Kim Kang-woo nears 1M YouTube subscribers, leads KBS historical drama 'Munmu'

Kim Kang-woo is closing in on a YouTube Gold Button. His personal channel, 김강우 KIMKANGWOO, opened in April last year and has already crossed 950,000 subscribers — putting the 1 million mark within reach roughly one year after launch.

The channel runs cooking videos, travel content, and everyday life moments. A deliberate contrast to his on-screen work. Kim said he almost didn't start at all: "I thought about it for a really long time. I didn't even know what YouTube was and I didn't watch YouTube." Once he committed, his reasoning shifted: "After doing acting for a long time, I felt I was falling into mannerism, and I wanted to know myself better. I was always someone being filmed, so I thought about what it would be like to plan and create things myself."

The bet paid off. His appearance on KBS 2TV's 신상출시 편스토랑 (Shin Sang Chul-si Pang's Store) showed off his cooking and earned him the nickname 순정셰프 — Pure-hearted Chef. He then took home the New Talent Award in the Reality category at the 2025 KBS Entertainment Awards.

Now he's heading back to straight acting. Kim is cast as the lead in KBS 2TV's new large-scale historical drama 문무 (Munmu), set to air in the second half of this year. He'll play Kim Chun-chu (김춘추), Silla's first true-bone origin king and the figure who laid the groundwork for the unification of the Three Kingdoms. Going from Pure-hearted Chef to unification king is a range flex, honestly.