North Korea: Last News

Rosé of girl group BLACKPINK and Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-Jung are set to co-host an event at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Today (March 9), The Met announced that Rosé and Youn, along with Chinese actress Song Jia, will co-host an event for Korean beauty brand Sulwhasoo at the museum later this month on March 29. Notably, all three celebrities are global ambassadors of the beauty brand.In its press release, The Met revealed that it is partnering with Sulwhasoo in a year-long agreement that aims to boost programmes and activities at the Museum to help “celebrate global heritage”.

The Glory.Written by Kim Eun-sook, the thriller series follows Moon, a former victim of school violence, who seeks revenge against her bullies later in life.The show has been divided into two separate instalments, with the first eight episodes landing on Netflix in December last year.The second batch of eight episodes will drop on Friday March 10 at 12pm PT in the US.

Rachel Seo Digital creator, podcaster and filmmaker Markiplier has signed an exclusive video partnership with Spotify for his two podcasts, “Distractible” and “Go! My Favorite Sports Team.” Video episodes of both podcasts will be available to stream on Spotify exclusively. Markiplier is set to debut additional exclusive video content on the platform. “Distractible,” which Markiplier hosts with Wade Barnes and Bob Muyskens, reached the No. 1 spot on Spotify’s podcasts charts the week of its debut in 2021. The podcast centers on discussions of various, seemingly random topics such as anti-aging practices, Halloween candy and roller coasters. “Go! My Favorite Sports Team” is hosted by Markiplier and Tyler Scheid; it launched in 2022 and provides humorous commentary on the world of sports.

‘Riceboy Sleeps’ Scoops Top Canadian Film AwardAnthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps has won Canada’s biggest film award, the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. The prize, decided by the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA), comes with a CAN$100,000 ($72,000) cash prize. Riceboy Sleeps beat nominees Clement Virgo’s Brother and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. The semi-autobiographical film explores the challenges of living between two cultures through the tale of a Korean immigrant single mother raising her son in Canada. Shot in the Greater Vancouver area and Korea, the feature world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, winning its Platform Prize, and then played in Busan and a raft of other festivals. The win comes as Toronto-based distributor Game Theory Films gears up for the title’s Canadian release on March 17. The feature will also be released in Korea, Singapore and the US in the coming months.  “The Toronto film community has been so good to us since TIFF where this crazy journey first began and I hope to make more films in the future that will warrant the same type of support,” commented Shim.

Rebecca Souw Whether it’s overcoming a mental handicap or fighting for their rights, Korea’s women-led stories are evolving as the local industry kicks some of its dated stereotypes for female characters. Recent shows “The Glory,” “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” “Little Women” and “Twenty-Five, Twenty-One” not only delve into social issues in Korea, but highlight the strength and depth of character of their female leads. Three of these were top-10 shows for Netflix in 2022, while data from FlixPatrol shows revenge thriller “The Glory” as the number one TV show on the streamer this year in South Korea, as of Feb. 24.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery and Japan’s U-Next have announced an extension of their relationship with a renewed deal to supply content to the SVOD platform. The agreement sees U-Next continue as the streaming home of HBO in Japan. Featuring exclusive content rights for HBO, HBO Original and HBO Max Original series, the strengthened agreement includes: current and future seasons of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” and “Succession” as well as returning HBO Original and HBO Max Original series “True Detective: Night Country,” “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and “And Just Like That…”

EXCLUSIVE: Lana Turner’s mobster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was allegedly stabbed to death in her house by her daughter Cheryl Crane in 1958.

Starship Entertainment has bid goodbye to WJSN members Luda, Dawon, Xuanyi, Chengxiao and Meiqi following the expiration of their contracts.On March 3, Starship released a statement announcing the departure of WJSN members Luda and Dawon, as well as inactive Chinese members Xuanyi, Chengxiao and Meiqi from the agency.“Starship Entertainment recently renewed contracts with the eight members Exy, Seola, Bona, Soobin, Eunseo, Yeoreum, Dayoung and Yeonjung of our agency artist WJSN,” said the agency, per Soompi.“We carried out sincere and in-depth discussions with members Luda and Dawon for a long time, but unfortunately our exclusive contracts [with Luda and Dawon] will come to an end. We express deep gratitude for the great efforts and dedication shown by Luda and Dawon until now,” Starship added.The agency revealed that members Xuanyi, Chengxiao, and Meiqi, who joined WJSN through Starship’s partnership with Chinese entertainment agency Yuehua Entertainment, would also be leaving the group.

The K-Pop world is currently going through one of its biggest ever corporate dramas, with SM Entertainment, the label of BoA, Girls Generation, EXO and Super Junior, fighting off what its management is describing as a hostile takeover from its rival HYBE, home of BTS. 

YG Entertainment has revealed that its upcoming girl group BABYMONSTER might not debut with all seven previously revealed members.K-pop agency YG Entertainment spent the last month unveiling the seven members of its upcoming girl group BABYMONSTER. However, the company has now shared that the lineup for the new act is not yet set in stone.At midnight KST today (March 6), the entertainment agency released a new teaser titled ‘Last Evaluation’, in which founder and producer Yang Hyun-suk informs the seven trainees that BABYMONSTER “will never be a seven-member group”.“We want to unveil the very last evaluation to fans, which was held right before deciding the members of BABYMONSTER, and then finalise the best members as BABYMONSTER,” explained Yang.

Netflix will splash the cash in the APAC region this year, boosting content investment by 15% as revenues grow by 12%, according to a report from Media Partners Asia (MPA).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increased its stake in Japanese film and TV studio Toei Company, from 5% to 6.03%, according to a report by the Reuters financial news agency. The move comes shortly after Toei published a ten-year plan for international expansion. Toei includes film and TV production operations, the T-Joy cinema chain and Toei Animation. Last month, it said that it had beaten its film revenue record, thanks to the success of titles including “The First Slam Dunk,” “The Legend of Butterfly” and “One Piece Film Red.” The stake increase also follows PIF’s February announcement that it had increased its stake in Japanese games and console maker Nintendo to 8.26% and that (along with the Singapore state fund GIC) was a buyer of a $966 million bond issue from Korean entertainment-tech firm Kakao Corp.

NewJeans swept the K-pop categories at this year’s Korean Music Awards, beating out popular contemporaries such as (G)I-DLE, LE SSERAFIM, IVE and more.The quintet took home the awards for both Best K-pop Album and Best K-pop Song, with their self-titled debut EP and the hit song ‘Attention’ respectively. In addition, the girl group also clinched the trophy for Rookie of the Year, besting fellow K-pop acts LE SSERAFIM and IVE, among others.Meanwhile, the biggest winner of the night was DJ and producer 250 – real name Lee Ho-hyung – who took home four awards: Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Electronic Song, and Best Electronic Album.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Weekend honors at the South Korean box office went to the Japanese animation film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Swordsmith Village,” the latest installment in the “Demon Slayer” film and TV franchise. It earned $2.31 million between Friday and Sunday, for nearly a quarter of the total weekend cinema business, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

We think she's 10 years old and we think we know her name, but those details are only known because of the former basketball player Dennis Rodman after he spoke to a newspaper a decade ago revealing the identity of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's youngest daughter. She has now been seen in public in North Korea at military events and parades, but why has Kim Jong Un decided to bring her out now?On the Sky News Daily, host Niall Paterson explores what it means for the secretive North Korean leader to reveal his daughter in public.

BTS's J-Hope will begin his mandatory military service in South Korea's army this Sunday. I doubt that many fans of the K-pop group are pleased about that, but on Friday they had a reason to be happy for him: he finally dropped "On The Street," a track featuring J.Cole, one of his biggest influences (he actually called Cole his "muse" when they met for the first time backstage at Lollapalooza).

Michelle Yeoh is opening up about the discrimination she faced in Hollywood.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Michelle Yeoh was already an actor star overseas by 1997 thanks to popular Hong Kong movies like “Police Story 3: Super Cop” and “Supercop 2,” but it wasn’t until the James Bond tentpole “Tomorrow Never Dies” opened that year that Yeoh had her Hollywood breakthrough. The actor played Wai Lin, a Chinese spy who is highly skilled in marital arts and bucks every “damsel in distress” and “Bond girl” stereotype. “The first movie I did after I came to America was ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ with Pierce Brosnan,” Yeoh recently told People magazine. “James Bond at that point had only been known as macho, and the girls were just the ones with cutesy names.”

James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, said she rejected roles subsequently thrown her way for “almost two years” until 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.“At that point, people in the industry couldn’t really tell the difference between whether I was Chinese or Japanese or Korean or if I even spoke English,” Yeoh told People. “They would talk very loudly and very slow.”She added: “I didn’t work for almost two years, until Crouching Tiger, simply because I could not agree with the stereotypical roles that were put forward to me.”Yeoh is nominated for Best Actress at this year’s Oscars for Everything Everywhere All At Once, against Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas, Andrea Riseborough and Michelle Williams.Last month, Yeoh became the first Asian actor to win Outstanding Performance By A Female Actor In A Leading Role at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards.“Every one of you know, the journey, the rollercoaster ride, the ups and downs,” Yeoh said in her acceptance speech.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A court in Seoul on Friday blocked a proposed move to issue new shares in K-pop talent agency SM Entertainment to Korean tech giant Kakao Corp. and its Kakao Entertainment subsidiary. An injunction was sought by Lee Soo-man, one of the pioneers of the Korean contemporary music industry, but who is recently at the center of a storm of controversy. Lee, who has fallen out with his company’s current management team, announced at the beginning of February his plans to sell a 14.8% stake in SM to HYBE Corp., the firm behind hit group BTS and a rival to SM. It then emerged that SM’s management was proposing to issue new shares to the Kakao pair, giving them a 9.05% holding, and sign an exclusive distribution contract. The share stake would make Kakao the second biggest shareholder in the firm after HYBE and dilute its influence.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix and Korean public broadcaster MBC on Thursday defeated a court application for an injunction to stop the airing of their documentary “In The Name of God: A Holy Betrayal.” The 8-part series began airing from Friday (March 3). It is a Netflix Original, meaning that the streamer has global rights, including in Korea. The show examines “the chilling true stories of four Korean leaders claiming to be prophets [and] exposes the dark side of unquestioning belief.” Among its subjects is Christian Gospel Mission, also known as Providence, and also known as Jesus Morning Star, or JMS. It shares those initials with its controversial leader Jeong Myeong-seok (aka Jung Myung-seok) who is currently awaiting trial in Korea for sexually assaulting some of his female followers.