BTS' Jin and Kian84 bring discomfort and absurdity to new Netflix show
Guests sleep on outdoor beds attached to the exterior wall of the building in Netflix’s variety show “Kian’s Bizarre B&B.” Courtesy of Netflix
A guesthouse where the front door is 3.8 meters off the ground, meals require sliding down a pole and guests sleep on a bed bolted to the outer wall of the building. This is the setting of Netflix’s new variety show "Kian’s Bizarre B&B," hosted by webtoon artist and TV personality Kian84.
Joined by BTS member Jin and actress Ji Ye-eun, Kian84 welcomes guests to a space he personally designed with one goal: to make things as uncomfortable as possible.
The show has turned heads since its release on April 8, ranking high on Netflix Korea’s TV show chart and subverting every convention of the “healing guesthouse” genre that has defined Korean variety over the past decade.
Guests climb to enter the guesthouse in the Netflix variety show “Kian’s Bizarre B&B.” Courtesy of Netflix
From healing to hardship
The gold standard for guesthouse reality shows has long been "Hyori’s Bed and Breakfast" (2017), in which singer Lee Hyo-ri and her husband hosted travelers in their Jeju Island home.
The slow pace, natural setting and warm guest interactions offered comfort and reflection for viewers. Successors like "Snail Hotel" (2018), "Boarding House in Spain" (2019), and "Youn’s Stay" (2021) followed a similar formula, focusing on pampering guests and creating restful experiences.
"Kian’s Bizarre B&B" does the opposite. “I hate it when guests are too comfortable,” Kian84 says in the show. “Let’s find beauty in discomfort.” In that spirit, he builds intentionally inconvenient spaces, insists guests eat curry with their hands even when spoons are available and creates an experience that upends expectations.
Though it shares producers with "Hyori’s Bed and Breakfast," the show’s absurdist tone, driven by Kian84’s unpredictable thinking, offers something entirely different — so much so that some viewers say he has unexpectedly charmed them.
Kian84, seen cooking in a large cauldron over an open flame, performs nearly every task himself, from designing the guesthouse to recruiting its staff. Critics have compared this do-it-yourself spirit to the classic variety show "Infinite Challenge."
“The way the cast generates their own content by designing the space and creating the situations is reminiscent of 'Infinite Challenge,'" said Kim Heon-sik, a cultural sociology professor at Jungwon University.
Others see shades of "Youn’s Kitchen" and "Hyori’s Bed and Breakfast" in how the show blends hard work and emotional resonance. In one episode, Ji Ye-eun climbs between floors using a pole, while Jin eats with his hands as Kian84 chuckles nearby.
In “Kian’s Bizarre B&B,” staff member Ji Ye-eun climbs a pole between floors, top, while BTS’s Jin eats with his hands. Captured from Netflix
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.