“Twogether” is like watching two celebrities participate in “The Amazing Race”—except there’s only one team and the grand prize is meeting their fans.

Korean star Lee Seung-gi (“Vagabond”) and Taiwanese actor Jasper Liu (“Triad Princess”) travel through three countries in Asia to make their ultimate fans’ dreams come true in this new Netflix Original Series. The two went to Indonesia, Thailand and Nepal.

Lee is a seasoned variety show host. His resumé includes “2 Days & 1 Night,” “Busted” and “All the Butlers/Master in the House.” The show creators Cho Hyo-jin and Go Min-seok told the press during the virtual press conference on June 23 that casting him as the lead of the show was a “no-brainer.”

What they had to think hard about was finding the perfect travel partner for him. They chose Liu, who had no experience in variety shows, because they were “enamored by his bright positive energy.” They also liked how their smiles looked the same.

The audience will understand what they mean when they watch the show. It’s hard to tell the two apart in a wide shot because they have the same build. The easiest way to tell who’s who is by looking at their clothes. Lee prefers loud colors while Jasper wears subdued tones.

The two have control over how they would go about their trip. They were given a fixed budget per city and it should cover hotels, transportation, food and entrance fees. They must go on several missions to receive clues to pinpoint the location of their fans.

The difference in the purchasing power of the same amount of money is one of the early sources of laughter in the show. You can imagine how shocked the two were when they found out that the cost of their coffee in Seoul was greater than that of their room in Indonesia.

Language barrier

The two communicated in three languages: Korean, Mandarin and English. When all of those three languages failed, they put their hands and acting skills to good use. And if that’s not challenging enough, they also had to deal with the local languages.

This was how Liu discovered how smart Lee is.

“I was surprised to find out through this journey that he is quick to learn a new language, especially when we were shooting a scene in Chiang Mai. We competed against each other. That was one of the moments when I really learned how smart he was and also the fact that I would probably never be able to win against him,” he said.

Liu had the baptism of fire when they went spelunking in the caves of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He had the best teacher in Lee as the latter taught him how to overcome the challenges to accomplish the missions set before them.

To the untrained eye, some of the naughty things that Lee did on the show might be called cheating. In the Korean variety show world, it’s called being resourceful as some of the challenges were time-consuming.

Lee shamelessly used his charms to cajole fans, spectators and guides to help them out to speed up missions on a very tight schedule.

They had a day to accomplish their missions, including meeting their fans. One misstep and they ran the risk of missing their flight to another city or even country the following day.

Ultimate dream

The show was the ultimate dream come true for some lucky fans. The Sang Sang Company began their preproduction last year when they asked the fans of the two to send in their application. Part of the application process was telling them about the places that they should go to.

They started shooting around September. It made the two accessible to a lot of people given the number of photo stills and fan cams that came out last year. After all, the fans were the heart of the show. They were the driving force of the eight-episode show.

“We were able to meet our fans all across Asia that we could only have met online or through comments. It was really great to be able to see them in person and feel how much love they gave to me and Jasper,” Lee said. “We were able to really meet them and get to know them. I felt that they were able to become closer to me through this opportunity.”

Super K asked when the two considered themselves close to each other. They answered it was when Liu gave Lee a set of pajamas that matched his when they met again in Nepal. Read all about it in the article “Lee Seung-gi and Jasper Liu have matching sleepwear” on the Inquirer Super website (inquirersuper.com.ph).

Watch “Twogether” on Netflix. Follow Super K on Facebook.