Lee Soo: Last News

HYBE, which is moving to become the largest shareholder in SM Entertainment, has reportedly said the latter label will be able to retain its independence.Last week, HYBE announced that it had struck a deal to buy 3.5million shares in SM Entertainment from its founder Lee Soo-man and therefore acquire a 14.8 per cent stake in the agency, which is one of K-pop’s longtime “Big Three” labels alongside JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment. The deal, once finalised on March 6, will make HYBE the largest shareholder in rival label SM.HYBE has also offered to purchase another 25 per cent of SM from minority shareholders.

EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway on Lee Soo Man: The King of K-Pop, a feature documentary from production company This Machine that will land on Prime Video.

Disney+ has shared a first look at its upcoming thriller K-drama series Revenge of Others starring Park Solomon (All Of Us Are Dead) and Shin Ye-eun (He Is Psychometric).On October 17, Disney+ Korea uploaded the first trailer for the upcoming thriller series on its official YouTube channel. Revenge of Others will premiere exclusively on the streaming platform on November 9.In the new clip, high school student Ok Chan-mi (Shin) mourns her twin brother after he falls to his death from a school building in an apparent suicide.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief SM Entertainment, one of the leading agency groups in Korean entertainment, said Friday that it will terminate a contract with Lee Soo-man, a year early, at the end of 2022. “SM Entertainment [..] will sever ties with its chief producer Lee Soo-man at the end of this year,” Yonhap news agency reported on Friday. Lee was one of the key figures in the early discovery of Korean pop talent in the mid-1990s, developing the agency system that has hatched numerous idol groups, and has remained one of the biggest executive names in the K-pop business. The four leading agencies are brand names in their own right, organize concerts for their stables of performers, and maintain a far more visible presence than music management firms in most other countries.

SM Entertainment is set to terminate its production contract with founder and chief producer Lee Soo-man at the end of the year.According to a report by Yonhap News Agency, SM Entertainment’s board of directors have decided to terminate their production contract with Like Planning, a music production company run by Lee, by December 31 – a year earlier than initially planned. SM Entertainment has been outsourcing music production to Like Planning for over 20 years.The early termination of Lee’s contract with the agency comes off the heels of investors from Align Partners Capital Management – which owns 1.1 per cent of SM Entertainment – claiming that the ties between both companies have been “damaging shareholder value” and demanding they sever ties with Like Planning in an open shareholder letter to the company in August.A separate report by Infostock Daily notes that Align Partners Capital Management cited the royalties that the agency paid to Like Planning have been undermining the value of shareholders.

Disney+ has announced the cast for its forthcoming K-drama Third Person Revenge (literal translation).On September 7, the streamer unveiled its full cast line-up for the upcoming original series Third Person Revenge via a statement to Daily Rian. Described as a “teen revenge thriller”, the plot unfolds when Ok Chan-mi – who is looking to uncover the truth behind the death of her twin brother – and Ji Su-heon, who begins exacting his revenge on behalf of bullying victims at school, are entangled through a shocking incident.Shin Ye-eun (Yumi’s Cells 2, Rookie Cops) will star in the new series as Chan-mi, while Park Solomon (All Of Us Are Dead) has been cast as Su-heon.

EXCLUSIVE: Well Go USA Entertainment has expanded its slate of Korean films, acquiring North American rights to titles including Alienoid, Hansan: Rising Dragon, Gangnam Zombie, The Ghost Station and The Assassin. While the international and indie distributor has set theatrical releases in place for Alienoid and Hansan, plans for the other three films have not yet been finalized. 

aespa have unveiled the second episode of their ongoing SM Culture Universe (SMCU) series on YouTube.In the new episode, titled Next Level, a strange ‘SYNK OUT’ phenomenon has occurred, causing ‘æ’s, or virtual counterparts to humans, to disappear from the Real World, forced to return to the FLAT — the virtual plane from which they originate.From the FLAT, aespa’s æ-counterparts are able to contact the members with the help of nævis, the AI system that allows virtual beings to appear in the Real World. Projecting their consciousness into their æ’s, the members enter the virtual plane, where nævis tasks them with venturing into KWANGYA, a “ruleless, formless” space that exists beyond the FLAT to find out what is causing the disconnect between the FLAT and Real World.In the rest of the episode, the girl group venture deeper into KWANGYA where they encounter the series’ villain, Black Mamba, for the first time, causing them to experience vivid hallucinations. The series first launched with the release of its first episode, Black Mamba, last year, with the aim to establish and expand the background of SM Entertainment’s company-wide lore, centred in and around KWANGYA.

Grid, has described the upcoming K-drama as a tale about protecting the Earth.During an online press conference held yesterday (February 16), Lee shared his vision for the series and what his intentions were for it regarding the show’s overarching message. The director also touched on why he signed up for the series, despite being unsure when initially approached.“It wasn’t easy to make up my mind to lead this series,” he said, per The Korea Times. “What struck me was the series’ theme, which is ‘we should protect our planet Earth.’ Until now, I have actually been questioning why there are no series or films in Korea that talk about saving Earth.

All Of Us Are Dead has helped South Korea set a new record on Netflix in the US.Based on the webtoon Now At Our School by Joo Dong-geun, the series follows a group of high school students who find themselves trapped on campus as a zombie apocalypse spreads like wildfire.After previously topping the charts on Netflix in over 25 countries by January 31, All Of Us Are Dead has now reached the summit of the daily Top 10 list on US Netflix (February 4). As the second non-English-language series to reach that position, the K-drama has helped set a new record for South Korea.Thanks to the success of Squid Game and All Of Us Are Dead, Korea is now the first country to place multiple series not in the English language at the top of the streaming service’s charts, according to Deadline.

Grid.The new teaser opens at a crime scene, with Kim Sae-ha (Seo Kang-joon of Are You Human?), detective Jang Sae-byuk (Kim Ah-joong of 200 Pounds Beauty) and a police squad chasing after what appears to be a Ghost.The trailer ends with Kim telling the supernatural entity (played by Lee Si-young), “You don’t know how I came all the way here”, as translated by Soompi. The Ghost, in turn, responds with: “Don’t get in the way.”In addition to the new teaser, Disney+ has also released a series of posters for the show.

Grid.Starring Seo Kang-joon (Are You Human?), Kim Ah-joong, Kim Mu-yul (Space Sweepers), Lee Si-young (Sweet Home) and more, Grid revolves around the police investigation of a supernatural entity (played by Lee) that surfaced in 1997 to save humankind. The entity re-emerges 24 years later, only to help a serial killer (Kim Sung-kyun) escape.“We are not looking for it, we’re making it come looking for us,” says Seo, who plays police officer Kim Sae-ha at the beginning of the clip.