K-drama ‘Big Mouth’ under fire for dialogue that allegedly perpetuates racial insensitivity

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief For the second weekend running, comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” held top spot at the South Korean box office. And it did so with a massive 75% share of the market. But as the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) holiday retreated into the rear-view mirror numbers, both for the sequel film and the nationwide box office, came crashing down. “Confidential Assignment 2” earned $6.89 million over the latest Friday to Sunday period, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). That figure was down 57% compared with its opening salvo of $21.0 million a week earlier.

EXCLUSIVE: The prevalence of Korean projects heading to the U.S. continues.

Endeavor Content’s newly-rebranded Fifth Season has signalled major international intentions with the hire of Ben Irving, the BBC’s former Acting Drama Director whose exec producer credits include His Dark Materials, Doctor Who and Gentleman Jack.

Please Send a Fan Letter (literal title).On September 15, MBC announced that Girls’ Generation member Sooyoung and Forecasting Love and Weather’s Yoon Park are set to star as the leads for Please Send a Fan Letter, a romantic comedy that follows a father who wants to preserve his daughter’s innocence by sending fake replies to her fan mail.According to a report by Osen, Sooyoung will be playing Han Kang-hee, an actress who is facing a crisis over a fan letter.

Australia’s Nine Network has ordered a local version of Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars and a two-part drama event series based on the late cricket maverick Shane Warne. Both shows were presented at Nine’s Upfront today.

EXO’s Xiumin has been cast in a new K-drama titled Sajangdol Mart (literal translation), marking his first role in seven years.On September 14, South Korean news outlet JTBC News reported that the K-pop idol will be starring as the lead in a new K-drama titled Sajangdol Mart. The claims were later confirmed by SM Entertainment in their response via XSports News later that day, as translated by Soompi.Other details regarding the new series, including a premiere date, full cast list and visuals, have yet to be confirmed by the production company behind Sajangdol Mart. According to JTBC News’ original report, Sajangdol Mart will allegedly depict the journeys of several individuals, who were all former K-pop idols, as they endeavour to open and run a supermarket together. The series will reportedly be helmed by director and producer Lee Yoo-yeon, previously known for her work on the web drama Best Mistake. Xiumin’s highly anticipated role in Sajangdol Mart will mark the singer’s first acting project in roughly seven years, since making his acting debut in the 2015 romantic-comedy web series Falling For Challenge. He was involved in that series as its lead, starring alongside Kim So-eun, and subsequently starred in the film Seondal: The Man Who Sells The River that same year, alongside Korean actors Yoo Seung-ho, Cho Jae-hyun, Ko Chang-seok and more.

Bad Prosecutor (literal translation), starring D.O of EXO.The new 30-second teaser trailer was shared on September 14 by the South Korean cable network, and introduces the titular prosecutor Jin Jung (D.O) swaggered into a room with a motorcycle helmet on, while holding a baseball bat. “Do you know what I’ve realised while living this life?” he points out, “To catch bad guys like you, you have to be more vicious.”He begins destroying the contents of the room: throwing his helmet towards the camera and spray-paints it and using his bat to destroy the potted plants sitting on the desk.

Disney+ has announced the all-star actors’ line-up to star in its upcoming Korean original series Shadow Detective. The K-drama was announced on September 13 by the streaming giant. Shadow Detective follows detective Taek-rok, who is retiring after an illustrious career in the police force.

Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae made Emmy history tonight as the first first foreign-language actor to win Lead Actor in a Drama Series — he was also the first such actor to ever be nominated.

BreAnna Bell Lee Jung-jae became the first Asian actor ever to win in the category after taking home the Emmy award for Best Actor in a Drama at this year’s Emmys for his performance in “Squid Game.”  “Thank you to the Television Academy, thank you to Netflix and thank you to the director for making realistic problems we all face come to life so creatively on the screen with a great script. Thank you, ‘Squid Game’ team. Thank you to everyone watching in Korea,” he said after accepting his award. He then went on to repeat his speech in Korean. He was only the fourth Asian actor ever to win in any of the Emmy performance categories, and the first to win the drama award for a non-English speaking role.

star became the first South Korean actor, as well as the first actor of Asian descent, to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. It was his first Emmy nomination and win.With his historic, record-setting win Monday night, the veteran actor joined a prestigious shortlist of actors of Asian descent to have taken home an Emmy for acting, following past winners Riz Ahmed, Archie Panjabi, Darren Criss and Shohreh Aghdashloo.«Thank you so much thank you so much.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Wang Xiaoshuai, director of “So Long, My Son” and “Red Amnesia,” will be the most senior mainland Chinese director to present a new film at a major Western festival this year. That may be a reflection of the growing political and economic separation between China and the West over the past couple of years — with COVID an additional irritant. But tough times can also breed innovation. Wang’s latest, “The Hotel,” a chamber piece about a small group of Chinese tourists trapped in a hotel in Thailand during the early days of the pandemic, was inspired by events that Wang personally endured in 2020. It was made in almost improvised fashion, with a hastily written screenplay and shot with available crew.

Super Junior’s Siwon and actress Lee Da-hee are set to star as the leads of ENA’s upcoming romance K-drama, Icy Cold Romance (literal title).Icy Cold Romance follows two close friends who start to develop feelings for each other after an unexpected meeting on the set of a reality dating show. According to South Korean media outlet TenAsia, Siwon will be playing Park Jae-hoon, a plastic surgeon who signs up to star in the reality show Kingdom of Love as a favour to his best friend.Lee (Search: WWW), meanwhile, is set to play Goo Yeo-reum, a producing director who obsesses over Kingdom of Love after repeatedly helming programs that have been discontinued.Icy Cold Romance will be helmed by Choi Kyu-shik, best known for his work with Rude Miss Young Ae and the second and third seasons of Let’s Eat.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo has shared that it has received multiple offers for remakes from various countries, including the US and Japan.South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency reported on September 6 that Astory, the production company behind the hit Netflix series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, had received proposals for remakes of the series from multiple countries, such as the US, Japan, Turkey and Germany. The offers were made during the 2022 Broadcast Worldwide convention, a broadcasting content market held in Seoul last week.Per Yonhap News Agency, Astory is currently in the midst of sorting out the details of local adaptations of the 16-episode series, sharing that it established a requirement of maintaining these individual adaptations to retain the show’s core themes. These include main character Woo Young-woo’s “warm heart towards the underprivileged and the significance of the whale”.“I think the favourable and hopeful message in [Extraordinary Attorney Woo] will resonate with people all around the world,” Astory CEO Lee Sang-baek said.

Neon has acquired North American and UK rights to the horror-drama Handling the Undead, marking the narrative feature debut of Thea Hvistendahl, who previously directed the documentary Adjø Montebello and several short films, including the SXSW Grand Jury Award-nominated Virgins4lyfe. The project reteams the distributor with Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, who starred in its Oscar-nominated romantic drama The Worst Person in the World, directed by Joachim Trier.

Disney+ has announced an all-star cast for its upcoming Korean original series, Connect, inclusive of Jung Hae-in, Ko Kyung-po and more.The new crime-thriller series, which was announced on September 7, is set to follow a man who is suddenly kidnapped by a gang of organ harvesters. He awakens following the procedure to find one of his eyes missing, however discovers that he is still able to see out of his missing eye, which is now being used by an infamous serial killer.Connect will star Jung Hae-in (Snowdrop, Start-Up) as the show’s main character Ha Dong-soo, a man with the secret ability to immediately heal from any injury, no matter how life-threatening.

Little Women is already a big hit.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief South Korea’s cinema box office slipped to its lowest level since mid-May as local film “6/45” took the top spot with just $3.06 million over the weekend in its second week of release. Comedy “6/45” was released a week earlier and scored $2.74 million in its opening weekend, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). The latest weekend, then, represents an 11% improvement for the title. It increased its share of the market to 45% during the latest weekend and advanced its cumulative total to $8.36 million. Depressed by a lack of significant new releases, the nationwide box office over the Friday to Sunday period, however, dropped to $6.75 million. This was the lowest scoring weekend since the first half of May.

box office, there is a near-term question mark about what will happen next: Will recovery stall due to a paucity of Hollywood tentpole movies? Or will international theatrical decouple and find new drivers to maintain the momentum? The good news is that most of the international market’s top territories are now fully open and operating without significant restrictions on seating capacity. These include the U.K. and Ireland, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Brazil. The smaller number of territories still laboring under restrictions nevertheless include some valuable ones: China, Turkey, Argentina, Hong Kong and Russia.

Netflix has announced a premiere date for its upcoming Korean original drama series Glitch, starring Jeon Yeo-bin, Nana and more.Netflix Korea made the announcement earlier today (September 2) sharing the premiere date and first poster for the upcoming mystery series, which will star Jeon Yeo-bin (Vincenzo, Alienoid) and Nana (Oh! Master, Memorials), among others.In the poster attached to the announcement, a woman stands in the middle of a crop circle formation drawn on the floor of an outdoor parking lot. She looks up towards glitching, glowing lights.