North Korea Showbiz Latest News and Updates

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Vanessa Kirby, BAFTA nominee David Oyelowo and BAFTA winner Sofie Gråbøl lead cast in Audible’s The Strange Case, the first audio drama from the creator of the John Wick franchise, Derek Kolstad.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ retained its lead at the top of the South Korean box office on what was the quietest cinema-going weekend in more than a year. The animated franchise movie held up reasonably. It maintained a nearly 44% market share, dropped only 32% week-on-week and was untroubled by competition from new releases. The film earned $1.91 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

ASTRO’s JinJin has unveiled a new song titled ‘Fly’, featuring vocals from late bandmate Moonbin.ASTRO’s JinJin released ‘Fly’ on April 19, which is the anniversary of Moonbin’s death. The song features rap verses by JinJin, pared by a chorus that features vocals from Moonbin.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Amazon’s free-of charge, ad-supported streaming platform that is only available in India, miniTV, is expanding its reach within the country. It is adding 200 shows for regional audiences and speakers of Tamil and Telugu. The new line-up of dubbed titles includes marquee and fan-favourite Hindi originals including “Hunter- Tootega Nahi Todega,” “Physics Wallah,” action-packed patriotic series “Rakshak- India’s Braves,” and young romance series “Highway Love.” Hollywood titles dubbed into Tamil and Telugu will include library titles “Twilight,” “Now You See Me,” the “Hunger Games” series, the “Step Up” franchise films and “Red.” miniTV will also upload Korean, Turkish and Mandarin shows dubbed in Tamil and Telugu languages.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief While multiple Korean TV series have connected with global audiences, Japan’s production committees, terrestrial broadcasters and talent agencies have kept their TV industry tightly focused on a local market. Anime and variety have long remained the Japanese TV industry’s best-known exports, while the premium end of the spectrum has largely escaped Japanese producers.

Zico and BLACKPINK member Jennie have teased their upcoming collaboration, titled ‘Spot!’.Today (April 18), Zico posted a video of him and BLACKPINK’s Jennie in a recording studio dancing along to a preview of their upcoming single on Instagram. The snippet features vocals from the girl group member singing: “Up and down, round and round, hit the spot, spot, spot, spot”.A post shared by 우지호/ZICO (@woozico0914)Soon after, Zico revealed that the new collaboration is titled ‘Spot!’ and will be out on April 26 at 6pm KST.

Following his first foray into television with 2018’s “The Little Drummer Girl,” Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook returns to Western television this month with the espionage thriller series “The Sympathizer” on HBO (read our review). And the director is already quickly putting together another project for the small screen, a series adaptation of his 2003 revenge masterpiece “Oldboy.” Variety reports that Chan-Wook is partnering with Lionsgate Television on the adaptation of the English-language series based on his film of the same name.

Stray Kids have announced that they will collaborate with Charlie Puth on a brand-new single called ‘Lose My Breath’.Stray Kids announced the song today (April 17) through their social media platforms. According to a press statement, per Sports Kyunghang, ‘Lose My Breath’ is described as a “warm-up” for an upcoming Korean album slated for release sometime this summer.‘Lose My Breath’ will feature American singer-songwriter Charlie Puth, marking the first collaboration project between the two artists.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Disney has confirmed that Korean webtoon-to-screen adaptation “Low Life” is poised to begin production. When valuable treasure is discovered off the coast of Korea, the country’s biggest degenerates come crawling out of the woodwork in the hope of striking it big. Word spreads after a fisherman got lucky and kept a piece of the booty for himself.

Two months after revealing its Korean slate for 2024, Disney+ has unveiled another series from the country. Titled Low Life, the show will premiere on the platform next year and Hulu in the U.S.

Park Bo-ram died Thursday afternoon, the singer’s agency, Xanadu Entertainment, said.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korea’s second largest generalist film event the Jeonju International Film Festival has set eight fiction films by first or second-time feature directors, for its main competition. They are “Cu Li Never Cries,” by Pham Ngoc Lan; “Junkyard Dog,” by Jean-Baptiste Durand, “La Palisiada,” by Philip Sotnychenko; “My Endless Numbered Days,” by Shaun Neo; “Oxygen Station,” by Ivan Tymchenko; “Practice,” by Laurens Perol; “The Major Tones,” by Ingrid Pokropek; and “The Permanent Picture,” by Laura Ferres. Additionally, two documentary features also compete: “After the Snowmelt,” directed by Lo Yi-Shan and “Kix,” by Balint Revesz and David Mikulan. The COVID-pandemic continues to affect filmmaking and festival selection, organizers said. “Even films planned to be made beforehand had to extend their production period due to the pandemic, and many works highlighted the limitations of the production environments, such as smaller cast numbers and minimal locations,” said chief programmer Chun Jinsu. The festival runs May 1-10 in Jeonju, a major town on South Korea’s west coast.

88rising will return to Coachella over the next two Sundays with a new ‘Futures’ set that will shine a light on four Japanese artists – find out more in NME’s interview with 88rising founder and CEO Sean Miyashiro.First announced April 8, the line-up for 88rising Futures includes viral sensations and NME Cover artists Yoasobi, rapper Awich, J-pop boyband Number_i, and the label’s own boundary-breaking group, Atarashii Gakko!. The set will also include appearances from Korean hip-hop legends Tiger JK and Yoonmirae, plus Chinese singer and dancer Xin Liu, 88rising’s newest signing.The programming reflects Miyashiro’s observations of widespread growth and appreciation of Japanese artists in today’s music landscape, he told NME, and 88rising’s efforts to celebrate and spotlight Japanese music “on what is the world’s most influential, prestigious music festival stage”.“There’s so much music coming out of Japan of all genres, and there’s so many people wanting to make music and be artists,” he said.

Welcome to , Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films making noise in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy”) is moving along at a nice clip. On the way is his HBO period spy series “The Sympathizer,” which comes out later this month, and potentially next is his long-gestating remake of the dark comedy “The Ax.” And while that’s undoubtedly an abundance of great projects in the works, there are even more on the horizon.

Super Rich in Korea, hosted by GOT7‘s BamBam and more. Read on for everything you need to know about the show.According to a previous press release by Netflix, the reality series will follow “the ultra-luxurious lives of the world’s wealthiest in the heart of Korea”.

Goodbye Earth.Today (April 9), the streamer revealed though its Netflix K-Content account on X (formerly Twitter) that Goodbye Earth will premiere April 26. The announcement was accompanied by 10 stills from the upcoming K-drama, which will star Ahn Eun-jin, Jeon Sung-woo and more.Notably, none of the stills feature actor Yoo Ah-in, who has been embroiled in controversy regarding his alleged drug use since early-2023.

Glass hair has become one of the biggest hair trends of the last year, with everyone chasing the coveted ultra-glossy shine. Inspired by Korean skincare’s ‘glass skin’ trend, the hair equivalent is all about leaving your tresses looking shiny, sleek and hydrated.

EXCLUSIVE: The extraordinary exploits of convicted fraudster Russell King will be recounted in King of All Cons (WT), a feature doc that has just gone into production. Emmy-nominated Dash Pictures is making the film with Sky in the UK and Matthew Lorenzo Productions, the indie set up by the titular Lorenzo, a former Sky Sports presenter.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Without significant new challengers, spooky Korean drama “Exhuma” held on at the top of the South Korea box office chart for the seventh consecutive weekend. Its cumulative passed the symbolic $80 million mark. The lack of strong new release titles also meant that aggregate weekend box office in Korea slipped to a lowly $5.59 million. The Choi Min-sik-starring “Exhuma” dropped roughly 50% week-on-week to record $1.59 million between Friday and Sunday, and a 28% market share, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

EXCLUSIVE: The Traitors continued on its path of global domination with 11 territory launches in 2023, unseating The Masked Singer as analysis firm K7‘s Format of the Year after four years of domination.

Kep1er have been confirmed to be gearing up for their final album as a group, and are also currently in talks to extend their contracts.The K-pop girl group’s contracts as a temporary project are due to officially expire this year on July 3. This was a condition set by the survival show that formed Kep1er, Girls Planet 999, which stipulated that the winning line-up would embark on a two-and-a-half-year contract when the show concluded in October 2021.

EXO‘s Lay will be releasing a new album sometime this month, which will be released alongside a Korean-language version.The Chinese idol’s label, n.cH Entertainment, made the announcement earlier today (April 5), per Korea JoongAng Daily. According to the company’s statement, Lay is set to drop the album sometime in mid-April, although a specific date has yet to be specified.It also announced that a Korean version of the album will be released concurrently, and that he will be promoting the album on Korean music broadcast shows.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent CAA has come on board to advise on the worldwide sales of “Pleasant Outcast,” the post-apocalyptic Korean thriller series from Lotte Cultureworks (“Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days”) and Climax Studio. “Pleasant Outcast” is set to premiere at Canneseries, which kicks off April 5. The 10-part series is a companion piece to the Korean box office smash hit film “Concrete Utopia,” which was selected as South Korea’s Oscar contender and sold to 185 countries.

KISS OF LIFE have dropped their brand-new single ‘Midas Touch’, alongside a dazzling music video.In the official music video for ‘Midas Touch’, the four members of KISS OF LIFE embody age-old characters from Greek mythology and give them a charming, modern twist as their touch turns their love interests into stone. It is one of two song’s on KISS OF LIFE’s new single album of the same name, alongside the B-side track ‘Nothing’.“When I touch ya, kiss ya, you’re gon realise / Baby don’t you think too much / Boy, if I touch ya, kiss ya, watch out / The gaze that changed in an instant / You see, I got the Midas Touch,” they sing on the ’90s-tinged song’s chorus.‘Midas Touch’ marks KISS OF LIFE’s first comeback this year, having last released music in November 2023 with their second mini-album ‘Born To Be XX’, led by lead single ‘Bad News’.

Solo Leveling has arrived – check it out below.The new season was announced on Saturday (March 30) and it will be officially titled Solo Leveling Season 2: Arise from the Shadow.Based on the Korean web novel by Chugong, the series takes place in a realm of gifted hunters and monsters. In this world, weak hunter Sung Jinwoo is given extraordinary strength through a mysterious programme, which kickstarts a journey across the various dungeons to discover the true source of his power.The anime adaptation debuted in January this year, after having first been announced at Anime Expo 2022.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief BBC Studios is launching ‘BBC Kids’ in Korea as a monthly subscription service on Genie TV Kids Land, a dedicated IPTV service for young children, in collaboration with telecoms and internet service provider KT. Through the partnership, BBC Studios Asia will bring a wide range of children’s content to Korean audiences, in one place for the first time. The service will feature a mix of content in English language as well as a variety of popular titles dubbed into Korean for the first time.

Korean horror film Exhuma has become the highest-grossing Korean film ever in Vietnam, its distributor Showbox Co said.

Disney+ tentpole Uncle Samsik will debut on May 15 on the platform globally, and on Hulu. The streamer also announced that Korean crime thriller Nine Puzzles will premiere exclusively on the platform in 2025.

BBC Studios Launches First Kids Streamer In Korea