TVXQ's Yunho plays dashing CEO in Race — and other K-drama bosses we want to work for

If you're slogging through work, you might as well have a boss who provides some eye candy.

Here are five K-drama bosses we wouldn't mind working for.

Yunho in Race

In upcoming K-drama Race, TVXQ's Yunho sheds his K-pop idol image and takes on the role of a public relations (PR) agency CEO.

The 37-year old said in a regional press conference on Monday (May 8): "My character (Seo Dong-hoon) is a strong believer in making his employees happy for the success of the company — he has a very flexible mindset."

While Yunho may not have any experience working in an office, he sought advice from his friends in the field.

"I have long been working as a musical artist, but when it comes to acting, there is such a wide array of emotions I get to experience, and I really love that," he added.

Race follows employees in the communications department of conglomerate Seyong — new hire Park Yoon-jo (Lee Yeon-hee), jaded employee Ryu Jae-min (Hong Jong-hyun) and communications chief Goo Yi-jung (Moon So-ri). Dong-hoon is the CEO of a PR agency that works with the company.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoXjCe3QG8A&ab_channel=DisneyPlusSingapore[/embed]

According to cast and crew members, Yunho embodies the role of a CEO perfectly.

So-ri said: "When we had our first meeting, Yunho was in Japan for a concert so we had to meet via Zoom. When he was on screen and the three of us were in South Korea saying hello, he said, 'Hello everyone, I'm Seo Dong-hoon' and I really felt like he was actually a CEO on a business trip."

Jong-hyun quipped: "Yeah, I felt like he was the head of the Japan office checking in on the South Korean branch."

Yunho also joked that, as he played a CEO, he felt the "power of the corporate card". He enjoyed watching his employees use his credit card, playing a good boss who would show up to after-work drinking events, pay for his employees' drinks and leave.

"You never want to look at the bill for the card," he added. "You just have to turn a blind eye."

Race streams on Disney+ today (May 10).

Park Seo-joon in What's Wrong With Secretary Kim

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq-oAQGrJoy/[/embed]

What's Wrong With Secretary Kim (2018) is the quintessential romantic comedy where a boss and employee fall in love, starring Park Seo-joon as a company's vice president Lee Young-joon.

Charming but arrogant, he is shocked when his secretary of nine years, Kim Mi-so (Park Min-young), announces that she will resign from her position.

Young-joon's plan for getting Mi-so to stay? Proposing to her, which Mi-so promptly rejects.

Love eventually blossoms between them as Young-joon and Mi-so discover that they have met in the past under tragic circumstances.

While we wouldn't want to be employed by Young-joon initially when he's brash and immature, he manages to shed the narcissism with Mi-so's help and becomes a better oppa.

IU in Hotel del Luna

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Crncq-bSsdi/[/embed]

Hotelier Jang Man-wol (Lee Ji-eun, better known as IU) caters to the supernatural in Hotel del Luna (2019) as a punishment for committing a grave sin over a millennium ago. All the hotel's guests and staff are ghosts who have unfinished business on the mortal plane and are in transit before they can move on and get reincarnated.

[[nid:581342]]

The only regular human is the general manager, who needs to interact with the real world — paying bills or interacting with ghosts' living family members and friends.

Man-wol meets a father (Oh Ji-ho) and makes a deal with him: His son Koo Chan-sung (Yeo Jin-goo) will work with her in 20 years' time. He takes his son overseas to escape his fate, but Chan-sung returns to South Korea 21 years later after his father's death and works in the hotel industry.

He becomes the next general manager at Hotel del Luna, and begins to uncover the mysteries of the hotel and its owner and staff.

We might have to be dead to work under Man-wol, or we could just wait for a vacancy to open up for the position of general manager again — just so we can try to borrow from Man-wol's gorgeous wardrobe.

Park Hyung-sik in Strong Girl Bong-soon

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj12uUqBsyf/[/embed]

Ahn Min-hyuk (Park Hyung-sik) is a chaebol (conglomerate) heir and CEO of a gaming company who hires the titular strong girl, Do Bong-soon (Park Bo-young), as a bodyguard in the 2017 K-drama, after seeing her beat up a group of thugs harassing a bus driver.

Bong-soon is born with superhuman strength and her dream is to create a video game with herself as the main character, making the pair a match made in heaven. She has a crush on a police detective In Kook-doo (Ji Soo), but slowly falls for Min-hyuk as the two try to find out who has been sending him ominous threats.

Working for Min-hyuk doesn't sound too bad, and we'll be safe with Bong-soon around.

Strong Girl Bong-soon streams on Disney+.

Son Ye-jin in Crash Landing On You

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/CUJZa_6PPA9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA[/embed]

Who says your dream girl can't fall from the sky?

Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin) is a CEO and chaebol heiress with a troubled family past in Crash Landing On You (2019), being the illegitimate child of her father. Nevertheless, she runs a successful fashion and beauty empire.

One day, she gets blown off course while paragliding in Seoul and enters the North Korean side of the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).

She runs into Ri Jeong-hyeok (Hyun Bin), a North Korean military captain, who vows to hide her and help her return home, while a State Security Department officer, Cho Cheol-gang (Oh Man-seok), tries to expose her whereabouts.

While Se-ri is known for being an eccentric and erratic CEO, at least we wouldn't have to deal with her in the office for a while after her paragliding mishap.

ALSO READ: 'The idea of a benevolent thief is necessary': South Korean star Joo Won hopes characters like Robin Hood exist in reality

drimac@asiaone.com

No part of this article can be reproduced without permission from AsiaOne.