In travel series K-Everything, actor-host Daniel Dae Kim wants you to look past the Korean hype

K-pop tracks on the US Billboard Hot 100. K-dramas locked into Netflix’s global charts. K-beauty products stacked across Sephora. K-barbecue joints drawing lines around the block all across the globe.

The “K” prefix is obviously doing a lot of work these days, drumming up hype every time it lands somewhere new. But setting aside the label, what are the forces actually powering it all? And what does everyday life look like for the people behind it?

That is the question Daniel Dae Kim has spent the past year chasing. Premiering on May 9 on HBO Max, K-Everything is a four-part travel series that follows the Korean-American actor across South Korea as he digs into the country’s pop, drama, beauty and food industries.

He hosts and executive produces, and the guest list runs deep. There is singer Psy, actor Lee Byung-hun, chef Kang Min-goo of three-Michelin-starred Mingles in Seoul, and the producers behind Golden, the breakout hit song from Netflix’s Oscar-winning animated film KPop Demon Hunters (2025).

You almost certainly know the man. Kim, 57, has been a fixture in Hollywood for more than three decades – in front of the camera and, increasingly, behind it too.

His resume runs from TV series Lost (2004 to 2010) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010 to 2017) to his Tony-nominated turn in American playwright David Henry Hwang’s play Yellow Face (2024).

Kim also runs the production company 3AD, which produced TV series The Good Doctor (2017 to 2024), adapted from a 2013 K-drama of the same name.

Born in Busan, Kim left for the US at age one and grew up in New York and Pennsylvania.

In the past few years, he has been circling back to the country of his birth. In 2024, he shot the Prime Video spy thriller Butterfly (2025) across more than 20 South Korean cities, and that same year, was named an honorary citizen by the city of Seoul.

“It was never far from me,” Kim says. “I was reminded of Korea every day, literally, through the food my mum would cook.”

It went deeper than that, he adds. The values at home, the rhythms, the expectations, all of it was shaped by a Korea his parents had carried with them from decades earlier.

The interview was conducted via video call on March 18 with Kim in New York. It has been edited for length and clarity.

K-Everything is a bold title, given how much that prefix gets thrown around these days. What is the show actually trying to do?

What the producers and I wanted to do was highlight Korea for the prominent culture that it is. It’s a country roughly the size of New Jersey, and yet the influence it has on the world stage is significant. So we wanted to go a little deeper behind the tongue-in-cheek headline and look at the driving forces, some of the dynamics in the country that got it to this point.

I think it’s important for people who don’t know anything about Korean culture, because they get their first introduction to all the things that make it special.

And even for those who do know it – the so-called K-experts – I think there’s something in there that will be entertaining, and maybe something they’ll learn.

Which corners of Korean culture did you focus on, and how did you map out the four episodes?

K-pop, K-drama, K-beauty and K-food. We deliberately marked off those areas because those are the ones having an impact around the world in a new and different way.

For the K-pop episode, we interviewed Psy and some up-and-coming bands from The Black Label, and talked about the journey of becoming a K-pop star, what it means now to be world famous as a Korean. We also talked about the downside: how competitive it is, how the success stories don’t mean everyone gets to enjoy that success.

For the food episode, we spoke with chefs running everything from three-star restaurants to mat-jip, the neighbourhood spots locals swear by. We went to a kimchi festival. We dug into the importance of jang (Korea’s traditional fermented pastes and sauces).

When I was a kid, nobody outside Korea really knew Korean food. Now you say “kimchi” and almost everyone in America knows what you’re talking about, and they’re trying to tell you how healthy it is, how it’s a probiotic. We’ve come a long way.

Growing up in Pennsylvania, how did Korea actually live in your head? Close to home, or more abstract?

It has shifted, but it was always there. We ate Korean food I’d say 70 per cent of the time at home, and my poor mum was cooking constantly.

Korean food wasn’t popular in Pennsylvania at the time, so she was learning how to make every dish from scratch.

If she didn’t have the right ingredients, she’d improvise with American ones. Our jajangmyeon (black bean noodles) didn’t necessarily have the right noodles, the sauce wasn’t as rich, but it was the best she could do.

The values I grew up with weren’t necessarily American values. They were my parents’ – values they learnt in Korea 50, 60 years ago. Those aren’t even modern Korean values any more.

So I had this hybrid upbringing as a gyopo (a Korean raised abroad): neither modern Korean nor modern American.

Anything in Korea that you wish more people knew beyond the usual travel-guide stuff?

Honestly, I think Korea is so modern. There are little things in society that make life so much easier. The safety doors at every subway platform – you don’t have the kind of incidents you read about in America, where someone gets pushed onto the tracks.

At a cafe, you can put your phone on the table to hold your seat and walk over to order. That doesn’t happen anywhere else.

There’s also a much more collective sense of care for one another. There was no controversy about masks during the pandemic. People wear them because they’re considerate of others. It’s not about my rights; it’s about how you affect other people. That’s a different philosophy, and one I prefer.

Ten years ago, the idea of Squid Game (2021) or Parasite (2019) going global the way they did would have been unthinkable. The opportunity is real, but so are the questions – too much Korean content chasing the same audience, pressure on creators to cater to overseas viewers. Where do you see the upside, and what’s worth being careful about?

You hit it on the head with authenticity. For every culture and every producer, there’s a question of whether you’re telling a story from your heart, or telling one because you want it to sell. That’s an age-old dilemma.

Korea’s success raises that question for Korean creators too: How do you keep going in a way that’s still authentic but expands what Korean entertainment can be? You’re going to have hits and you’re going to have misses.

But what’s important is that when there’s a major Korean project – film, TV or music – people pay attention around the world now.

That wasn’t the case before. That reputation was hard won. It’s a testament to the resilience and persistence of Korean people. They didn’t stop. That’s what gives me hope. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK