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K-drama, variety, Korean cinema, and the world of K-pop

The Government's Giant K-pop Festival Has a Name. Half of It Belongs to JYP — and the Contract Was Too Secret for the Committee Chair to See
K-Pop

The Government's Giant K-pop Festival Has a Name. Half of It Belongs to JYP — and the Contract Was Too Secret for the Committee Chair to See

FANOMENON is meant to be Korea's state-backed answer to the world's pop festivals, planned for December 2027 by a presidential committee co-chaired by 박진영. His company filed the trademark first. On 7 October, at the National Assembly, a lawmaker put the contract on the big screen, the chair halted the audit, and 박진영 conceded that the way the name was taken was 'not normal'.

9 min read
A Japanese Cartoon About Small Cute Creatures Opened at Number One in Korea. Tom Cruise's New Film Is Seventh on the Booking Board, With Cruise in Seoul to Sell It
K-Movie

A Japanese Cartoon About Small Cute Creatures Opened at Number One in Korea. Tom Cruise's New Film Is Seventh on the Booking Board, With Cruise in Seoul to Sell It

《극장판 치이카와》 took 122,291 admissions on its opening day, the biggest start for any animated film released in Korea this year, and by the next morning held 39 per cent of every advance ticket in the country. 《디거》, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's black comedy with Tom Cruise as an oil baron, opens on 3 October with 2.6 per cent — behind a Venice prize-winner in its second week — while Cruise makes his thirteenth visit to Korea, more than any other Hollywood actor. Iñárritu was meant to come too. He cancelled the night before.

11 min read
The Opposition Leader, the Park Chung-hee Foundation and a Police Complaint Want Chuseok's Number-One Film Off the Screens. The Director Says the Line They Object To Isn't In It
K-Movie

The Opposition Leader, the Park Chung-hee Foundation and a Police Complaint Want Chuseok's Number-One Film Off the Screens. The Director Says the Line They Object To Isn't In It

《암살자(들)》 passed 1.6 million admissions over the holiday. On the Monday after it, the foundation that keeps Park Chung-hee's memory demanded an apology and a halt to screenings, the leader of the opposition asked why insulting Park is 'freedom of expression' when touching Roh Moo-hyun gets you sued, and by Tuesday morning a former city councillor had filed a criminal complaint against the producer, the director and both writers. Hur Jin-ho's answer is that the film nowhere says Park ordered his wife shot, and that he now wishes he had drawn that line in dialogue. The audience score is 8.3. The netizen score is 2.2.

12 min read
Korea's 《야구여왕》 Built a Women's Baseball Team Out of Olympians, Lost 36–0, and Now Has to Win 60 Per Cent or Be Disbanded
K-Drama/Variety

Korea's 《야구여왕》 Built a Women's Baseball Team Out of Olympians, Lost 36–0, and Now Has to Win 60 Per Cent or Be Disbanded

채널A's sports-variety series is managed by Choo Shin-soo on his days off, captained by an Olympic handball medallist, and has a catcher who kept goal for the unified Korean ice hockey team at PyeongChang. On 17 September a 22-year-old golfer — drafted 115th by New York in America's new women's professional league, and never signed — caught for the first time, hit her first home run and closed out the game. The team is 5–2. The sport it plays has thirty elite women registered in the entire country.

14 min read
Netflix's 《스캔들》 Is Officially a Remake of the 2003 Film. Its Director Says He Went Back to the 1782 Novel Instead.
K-Drama/Variety

Netflix's 《스캔들》 Is Officially a Remake of the 2003 Film. Its Director Says He Went Back to the 1782 Novel Instead.

All eight episodes drop at 17:00 KST on 18 September, with Son Ye-jin as the widow who runs the game, Ji Chang-wook as the rake she runs it with, and Nana as the woman they wager on. Netflix's own announcement credits Lee Jae-yong's 《스캔들-조선남녀상열지사》 as the source. Jung Ji-woo told the press conference he didn't start from that film at all, but from Laclos — and rewrote the relationships until, he says, 'a great deal changed.' Here is what is known the day before, and what has been said about it that isn't quite true.

11 min read
Seven Shots or Six? The 1974 Record Can Be Read Both Ways. Hur Jin-ho's Film Took Six, and Built a Newsroom Around the Bullet Nobody Examined.
K-Movie

Seven Shots or Six? The 1974 Record Can Be Read Both Ways. Hur Jin-ho's Film Took Six, and Built a Newsroom Around the Bullet Nobody Examined.

Hur Jin-ho's 《암살자(들)》 opens on 23 September as the most pre-booked Korean film of the Chuseok season, ahead of 《인턴》, with a bracketed plural in its title that is the whole argument. The 1974 file on the shooting of First Lady Yuk Young-soo lists seven shots, one of them a misfire; the Park Chung-hee foundation now counts six; the film counts six and finds four bullets. What none of them can show is the bullet that killed her — and the director says he is offering a hypothesis, not a verdict.

13 min read
《인턴》 Opens on 16 September Behind a Film From August and a Film From the Following Week
K-Movie

《인턴》 Opens on 16 September Behind a Film From August and a Film From the Following Week

Two days before Korea's warmest film of the autumn opens, it is the third most-booked film in the country. Above it: a Christopher Nolan film that has been number one for forty consecutive days, and a Korean thriller that does not open until the 23rd. The critics have praised the two leads in every review and called the script safe in every review. And the whole thing exists because a studio that quit Korea six years ago came back for it.

11 min read
The Last 《타짜》 Is Named After a Bet Between Two Devils. The Loser Turned Into a Fly.
K-Movie

The Last 《타짜》 Is Named After a Bet Between Two Devils. The Loser Turned Into a Fly.

Twenty years after the flower-card original, the fourth and final Tazza opens on 23 September as a Texas hold'em film with a yakuza-backed heiress and a title from the two of spades. The director says the spades in a deck carry demons' names — a claim we could not find anywhere outside the film. The 2019 instalment everyone remembers as a collapse actually did more business on its second day than its first. And all four films have opened within days of Chuseok, on purpose.

12 min read
In English She Is the Director of 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982.' In Korean She Is a Remake Specialist.
K-Movie

In English She Is the Director of 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982.' In Korean She Is a Remake Specialist.

Kim Do-young's Korean 'The Intern' opens 16 September with Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee. Every English write-up introduces her by the film that started a national argument about feminism. Korean film writers introduce her as someone on a two-for-two run at adapting other people's material, going for three. Same director, same three films, two completely different careers — and which one you get depends on which language you read.

12 min read
Three Korean Films Open the Day Before Chuseok. One of Them Isn't Competing — It's Meeting a Deadline.
K-Movie

Three Korean Films Open the Day Before Chuseok. One of Them Isn't Competing — It's Meeting a Deadline.

On 23 September, a card-gambling franchise finale, a true-crime thriller about a 1974 assassination attempt, and Lee Chang-dong's Oscar entry all open in Korean cinemas. Two of them are fighting over the biggest holiday audience of the year. The third is there because the Academy requires a seven-day theatrical run by the 30th — the film no Korean investor would fund is using Chuseok as a compliance window.

12 min read
Korea's No. 2 Streaming Service Is One Almost Nobody Watches. It Just Made the Biggest Show on Korean Television.
K-Drama/Variety

Korea's No. 2 Streaming Service Is One Almost Nobody Watches. It Just Made the Biggest Show on Korean Television.

Coupang Play has a quarter of Korea's streaming users and six and a half per cent of its viewing time — the signature of a service people are subscribed to rather than watching. Then Kim Hye-soo and Cho Yeo-jeong turned up in a black comedy produced by the Squid Game director's studio, and it became the most-watched thing the platform has ever made. It is free to watch in Korea, licensed to Viu everywhere else, and the Western press that decides which Korean shows go global still hasn't looked at it.

11 min read
Forty Thousand People Queued for 624 Seats. On 28 August a New Law Bans Ticket Scalping — But Not This Kind.
K-Movie

Forty Thousand People Queued for 624 Seats. On 28 August a New Law Bans Ticket Scalping — But Not This Kind.

Nolan shot The Odyssey entirely on IMAX cameras, for a 70mm format that exists in 41 cinemas worldwide and none of them in Korea. What Korea has is one digital screen in Yongsan that shows the full frame uncropped. Seats resell at five times face value, the resale ban taking effect this week specifically does not cover cinema tickets, and the thing that will actually end the run is a law written to protect Korean film.

12 min read
Korea's Most-Streamed Artist Sings a Genre the Country Banned for Two Decades
K-Pop

Korea's Most-Streamed Artist Sings a Genre the Country Banned for Two Decades

In 1935 a Korean record company slipped an anti-Japanese line past the colonial censors by submitting it as nonsense that sounded identical when sung. Thirty years later the Korean state banned the same genre for sounding Japanese — using a broadcasters' agreement, a ministry policy measure and three committees, but never once a law. The genre is called trot, and English writing about Korean music has essentially never mentioned it.

12 min read
BTS Plays the World Cup Final: The Band That 'Died' for the Draft Takes the Biggest Stage on Earth
K-Pop

BTS Plays the World Cup Final: The Band That 'Died' for the Draft Takes the Biggest Stage on Earth

On July 19, at MetLife Stadium, seven Korean men will walk out to perform at the first-ever halftime show of a FIFA World Cup Final — the most-watched sporting event on the planet. It is the improbable capstone of a six-year story: a boy band the Korean state once treated as a draft-dodging headache, conscripted one by one, reunited, and re-exported as the country's single most valuable piece of soft power. Here's how BTS got from the barracks to the biggest stage on Earth.

10 min read
NewJeans vs HYBE: How K-Pop's Biggest Rebellion Ended in a Courtroom
K-Pop

NewJeans vs HYBE: How K-Pop's Biggest Rebellion Ended in a Courtroom

Five young women, backed by their star producer, tried to walk out on the most powerful company in K-pop — declaring their contracts void and rebranding overnight. A Seoul court said no. The most-watched test of idol autonomy in the streaming era ended not with a breakaway but a court-ordered return, and it answered a blunt question: inside the world's most successful pop-export machine, who actually holds the power — the idol, or the agency?

10 min read
Teach You a Lesson, Explained — The Netflix Hit That a Real Politician Wants to Build (June 2026)
K-Drama/Variety

Teach You a Lesson, Explained — The Netflix Hit That a Real Politician Wants to Build (June 2026)

It's a pulpy revenge fantasy about a government bureau that disciplines out-of-line students by force — and within a week of premiering it was the most-watched non-English show on Netflix in the world. Then a newly elected superintendent proposed building its fictional agency for real. Here's what 참교육 actually is, why it hit such a nerve in Korea, and where the fantasy stops.

10 min read
Jae-seok's B&B Rules, Explained — Yoo Jae-suk's Netflix Camp Show and the Byeon Woo-seok Effect (June 2026)
K-Drama/Variety

Jae-seok's B&B Rules, Explained — Yoo Jae-suk's Netflix Camp Show and the Byeon Woo-seok Effect (June 2026)

It's Yoo Jae-suk's first Netflix variety show with his name on the marquee: a chaotic two-night camp where Korea's biggest MC plays rookie innkeeper to Lee Kwang-soo, Ji Ye-eun, and — for the first time as a variety regular — Lovely Runner's Byeon Woo-seok. Within two days of release it was #1 on Netflix in Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Here's what 유재석 캠프 actually is, and why the 'Byeon Woo-seok effect' is real.

10 min read

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