Park Min-young, Yook Sungjae, and Go Soo Confirmed for SBS Office Romance 'Nine to Six'

SBS confirmed on March 24, 2026 that Park Min-young (박민영), Yook Sungjae (육성재) of BTOB, and Go Soo (고수) will headline its upcoming office romance 나인 투 식스 (Nine to Six), according to the network's official announcement. The drama follows three colleagues at a fictional automotive company called Chronic Motors: Kang Yi-ji (Park Min-young), a rational and driven deputy manager on the legal team who has essentially written romance off her schedule; Han Seon-woo (Yook Sungjae), an idealistic young intern who earns his team's trust through diligence and warmth; and Park Hyun-tae (Go Soo), a newly assigned division head who evaluates Kang Yi-ji strictly on merit. SBS has scheduled Nine to Six for the second half of 2026, directed by Lee Hyung-min, whose previous work includes the acclaimed Miss Night and Day, with scripts by Choi Ji-oh.

Three Characters, One Legal Team

SBS's character breakdowns reveal exactly where the tension will live. Park Min-young plays Kang Yi-ji, a deputy manager who has built her entire professional identity on being irreproachably rational. She works at Chronic Motors, a fictional Korean automotive corporation, and she genuinely believes love is just hormones, something to be analyzed and not felt. Enter Han Seon-woo (Yook Sungjae), an intern who counters everything Yi-ji represents: warmth, instinct, and a refusal to be purely calculating. Completing the triangle is Park Hyun-tae (Go Soo), a division head newly deployed to Chronic Motors Korea who respects Yi-ji's work without the usual corporate politics clouding his judgment. Three people in the same building, on the same team, with very different ideas about what makes a life worthwhile. That setup is not new. But this cast makes it feel like it could be something worth watching closely.

Adapted From a Chinese Hit, With a Korean Twist

Nine to Six is a Korean adaptation of The Rational Life, the 2021 Chinese drama starring Qin Lan and Dylan Wang that built a devoted following on Netflix for its take on workplace romance and age-gap relationships. The Korean version keeps the essential dynamic: an accomplished older woman whose career has consumed all romantic instinct, and a younger man who quietly dismantles her defenses. But the production has made deliberate adjustments, as reported by Rolling Stone India. Yook Sungjae's character Han Seon-woo is reimagined as a lawyer with a creative streak, shifting the original personal assistant setup into something more structurally equal. This friction between rational legal thinking and artistic sensibility sharpens the central conflict considerably. For Go Soo, the casting carries separate weight: SBS's announcement confirms this marks his first romance drama in approximately 15 years, with his last romantic lead being the 2009 KBS series Will It Snow for Christmas? Nine to Six gives him a role built for that kind of gravitas.

Park Min-young and Yook Sungjae Lead a Deep Bench

Park Min-young's reputation as Korea's office romance specialist is not hype, it is a documented track record. What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (2018), Forecasting Love and Weather (2022), and Marry My Husband (2024) each put her in the same basic environment: a high-functioning woman navigating professional pressure and emotional unavailability. Every time, she has found something new in the formula. Nine to Six finds her returning to that world after Siren's Kiss, her 2026 SBS thriller where she played an ice-cold art auctioneer in a complete register shift, and the pivot back to romance will be closely watched. Yook Sungjae brings credibility from a different angle. His performance in The Haunted Palace proved he can carry a drama on his own terms, and Han Seon-woo's warmth aligns naturally with qualities that made him one of BTOB's most beloved members, a fact confirmed by consistent fan and critic recognition across multiple award seasons. K-drama communities on Reddit and X have flagged this as one of the more interesting ensemble configurations announced so far in 2026.

What to Watch For

Nine to Six does not have a premiere date beyond the second half of 2026 on SBS, per the network's official casting announcement, leaving the network scheduling flexibility for its drama calendar. Lee Hyung-min's previous work on Miss Night and Day suggested a director comfortable with tonal balance, knowing when to play a scene for comedy and when to let it breathe. The Chinese source material handled the romance without collapsing into contrivance, and the expectation is that the Korean version will maintain that restraint while adding the workplace-specific social commentary Korean drama does particularly well. Go Soo's involvement is the variable that makes this cast configuration genuinely interesting rather than just commercially safe. His presence adds a kind of weight to the triangle that the Park Hyun-tae role needs to function as more than a narrative obstacle. Whether Nine to Six becomes the office romance of 2026 depends entirely on the chemistry that Park Min-young, Yook Sungjae, and Go Soo build inside that Chronic Motors legal department.