shore. When he sketches what he wants, he envisions a climbing wall to a second-story entrance, outdoor sleeping arrangements, fire poles being the only indoor conveyance between the first and second floor, a massive slide that empties right into the ocean, and other craziness, all painted bright yellow.
He also needs a staff of two, and he wants Netflix to use their pull to find someone “globally famous.” They manage to do just that, bringing in Jin, a member of BTS. The other staffer is Ji Ye-eun, a cast member of the Korean version of Saturday Night Live.
Six months after that first meeting, Kian meets Jin and Ye-eun on a ferry to the island, and he shows him the drawings he made. Once they get to the barge, even Kian has to laugh at the fact that Netflix made the place almost exactly as he envisioned it.
But a typhoon is coming, and with the first set of guests — who auditioned to be on the show, knowing Kian’s crazy vision — are on the way. So plans for the first night are quickly changed, and the first night is spent at the “annex” in the mountains. We flash back to Kian using a rickety-looking monorail that looks like a rusty playground ride, finding a broken-down shack with a fire pit in the middle of the kitchen. It’s been renovated a bit, but the fire pit is still there — the wall between the barracks-like living quarters and the kitchen, however, is now gone, and there’s no chimney.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The producers of Kian’s Bizarre B&B also produced a B&B reality series called Hyori’s Bed & Breakfast. Think of this series as Big Brother but where everyone is pulling for each other and helping their fellow guests out.
Our Take: Kian’s Bizarre B&B is designed to be silly and lighthearted, with some sentimental moments in between the silliness. How can it be anything else when the streamer actually goes to the expense of building what one of Kian’s “staff” said looked like a theme park attraction, strictly based on Kian’s sketches?
We do know that the guests to this B&B — and the annex, which we’ll get to in a second — are not exactly booking this off a TripAdvisor listing. They know what they’re getting into, given who is designing it, but judging by the first set of guests who encounter the rickety monorail in the mountains, even knowing what they’re getting into might not prepare them for how crazy their living conditions are going to be.
But what we suspect will happen is that Kian, the “staff” and the guests will all work together to make living on that crazy-looking barge an experience for the ages. Even if some of the guests express some frustration, it seems like that might not last long.
Will some people leave? Maybe. But we have to keep in mind that this is not a competition; it’s this group of people living together in a crazy situation and seeing which of them take it for the challenge it’s meant to be.
We were actually pleasantly surprised by the idea of the mountainside annex, by the way. Firstly, its, ahem, rustic nature is a good contrast to the playhouse style of the main B&B. It was renovated mainly so it can be used if seas are too rough for the barge to be out on a given night. But it’s also there to provide amazing vistas of the ocean and show just how gorgeous Ulleungdo Island is. We suspect we’ll see the group visiting the annex quite a bit for that reason alone.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Kian tries to start a fire with a blow torch, with predictable results.
Sleeper Star: We have to give this to the location scouts, given that they found the annex house on that stunning site, with the added bonus of the monorail that looks like a kiddie ride being the only way to get to it.
Most Pilot-y Line: We would have liked to have seen a couple of minutes on how Netflix built the barge B&B. It looks like it was made with shipping containers, but it would have been fun to see how they brought Kian’s vision to life. Maybe we’ll see that sprinkled through subsequent episodes.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Kian’s Bizarre B&B is a fun show centered around one of the craziest buildings we’ve ever seen outside of a theme park, and a proprietor who wants everyone to embrace all the nuttiness inside.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kian’s Bizarre B&B’ On Netflix, Where A Korean Cartoonist Dreams Up A Crazy B&B — And Netflix Builds It For Him appeared first on Decider.
