K-Pop Shark Heroes

For millennia, sharks have ruled the oceans...

with mind-blowing predatory strikes.

Ancient people revered them,

modern culture celebrates them.

But every summer, they get attacked...

...with terrible headlines,

false accusations.

At the beach. Can't wait to eat some people.

Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom!

And heinous cyber bullying worldwide.

The sharks need a voice.

Someone strong enough to tell the world their true intentions.

The unlikeliest hero has answered the call.

Yacht in my shot!

Stupid yacht!

Hey, hey. I've got my glass figurines in there.

Hello, my toothy friends.

I am Ken Jeong, but you probably already know that.

Because you have most likely seen The Hangover one, two and three.

I am here to rebrand you. You're welcome.

Very good.

For the past few weeks, my feed has been nothing but sharks.

That guy was fish slapped.

It's like a seafood backhand.

And the comments aren't helping.

People are losing their minds.

"Sharks literally devour people."

"Stay out of the water."

"If you're bleeding or have an open wound, don't swim."

"Enough with the Shark Week celebrity crap."

"Get some real scientists."

Okay. Overreact much? Geez Louise.

Let's face it. Sharks have terrible PR.

The truth of the matter is they're not hunting us,

they're just doing shark stuff.

They're misunderstood bad boys, like me.

If you wanna change the conversation, don't engage with the trolls.

You change culture the only way culture can be changed

with a loud, over the top shark-filled anthem.

So I called Discovery.

Hello, Discovery. I'm Ken Jeong.

Yes, Ken Jeong. Yeah, I'll hold.

I'm coming to Shark Week to help the sharks.

And I'm making a K-Pop shark anthem.

You write K-Pop Music?

Look, I'm not delusional.

I don't think I'm a K-Pop star, per se.

I have zero Grammys, but I have five Razzie nominations.

I'm only four letters away from an EGORT.

I need someone who actually knows what they're doing,

and the first person I thought of was Grammy nominated K-Pop star, Rei Ami.

Hi. I'm Rei Ami.

You might also know me as the singing voice

of Zoey from KPop Demon Hunters.

-Hi. -Oh, my goodness.

And Ken Jeong voiced my manager Bobby.

-So great to see you. -Hi.

-You look amazing. -So do you!

Why am I here? Sharks.

I grew up watching Shark Week every summer.

I actually applied for a job at Discovery Channel

after I graduated college and I actually never heard back from them.

You brought your entourage!

-Of course! -Oh my God.

Excuse me, would you mind being a dear

and just take this bag away for me.

It's really heavy, you probably need two people. Okay.

Bye. Let's talk. What's our mission?

Our mission is to rebrand sharks.

We want to cancel the cancel culture of sharks

and to make a K-Pop shark anthem.

I love his passion, but we don't really know much about sharks.

We have a lot more learning to do.

So I actually had Discovery call up a few experts. We're gonna meet them.

-Really? Let's go. -Yeah.

-Hey! -Hi.

-Oh, my gosh. -Hi. How are you?

-Nice to meet you. Ken, pleasure. -Hello!

My name is Dr. Tristan Guttridge and I'm a shark behavior expert.

Discovery asked me to help Ken rebrand sharks

and he's gonna need a lot of help.

The best way I can think to do this

is to run a series of scientific demonstrations,

to show them how awesome sharks are.

Oh my God.

-Alright. -We are so excited to meet you.

My name is Dr. Sora Kim

and we're here with Rei and Ken,

trying to dispel some myths about sharks.

-What do you do? -Well, I'm a shark behaviorist.

-So, you're a therapist? -Yeah.

I'm a doctor, alright.

I know Ken is trained as a medical doctor.

But that doesn't mean he's a marine biologist.

It doesn't mean he knows about the ocean.

Tristan... I don't know.

There's something about his, whole, I don't know.

What do you call it? His face. Right? And his voice.

What have you heard about working with Ken?

That he's a little bit unpredictable. I've gotta keep an eye on him.

-Hey, guys! -How did he get over there?

Hello! You can hear me, right?

Come here, shark. Hi.

What ocean are you from? I'm from Calabasas.

I want to make sure sharks are respected, like me.

I was in Big Mama's House 3. Did you see that movie?

It was the best of the Big Mama's Houses.

I am a huge ocean fan, I grew up in the ocean.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God!

But I'm nervous.

-Oh, shark! There's one right there. -Here comes the nurse shark.

-Okay. Hello. -Hello.

-Hello. -So this is a juvenile nurse shark.

-Oh, it touched me. -Yeah, come over.

Oh my God, look at the baby.

I didn't know sharks could be cute like that.

In, like, a dream shark scenario, what would be on the menu?

They all eat different things.

Lots of nurse sharks like to eat little invertebrates, little fish.

They're a suction feeder. They suck in little crabs and fish.

-Like a vacuum. -Exactly.

They're like the vacuum cleaner of the ocean.

Hi, my name is Ken Jeong.

Don't worry guys, I'm here to give you great PR.

You are the apex. You're not the apex predator.

You're the apex prendedor.

You can see that the position of their mouth is really low

in their head,

so they're not made to bite.

They're so cute.

You remind me of this golden doodle I have.

You can tell. It's just curious. It's wondering what we're doing here.

So this is when they're docile.

But if you want to see them on their on-mode

when they're hunting, we can go somewhere else

-and check it out. -Yes.

I think sharks have bad PR,

because people are afraid of what they can't see.

And so the first thing we want to do

is show Ken and Rei that humans are not on a shark's menu.

Getting in the water with these sharks will showcase the fact

that they're not these mindless killers.

This is the first of four tests we will run.

We're gonna go and see them in hunting mode.

-Are you ready? -Yes!

-No. -I can't wait.

-We'll let you stay on the dock. -Oh, my God!

Yeah. I will support the hunting from yonder here.

Do male sharks assert dominance over other male sharks?

Well, to be fair, the females are the ones

that you got to watch out for.

-Queen. -My queen. Yeah, the queen shark.

-I get it. -Watch out.

Females are generally bigger than males.

-That's right. -Yeah.

-Really? -Yes.

-Yes. They're bigger. -Okay.

They're doing all the breeding like they're--

-The heavy lifting. -Yeah, exactly.

-They create life. Thank you. -Exactly.

We're at Triangle Rocks, this is a reef site.

So, we have Caribbean reef sharks here.

And there's about probably 15 or 20 of them circling us right now.

This is a pristine reef habitat here.

-Is that a reef? -Certainly is.

See how calm? They're just gliding.

They're in their docile mode. They're curious, looking around.

Sora and Rei are gonna be underwater with the sharks.

Despite her presence in the water, they will remain calm.

Rei will be able to see

when we introduce food and chum into the water,

the switch gets flipped and they move into a hunting mode.

Ken and I are gonna be on the deck of the boat,

chumming and baiting from the surface.

This is my first real ocean scuba diving experience,

and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous,

because I'm very nervous.

Oh, my God! There's a shark right under me!

Reef sharks are top predators in this system.

They play a key functional role here

so we need those sharks to have healthy oceans.

I love your voice. I was just wondering for my project,

I think you're good enough to sing a distant backup to me.

How far back?

When there's a lull in the song, you go, "This is where the reef is."

"Trying to educate as well as entertain,

-innit?" -Okay.

I don't trust the propers, you know what I mean?

"Hey, no, it's just like my name's Tristan."

"I was like doing a lot of research. I work with shark on Shark Week."

Everybody knows sharks are American.

Wow, look at those sharks!

These reef sharks are huge.

I hope she's okay.

Hey, Rei. This is Ken.

Just checking in. How are you doing? Over.

I'm doing well.

Yes.

This is blowing my mind!